Luko quits Station F
Hi, I’m Raphaël Vullierme, creator of . I will recount how and why I decided to have Luko quit Station F, the biggest startup campus in the world, which is located in Paris.
In April 2017, Luko was accepted to be part of Station F’s HEC Incubator, for which I took the decision to…
[STOP ✋]
Sounds familiar? You may have heard about this article where a Malaysian startup vigorously explains why they left Station F.
Luko is also leaving Station F… but not because of Wifi issues.
Here is our entrepreneur lookback on our 14 months at Station F, from when it opened in June 2017 to this summer.
From our not-so-garage to Station F
Back in the days, when you launched your startup it was always in your parents’ basement or in the Parisian version of it: a 12sqm2 attic room. Luko’s first steps were in a tiny corner of a posh Parisian law firm. Not a classic startup atmosphere and not quite the best to meet with our corporate clients or to setup improvised brainstorms.
Moving to Station F was a step change: 34,000 sq meters space, lights everywhere, dozens of meeting rooms, a quite well functioning Wifi (rather than in my previous startups!), events, networking everyday… In a nutshell, the ideal (unhoped-for) location for a startupper.
A startup for everything
Hardware, AI, insurance, growth hacking, packaging… We met incredible startups who were experts on these matters or who were facing similar issues than we were. Their expertise helped us a ton and bought us invaluable time.
I cannot stress this enough: meeting with other startups and understanding their projects allows you to avoid a ton of mistakes, to step back and to anticipate. The thousand startups energize all of us up and feed us with ambition.
The place to be for corporates and politicians
When your start a business, it is always long and time-consuming to reach corporates and most of the time impossible to get them to visit you. Yet again, being a Station F resident is a major asset.
Before becoming an insurance company in June 18', Luko was selling its home protection technology to big insurance companies. Big firms like AXA, Allianz, Macif, Maif or Generali (which have become our beloved competitors 😉) responded easily to our invitations fed by the curiosity of discovering Station F and getting to meet its residents.
Station F is also a beautiful showcase: lovely meetings rooms allow you to meet your future partners without showing them the backstage of your early stage startup. A lot of politicians are in love with the Station and often visit it: Edouard Philippe, Bruno Lemaire, Brune Poirson or Mounir Mahjoubi that we all had the chance to meet. Who knows, it might come in handy when insurance lobbies of yesterday wake up…
VC Paradise
No need to our desk: all the VCs come to Station F. Kima, Daphni, Partech, IdInvest, and also Point 9, Accel, Balderton, Cherry commonly visit the incubator.
This proximity is a massive time saver and, above all, a unique opportunity during growth phase.
Building an A-Team
When you are an early stage startup, recruiting can be challenging because of your lack of reputation and because candidates can be scared about joining a startup that has not yet reached market fit.
Once more, Station F’s reputation and credibility is beneficial to all residents. A lot of applicants dream about working in a Station F startup. Moreover, as a resident, you get to publish your offers directly on the Station F job board.
From an operational perspective, everything is so much easier when you’re at Station F too. The day someone joins your company, all you have to do is add a desk for them on HAL (Station F’s online platform). Ideal when your startup is just getting started and you have little resources to focus on things like cleaning, renting, moving-on..
So, it’s where it all began. Station F is where we recruited our A-team. And now the 15 of us are ready to fine-tune and launch the Luko rocket.
The show must go on: with the growth that we’ve had in the last months, maturity time has come. It’s time for us to get our own nest to strengthen our company culture, to get the confidentiality we need for our insurance work, to setup a top-notch customer success team available 24/7 and to give our engineers the space they need to design and prototype the best protection technology.
Let’s be honest, we also got tired of cannellonis and Mamma’s truffled pizzas at every lunch 🍕
Without Station F?
I’m often asked: would we be there without Station F? I guess so. You can succeed and be ambitious without Station F, let’s not make it a prerequisite.
Nevertheless, Station F has been a fabulous catalyst that has allowed us to save 6 months of work and thanks to whom, we can now pretend to be a credible player on the European insurance market. After the neo-bank wave on Europe, let’s get prepared for the neo-insurance one, with Luko at the front row 💪
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A massive thanks to Station F and to all the startups hosted there for this fast-track; our new nest will always remain open for you 💙
Originally published at https://www.luko.eu on September 12, 2018.
