Alexandre Mars started his first business at the age of 17, organizing high school concerts. He then bought two computers and launched a web agency before going on to found several different companies, including Phonevalley (sold to Publicis) and Scroon (sold to Blackberry).
The French entrepreneur is now the founder and CEO of both the Epic Foundation and Blisce. At Epic, he created a new model of philanthropy that involves supporting a portfolio of highly vetted nonprofits, offering donors innovative ways to support them and ensuring impact through data analysis and reporting. Blisce, meanwhile, is the first certified B Corp transatlantic venture capital fund.
For years, he notes, entrepreneurship was stronger in the US for two main reasons: more capital to invest in startups and bankruptcy laws that made it easier to fail and bounce back. This has made it easier for American entrepreneurs to adopt the late South African leader Nelson Mandela’s mentality of always feeling like a winner because you either win or you learn. Instead, entrepreneurs in Europe had to fight harder for money and deal with laws that made the consequences of failure devastating. That changes, as does the definition of success and how you achieve it.
In the possible mission, the serial entrepreneur writes about his own experience and offers advice to others looking to launch a company. Check out our conversation by clicking the link above.