INSTANT ALUMNI - "Dare to be an entrepreneur" by Hadrien BRANCA (graduate 2021)

A 2021 graduate, Hadrien Branca did not wait until the end of his studies at Institut Paul Bocuse to start his own business. In October, he came back to the school to share his experience with the 2109 Pastry students.

It was during COVID-19 when his courses were delivered via Zoom that Hadrien's desire to become an entrepreneur was sparked. Locked down in Luxembourg, he realised that one service in particular was missing, namely home delivery of food. Neither Uber Eats nor Deliveroo, nor any other local initiative existed in 2020 in the country, which has great potential thanks to a fairly high average income.

Together with two friends and supported by a small network of restaurants, Hadrien decided to invest a good part of his savings to set up Goosty, on the second day of the second general lockdown, creating a service copied and pasted from Uber Eats.  The new service started to take off slowly thanks to a number of communication campaigns, but the management of orders was handled by only three people and with an application that was not fully functional at the beginning of operations at Goosty. The trio of entrepreneurs was responsible for the often-complex process of approaching new partner restaurants, communications, order management and even deliveries... which made for very busy days of work from 7am to 11pm, until finally they were able to hire delivery drivers to relieve themselves of some of this work.  Recruiting delivery staff was all the more necessary as face-to-face classes started again at the end of the lockdown.

Goosty was finally able to carve out a place for itself fairly quickly during this complicated period, even if it took a long time to reach a break-even point. To further secure his business and expand Goosty's offer, Hadrien set up dark kitchens.

After a year, once Goosty's development was more advanced and its reputation was growing, Hadrien's team received an offer from an investment fund to buy the company for €300,000. In view of the amount invested and the network of partner restaurants created, Hadrien decided to refuse the offer and make an ambitious counter-proposal for €1.2 million. After extensive negotiations, the investment fund finally accepted the offer. This sale was made at the best of times (sale in December 2021) because Uber Eats is soon to be launched in Luxembourg.

Since the sale of Goosty, Hadrien has by no means stopped his entrepreneurial activities! He decided to go back to a concept that he had already started experimenting with at the Institute when he created a temporary tea room called TaTarte. For this student project, Hadrien and his teammates had imagined a concept involving personalised pastries made in front of the customer. In 8 days, more than 400 pastries were sold, representing a turnover of nearly 12,000€. A great success that deserved to be turned into reality.

TaTarte will therefore be launched in Lyon in the near future. Hadrien and his associate have raised nearly €700,000 to support their project.

Follow all the news about the upcoming opening of TaTarte on Instagram

If you want to ask Hadrien anything, contact him on Linkedin

Some final words of advice from Hadrien "choose the right moment to launch your business", "stay curious" "and if you want to become an entrepreneur, keep in mind that it is a life choice and that you need to have that passion to move ahead".    

"To move ahead, you need to have your wits about you, invest your time and be determined, and always keep quality in mind!"