Three establishment sites in the La Rochelle area, 180 employees and the project to build a factory on the airport platform which should ultimately make it possible to reach a thousand jobs. In ten years, the light aviation start-up Elixir Aircraft, which designed and produced the Elixir, has become an SME emblematic of the future of the economy. A look back at the slightly crazy dream of three thirty-somethings with Arthur Léopold-Léger, its president.
Light aviation, of which Elixir Aircraft is one of the flagships of the future, was it initially a childhood dream?
My father was passionate about aeronautics and boating, as were his father and grandfather. He made kit planes as a craftsman. So I had the opportunity, with my family, to build planes. It gave me a certain knowledge of light aviation, a highly regulated market where competing models of the Elixir have been manufactured for over seventy years!
With a craftsman father, business creation was in the genes of the young engineer that you became…
My primary motivation was to build a plane the way I wanted. I started working on it alone, then I presented the idea to two engineer friends who are still by my side. And at the beginning of 2014, a business project was born. But our initial passion was really and remains technology and planes. While many business leaders are first interested in entrepreneurship.
In 2014, you were 29 years old, were you taken seriously?
No, we were more or less kindly laughed in our faces (laughs)! The three of us only had a budget of 50,000 euros. I had sold everything I owned, that is to say not much… Investors told us that we had to do business in tech, the web, services. That the industry was doomed to failure in France. This was before Covid-19 and aero-bashing.
The times were not favorable?
The project was that of an economical aircraft, less noisy for local residents and less polluting. However, questions of impact on the environment remained little discussed publicly. In short, we had 99% refusals. But I don't blame anyone and, since then, we have received a lot of help and benefited from significant subsidies. The energy and environmental performance of the Elixir has become a strong argument for our customers, our shareholders, the public authorities… We made the right choice.
Where do his concerns come from?
Education. In France, my generation learned from school that you have to sort your waste, turn off the tap when washing your hands, etc. It's cultural. When we prospect in the United States, we feel that the environmental argument does not necessarily have the same impact.
What made it possible to overcome the obstacles?
As we fail, we improve. The first investors thus agreed to finance what was only a somewhat crazy dream. With few resources, we managed to develop and have the plane certified by Europe in 2020 and that changed everything. Today, we are delivering the 29th device off our production lines and the building permit application for our new factory will be submitted, I hope, by the end of the year.
Your youth was a handicap in convincing people, but also a strength, right?
Personally, I had already made planes, boats, and completed solo sailing races. I was tenacious and daring and that’s essential to becoming a business owner, of course. But over time, we realize that experience also counts a lot when you're in tough times! Elixir Aircraft has been a personal investment 7 days a week for ten years. We didn't imagine it. And as in ocean racing, 90% of them are difficulties where you say to yourself “but what am I doing here? » and 10% awesome moments. We must therefore focus on the positive to persevere.
What do you say to the young people who knock on your door today?
I welcome them with open arms! Our average age is just over 30 years old. The company exists thanks to those who believed in this challenge and became passionate about it like us without leaving the major schools. It is only recently that other, more experienced profiles have become interested in us. We prove ourselves. So the view on Elixir Aircraft changes. Joining us becomes less of a risk and more of a potential.
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