Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Marion Trotté, Founder and CEO of Clap Français, located in Le Mans, France.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

At Clap Français, we devote our time to making our customers feel confident while speaking French. We help them find their true French voice. Our courses and classes are extracting French representations and culture from movies. Movies and series are the best at showing how you can use the language in many ways according to the situation. You get exposed to much more situations than in real life, and you are ready to face them. In nowadays world, we should bring cultures together to be able to communicate despite our differences.

Our clients are lifelong learners. They love learning and enjoying the process. Our clients connect from all other the world to talk about French movies in our ciné-club every month.

Tell us about yourself

I studied filmmaking back at University, but I craved traveling. I wanted to see what's outside of my motherland: France. I moved to Slovenia and taught filmmaking there for an NGO project; this was a life-changing experience. I would communicate in English all day long and learned a bit of Slovene too. In 2015, I moved to Portugal for love. I'm convinced love is the first reason why people learn other languages. In 6 months, I learned Portuguese. It was totally mind-blowing for me. I always studied sciences and maths and never was a good student of languages at school.

Slowly I got more and more requests to teach French there, and I decided to shift my career and start teaching French to foreigners. It's something very strange to teach your own mother language. You come to realize how tricky it can be, but it is so much fun! By doing this, I suddenly realized how much we needed to have fun and laugh while learning. How important is your mindset when you want to learn something new? You have to be motivated enough and make yourself fully available to learn. And above all, you have to be ready to experience discomfort.

Later on, when I decided to make teaching French my business project, it appeared so obvious that I had to bring my own personal touch and experience. It was a cinema, of course! Now it's so easy to get access to many movies and series from all other the world. I started to create lessons and courses using movies and series, and it was so exciting for my students! Bring a movie into a classroom; we all know the effect! It does the same with adults learning a language: motivation grows, and learning seems effortless.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

My biggest accomplishment is to be able to reach people from all over the world with an online business I'm creating around my life and share much more than language learning with them every day. It's amazing to wake up every day and be in touch with so many intelligent, genuine, creative people all over the world. I learn so much from my clients.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

To watch backward and see all you've accomplished in your business! It's always so much easier to see what's missing or what's wrong. It can be hard to celebrate your wins sometimes.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Set up your boundaries and build your business around your life. Be sure to know why you want to start this business in the first place. Grow a business is like learning a new language; if you don't know, why don't you start?
  2. Find a community of people going through similar challenges to talk with. It can be lonely sometimes to be a business owner.
  3. Be sure to have stable emotional support around you. Have someone that helps you keep your feet on earth and remind you of what's really important. And someone that helps you celebrate when necessary!

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://clapfrancais.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clapfrancais/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clapfrancais/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariontrotte/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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