Sesame Summit 2026 – application open

How SISTA and The Galion Project Are Building Community

At the French Tech edition of Sesamers On Tour, we were joined by Déborah Loye, CEO of SISTA, and Agathe Wautier, founder of The Galion Project. SISTA was founded 2 years ago to promote greater inclusiveness for women in startups and venture capital, while Galion is a think tank for French founders that is almost 6 years old.

While the organizations have different goals and target different members, Wautier and Loye offered several similar perspectives on how they have built communities. For instance, they both felt that community is a place where people contribute first, and then take second. Beyond that definition, they shared several other similar views:

1. Start Small: Galion has about 300 members now, but Wautier said she originally started with just a handful. SISTA also began modestly, with friends reaching out to friends.

“The easiest way to create a community and the one that works really well is to start with some people, and then ask them basically to bring on their friends,” Loye said. “And it’s a great way to build a community because everyone knows each other. And then you make sure that you have quality people because you know some of the people in your community already know them.”

2. Go Slow: Once started, don’t become focused on numbers. Instead, cultivate a measured pace in terms of expanding the community. This is essential to maintaining trust.

3. Be Inclusive: By their nature, communities will be somewhat exclusive because they are trying to assemble a particular group with at least some common traits. But that’s no excuse to ignore diversity.

SISTA is working to ensure that its membership reflects a wide range of social, economic, and educational backgrounds, Loye said. Meanwhile, Galion’s initial membership requirement included having raised a certain amount of venture capital. At the start, Wautier worried that Galion was turning into a “boys club,” and so had to be more aggressive about reaching out to female founders to balance the membership.

4. Listen: Wautier said, “You need to listen a lot to the members like the passionate. Don’t bother to think too much about persona and marketing techniques, which are really very good for business. In our community, we have different kinds of people and you really need to listen and listen a lot. If you are clear about the purpose and the mission, because you share the same purpose, you will always find a solution together using the community.”

5. Choose Your Medium: There are a lot of choices for platforms and communication tools. SISTA and Galion used WhatsApp, though Galion more recently switched to Telegram. SISTA also has a platform that lets members connect and see a calendar of events and connect with each other for advice. Rather than picking a medium because it’s trendy, it’s more important to find the right tools that fit the way members communicate, what they need to accomplish, and what makes them feel safe and welcome.

This article is part of a series produced in partnership with La French Tech & the French Tech Journal.

Cover photo by Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash

you might also like

blank
Events 2 days ago

Last week, I spent three days at Bits and Pretzels in Munich — a startup-focused event with a distinctly Bavarian flavor. Think Oktoberfest meets startup conference, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and more beer than you might expect. As someone building an AI-powered event platform, I went in with a specific mission: Observe how startups actually market themselves at events. Here’s what I discovered: GoodBytz: The power of good demos What they did: Robotics startup GoodBytz set up a booth where its robots prepared kaiserschmarrn (a traditional German dessert) all day long. Why it worked: Nothing beats seeing a product in action. While other booths had brochures and demos, GoodBytz’s robots were actually cooking. The smell, the movement and the end result stirred together an experience that people will remember and talk about. The lesson: If you have a physical product, show it in action. The old writing adage generalizes well: Show, don’t tell.  Let people see, hear and touch the product. WeRoad: The bathroom hack What they did: Posted “Missing Investor” flyers in bathroom stalls with QR codes pointing to their website. Why it worked: Pure genius. Every startup at the event was looking for investors, but the “Missing Investor” headline, while a bit on the nose, proved irresistible. Plus, bathroom stalls are one of the few places where people have 30 seconds to actually read something. The lesson: Think about where your target audience’s attention will remain undivided. Sometimes, the most effective marketing leverages the most unexpected places. Emqopter: Visual impact matters What they did: Designed a bright orange booth that displayed their drone prominently. Why it worked: In a sea of grey, white, beige and brown, Emqopter’s bright orange booth was impossible to overlook. The drone was real, too, and proved a real conversation starter. The lesson: Your booth is competing with hundreds of others. Make it visually distinctive and ensure your product is the hero. Quests: Community building using the product What they did: Created a busy, branded booth with accessories (toy car, traffic cones, a bulletin board) and used their anti-loneliness app to build communities among founders at the event. Why it worked: Quests used their product to solve a real problem right at the event, and the busy booth design generated energy and curiosity. The lesson: Use your product to solve a problem at the event — if it’s possible, of course. Demonstrate your value in real time. Dyno: Event-themed marketing What they did: Distributed branded electrolyte packs with the tagline “Your hangover ends. Your pension lasts – with Dyno.” Why it worked: Dyno aligned its messaging perfectly with the Oktoberfest theme. Every attendee was thinking about beer and hangovers, so Dyno’s goodies were quite relevant. The tagline was clever, memorable, and directly addressed a pain point most people at the event might have to deal with later. The lesson: Tailor your marketing to the event’s theme and culture. The more you tie your messaging and product to the context, the more memorable you become. So, what did I learn? Event marketing is about more than just showing up and setting up a booth; you have to understand your audience and create experiences that people will remember. Here’s what really struck me: most startups and even big companies don’t know how to leverage events properly. They book the booth, show up and hope for the best; maybe they bring some branded pens and a pop-up banner. Then they’ll go back home and wonder why they spent €5,000 in exchange for 50 business cards that never convert. The startups that stood out at Bits and Pretzels understand something fundamental: event ROI isn’t about booth size or location; it’s about strategy, creativity and planning. None of the startups above improvised on-site, or planned something the night before the event in their hotel rooms. They laid everything out 4-6 weeks before the event. A solid pre-event strategy is what separates successful event marketing from expensive booth rental.  But what matters most for early-stage startups is that you don’t need a massive budget to stand out. WeRoad’s bathroom stall hack probably cost €50 to print the flyers. A standard booth package at Bits and Pretzels would go for €3,000 to €5,500. The ROI difference is staggering when you compare the cost per meaningful conversation. That’s the difference between simply spending money and investing smartly. Building Sesamers has taught me that helping startups find the right events is only half the equation. The other half is helping them understand how to maximize ROI once they’re there. Good props aren’t a marketing expense; they’re opportunities to meet customers, investors and partners, and strike up engaging conversations.

blank
New Materials 3 days ago

Lios Group, the Irish startup behind SoundBounce, was a winner of JEC Composites Startup Booster 2018, and has been making significant strides since taking home the award.

blank
New Materials 1 week ago

Tree Composites aims to accelerate the energy transition with innovative composite joints.

Subscribe to
our Newsletter!

Stay at the forefront with our curated guide to the best upcoming Tech events.