Today we’d like to introduce you to Maxime Barbier.
Hi Maxime, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I discovered entrepreneurship by chance at the age of 18, at the same time as the nightlife world (where I evolved for seven years). I went from project to project with more or less success. In January 2010, MinuteBuzz, the biggest chapter of my life, was born. In 10 years, this simple blog to spread good news became the biggest French media group on social platforms with +18 million subscribers, +250 million video views per month and +90 employees.
When TF1 (Europe’s largest TV network) came to acquire us at the end of 2016, it wasn’t on the agenda at all. We were fine doing what we do and imagining ourselves changing the world. Except that as the discussions went on, a beautiful, large-scale project took shape: the power of a large TV group with the knowledge of social platforms of a Parisian agile startup.
We decided to sell the company in two parts. The first part right away in January 2017 and the other part in September 2020, leaving us three years to fulfill the expected plan. Except that the end of the story took an unexpected turn: My business-partner and I were forced out in 5 Days, mid-October 2019.
At the time, it was the hardest thing in my entire entrepreneurial life. Today, I thank TF1 because it is the best thing that could have happened to me! The day after I left, I found myself with a big void in my days. I asked myself what I wanted to do with my life now, what I wanted to write in this new chapter. While having many coffees with strangers, I realized that many of us have buried our personal dreams and goals.
I also found that the majority think they “have time” (contradictory to all the “I don’t have time” I heard). But in reality, life is so short (if I live 90 years, and I’m 35, then I have 660 months to live) and above all, we don’t know what tomorrow will be made of.
So I asked myself what I wanted to accomplish before I die. Two weeks later there I was, with a bucket list of 100 things to do. Instead of waiting for the “right time,” I decided to dedicate time to myself, to get out of my comfort zone and accomplish all my dreams/ bucket-list.
Why 100 dreams? Because it’s a nice “big ass” number for a bucket list. But don’t stop at the number 100 because the bucket list is much more than a simple “todo list;” it is the most powerful personal development tool in the world.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Life is never a smooth ride. Even more so when you decide to become an entrepreneur. Let’s face it, being an entrepreneur means going from one obstacle to the next with the same enthusiasm.
As explained in the previous question, the most painful difficulty I had to deal with was being forced out of my own company by my shareholder. But with time, life can make sense, and when I look at this “lifelong” scar on my entrepreneurial shell, I realize how lucky I was to have lived through it.
It reminds me of the wonderful quote from Søren Kierkegaard: “Life is ‘understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards’.”
Rather than citing a particular struggle, I will simply say that creating a startup is a long and permanent struggle. We often think that becoming your own boss is the answer, but we forget that only 1% of entrepreneurs manage to make a decent living from their projects over several years.
Nevertheless, I like to give the following analogy, when young parents explain their “new lives” with a young child, all the sacrifices and hours of sleepless, but always end up saying that it is the most beautiful thing in the world. Launching a startup is a bit like that. It’s an intense adventure, with hard times, a lot of stress and loneliness, but in the end, you wouldn’t want to leave this mindset for anything!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
All this adventure was born from these 100 coffees with 100 strangers in 2020. I realized that many of us stopped dreaming a long time ago (the famous quote “Died at 30. Buried at 60”). When I explained my plan to go after my dreams, the reaction from people close to me and online was incredible. I felt like a captain setting sail for an unknown destination that everyone was cheering from the dock.
With experience and after helping so many people achieve their dreams, I have realized that it is never a problem of time, money or motivation. We all think it’s a motivational problem, so the problem is “us”. But it’s not, you’re just in the wrong system. Anything is possible in life, you just have to make the goal measurable and time bound, then break it down into steps so small that you are sure to go from victory to victory.
Take any of your dreams, chances are someone, somewhere, has already accomplished it. The first step is often to seek information, find someone who has already done it. Or even better, meet someone who shares your dreams. That’s when Timeleft was born!
We are a mobile app (on iOS) that allows you to reconnect with your dreams to create meaningful conversations with what is really important to us, with people who can help us.
In this post-pandemic world, where everyone has been forced to wonder what to do with our lives, Timeleft is here to help you see more clearly. The question “what are your dreams” should not be so hard to answer for most of us. With each passing year, we have our most precious dreams disappearing, sadly creating a long list of potential regrets when the majority of our lives are in the rearview mirror.
Our life is short, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so enjoy the only thing we have: today.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
To believe in something great, something greater than oneself. As Friedrich Nietzsche put it very well: He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how
To have a long-term vision but succeed in cutting the path into small short-term victories. If you take one step forward each day, you can accomplish anything.
And have strong resilience. Only those who stop trying will fail.
Contact Info:
- Email: max@timeleft.com
- Website: www.timeleft.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maximebarbier/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/maximebarbier
