Technical difficulties, moral burn-out, finances in the red… Since the end of October it was a real storm. The situation was not happy, and we very nearly lost the ship.

Calm has returned. There's still a lot of catching up to do, but the hardest part is probably behind us.

The real good news is that the future of the project now seems secure. Pioupiou will join The Factors, a " start-up factory » Belgian. I will therefore be the new fiscal neighbor of Bebert et Gege : )

But more important than that: this partnership with The Faktory will take Pioupiou to a whole new dimension. Finished playing I set up my business Koh-Lanta way ". We will provide the project with what it needs: mentoring, appropriate funding, external expertise and additional hands. I will remain at the helm, but my role will be focused on what I know how to do: technique and innovation. I will have colleagues who will take care of administrative management, business development, customer support, after-sales service, production, etc.

The deal is not yet complete, but we have already signed a first agreement " the principle “, setting the main lines of the partnership. Now, it remains to finalize the operation: discussions with lawyers, creation of the Belgian structure, contribution of new capital… We are probably talking about a few months.

However, it's a big question mark that disappears. Barring last-minute bad surprises, the future of the project seems assured.

Now there are two other hot topics: repairs and orders in progress.

About Repairs

We have made good progress, with a few hundred Pioupious which have just been finalized.

This means that there will probably be an expedition campaign in the coming days.

Before that, I still need to organize the logistics a little bit. For example, to be sure to send them to the right addresses…

About current orders

There, it's more complicated: with all the problems encountered over the past few months, I've fallen far behind in manufacturing.

I think that in the best case, we are talking about the end of April. It will not be possible to do better. I will offer a refund to those who can't wait.

In the future, I think I will no longer take pre-paid orders. Instead, we will only sell from stock. Pre-orders are dangerous, there are too many hazards that we cannot control.