Transcription
To be transparent, the real big scourge of traditional banks is that there is a misalignment of interest between the needs of customers and their own needs. Even if we take out a loan and then resign 3 months later, we can be at ease for 25 years. It's counterintuitive, but that's currently the case in the French system. So how do we invest €5,800 per month when we have a budget of €3,000? Hello Romain. Hello Onier. Nice to meet you. Well, thank you. Thank you. So Romain, you are 26 years old, you are a banker. You will explain to us later what type of banker you are. In any case, you have accumulated a considerable fortune in a very, very short time. €412,000 gross, €178,000 net. That's crazy. Did you receive an inheritance, did you come from a family where there was perhaps money or specific financial knowledge? I come from a very hardworking family. So I am very proud of my parents. If they can see this video, I find it sweet to tell them on camera. But no, I didn't have any particular inheritance apart from my grandfather's inheritance, who, in all transparency, gave me €16,700 because he had prepared his succession too late and to avoid giving away the fruit of his labor, he worked on the farm, in the factory very hard like many French people, and unfortunately, so that it wouldn't go to taxes. So there was this succession that was done at that time. So you started with a little boost, but not a huge amount either. And so, today, you have €173,000 in gross real estate. We'll look at that in detail just after. You have €116,000 in unlisted assets. That's huge. It's very risky, but given my age, I feel it compensates, and it's really strong convictions. In the stock market, if I invest, I want to be ready to lose for a company that I truly believe in. So quite a lot of unlisted assets. Also €81,000. Of course, we'll look at that in detail. Uh, other assets and, for that matter, a safety net that is rather thin. Very thin. Yes. After, in the other assets, there is €11,000 in a current account for the company. We'll come back to that later. I created a company 3 years ago. So, we can add €11,000 to the safety net. But it's thin because my profile is also atypical. We'll see that later. Absolutely. Finari score 77/100, so that's not bad. Or or the bottom line or not, but in any case, you just have to be comfortable with your profile. So you told us, you are 26 years old, you have no children, and you are a banking advisor, and you told me just before we started that there is an important nuance, you are a professional business manager at Société Générale. So, concretely, who do you address? Professionals, in fact. So the difference between professionals and companies is the level of turnover. Below 5 million, with us, we are considered professionals. So that already includes some good companies, some good profiles. I wanted to be at the heart of the action, to see inspiring profiles who started from nothing, who developed or even if they started from an existing company, who knew how to develop it. I was passionate about entrepreneurship and I wanted to be inside or then maybe create my own project. And I started my permanent contract 3 and a half years ago, and I created my company 3 years ago. I didn't wait long before launching. And so today, your clients are SMEs, concretely, local SMEs. That's right. In fact, I live in the Clermont-Ferrand region. So these are companies between the very beginning, between €20,000 and about €2.5 million in turnover. And then when the company exceeds the threshold, it goes to another department. In fact, it's internal negotiations. In fact, if the client is very attached to their advisor, they can decide to stay with me or with other banking advisors. But indeed, it has already happened to me in the past sometimes because there is a different offer that is still more complete for companies. And concretely, what solutions do you offer these clients? They come to you for financing, they come to you for treasury placement, they come to you for a corporate account. I mean, what is the range of what you offer them? So all types of needs, in fact, from the creation of the company to its development and then its sale. So in fact, we intervene throughout the life of the company. It's not just the banking job. I mean, it's really support. Absolutely. Okay. And so, do you feel like you're selling in-house products, or are you in an open architecture? I have a bit of trouble with traditional banking, to be transparent. That's why I like YouTubers and like you currently, everyone is trying to develop something of their own so that there is really an alignment of interests. So I think the real big scourge of traditional banks is that there is a misalignment of interests between the needs of customers and their own needs. And that, in fact, is problematic. You did a master's in finance at Grenoble IAE, and today you earn €40,000 gross annually. That's a good salary, though. Salaries have increased a lot, indeed, in banking, it has increased a lot. And at hiring, people often earn more than that. Okay. So today you are paid less than someone who arrives as a junior in the same position. That's right. And so you have bonuses of €600, what are these bonuses linked to? Uh, largely profit-sharing and participation. Okay. After, as a listed company, we are entitled to a 20% discount on the share at the public price for the shares. So that's very important. I don't think you're going to contradict me with the good operation you had on your PEA, and I took advantage of it every time to get a discount on the share. So I invested all my profit-sharing and participation in Société Générale in cash. So there are other funds, know that there are fewer funds than traditional savings accounts or other life insurance, but there are other funds, but I decided to put everything into Société Générale thanks to the discount because I had a strong conviction in Société Générale and Boursorama, which is really creating a growing number of customers each year more than traditional banks, Boursorama which is growing enormously, it's incredible, and so in 1 year, Boursorama and Générale made 155%. You really benefited a lot from this super strong rise, if we look at 5 years, in fact, you entered, you entered basically at the lowest point, and with a discount. I bought some shares at €17.50. You bought some shares at €17.50. Today, the stock is at €71, and we can see today it's up 2%. It's just keeps increasing for your individual investment too, I imagine. Yes. Well, precisely, Croua has understood the problem of the company, which is a bit debated, but which I personally find very inspiring. He understood that the problem was expenses, and so he tried to organize a different structure and drastically reduced costs, and that's why the stock is rising sharply. This gentleman here, we see boost the valuation. Okay. So this is indeed, well, this is quite interesting because in fact, you have a strong conviction in your employer, which is rather reassuring, a priori, because you know there is potential. Is this something that your colleagues share? No, there are people who leave. I haven't mentioned it, but we are entitled to a bonus, and in fact, it's tiered. Yes, at the beginning it's 200, then it's 100%, and then it's 45%. Okay. And even apprentices, I advise them to say, well, in fact, if you start in September, after 3 months, you are entitled to it, and it's by calendar year. You were talking about my PEA, I had the PEA because I was an apprentice. So it's a huge opportunity. You should know that it was counterintuitive, that when I called the service to benefit from the bonus when I started in August 2022, they told me "No, it's after 6 months." I said "But that's not possible, you're mistaken." They told me "No, no, we're right and so on." And I called MH again, they told me "No, Romain, they are right, you shouldn't insist." And then I called the services directly, and they told me "Obviously you are entitled to it." And so, I gained €2,200 by clicking. That's incredible. So, your goal is to develop your electric bike company, which has nothing to do with everything you've told us before, and a surprise project. So you tell us that your goal is to be free and to be able to live off what I love without worrying about a salary and constraints that do not come from me. I created a long-term electric bike rental company in B2B with a friend 3 years ago, Explore Location. So we were talking about it just before. What is the mission of Explore Location? To make cycling accessible to everyone. In fact, we work with professionals for at least 6 months a year, and we offer delivery, maintenance, after-sales service, and also breakage and theft insurance, which is included in our rates. So we try to be as competitive as possible so that even a small gîte or a hotel that is just starting out. That's right. In fact, our main clients are campsites, hotels, unusual accommodations, gîtes, we have castles with English people. I don't know why, but there are so many English people. Most of the castles are owned by English people in France. Know that at my humble level, this is a company that is truly human-sized. You have been able to welcome very inspiring people. So, I'm at the beginning of companies, but it's still interesting and very interesting, very stimulating. So I love it, I regret nothing about creating it, and I will pay tribute to my associate Théo, who is a truly wonderful person. And so concretely, I have a campsite, I think, I want to generate more revenue from my campsite. That's where you come in, you provide bikes, you rent bikes, or you take a percentage of the turnover generated by the bikes. How does it work? It depends. In fact, we are very flexible because we are a company, we can adapt quickly, and we have some companies where it's a per-kilometer rate, but that's not what's most appreciated because, in fact, we capture a large part of their work. So in general, it's not really profitability because a 5-star castle, when it rents its room, it's much more expensive. It's for the service, to differentiate from the neighboring campsite, from the neighboring hotel. And we have clients in Annecy where there are rentals everywhere in Annecy. It's in Chambéry, I think you know Annecy, and we have a nice hotel in Annecy, and you should know that it's the client that works the most, even though there are rentals everywhere, but clients want the hotel's bike with the hotel's logo, with a premium bike. I can see it very well, the bike is often near the entrance, they are well aligned. Well, we pay ourselves very little remuneration currently due to the need for capital. We have nearly 300 electric bikes all over France. So it's not just in the Clermont region, it's everywhere. The first year, we did the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, and then we said we need to develop, we need to create something bigger to respond to, if someone wants our service, it's not because they are 4 hours away. So, we have a network of mobile repairers who come to intervene within a maximum of one week. We really try to put the customer at the heart of our relationship. We have great reviews online, and I thank all our clients for their trust. Huge. We are creating a holding company to buy a competitor in LBO. What does that mean concretely, buying back a competitor in LBO? Often in France, we think that holdings are only for the richest people. That's false. In fact, we've seen a lot of that with the debates on the Zucman tax and so on. Of course. And in fact, you should know that to buy a company, our company is called Explore, and if we buy the company with Explore, if the company we buy is doing badly, it drags our initial company down with it. That's a risk. Whereas your company is doing well. That's right. So in fact, we isolate the acquisition, so the holding company borrows, and then with the profitability generated by the acquired company, we repay the loan through dividend distributions. So it's interesting, what you're saying is that, yes, there's probably tax optimization, but it's also a matter of group structuring because you don't want to pollute a healthy company with an acquisition that is quite risky. Of course, LBOs are very risky. So you are on the operation, the LBO in question specializes in company bikes, approximately. I never had the courage to leave job security, but I sincerely have to do it in 2006 to manage it better. What is it in terms of turnover or business volume? What is the size of the company you created today? Well, in all transparency, every time I set myself objectives, I told myself as soon as I reach this level of turnover, I will leave my job. As soon as I reached it, I pushed it back and told myself at this level of turnover, I will do it. And I push it back and push it back. And that's why with the other company, it creates a snowball effect, and we can imagine, because it's very capital-intensive, electric bikes, it costs us a lot, so there are a lot of loans, so the loans are repaid very quickly on the company, so it can offer an angle to exit quickly, but I have enormous respect for all those who have the courage to start from scratch because even with a little savings or anything else, I'm afraid to start, I tell myself I mustn't stop too soon, maybe one or two more years with my strategy with a strongly strained cash flow, I told myself if I leave too soon, I might regret it my whole life. If I leave at the right time, I can benefit from it my whole life. So it's very risky, and in any case, a huge bravo to all those who are starting, and bravo. In any case, you tell us that you spend 80% of your holidays on this subject. I imagine it keeps you busy. If you were to stop working at LG and go full-time on Explore, could you pay yourself? Yes, but it would slow down growth. Of course. We prefer to use the liquidity to buy more bikes, and it also reassures banks that we don't need a salary, so we can borrow for X bikes. In fact, it goes very fast. An electric bike is between €2,000 and €5,000. Okay. It goes very fast, and so it goes very, very fast to repay it, you mean? For the loans we need, the liquidity we need. So we try to maximize the creation we made 3 years ago. So we try to protect it as much as possible, and every euro that comes out of these companies is thought through so as not to slow it down. Very clear. Strategy, therefore, leverage on financial assets and not real estate. You shared your cash flow with us, which we will look at right away. So, oh yes, there are quite a few investments. So salary, you were talking about it. The famous bonuses, huge monthly investment, so how do we invest €5,800 per month when we have a budget of €3,000? Is that the profit-sharing and participation, or is there something else? It's a totally different strategy. In fact, this is a lump sum. In fact, I invest all at once because Ah, okay, you had, okay, that's it. As soon as I have the liquidity, I invest. I stay invested. I saw you reinvest directly on the sale of your property, and I followed with curiosity the breakdown of your investments, and in fact, as soon as I have money, I invest because it's enough to miss 8 or 10 days a year to lose a huge part of the annual performance. So I invest, but in fact, I live on my capital because here you can see that I had a little savings. So in fact, I lose roughly €2,500 per month, which is counterintuitive. In the end, it costs me less than a Lombard loan because the outstanding capital decreases year after year on, well, on your Finari. But it's true that it's a bit classic. Now, there are quite a few small amounts involved, but if we miss that, it's if we invested every day. In what period? It's between 2003 and 2022. So it's quite a wide period. You have the same graph for many other periods. This is the S&P 500 here. In this case, you miss the 10 best days, divided by two, you miss the 20 best days. Now, some people will tell me, "Yes, but if you miss the 10 worst days too, it's much better." The problem is, guess when the best and worst days will occur. Generally, the best days occur near the worst. Anyway, there are many stories. The idea is to say it's better to stay invested in the market than to try to get in and out and time it. I think that's the lesson of all experienced investors. They don't try to time, unless it's their job. Some do it successfully. But okay, so you do lump sums, then you bought your primary residence, which is quite paradoxical, because one could have said that if you really want to maximize the growth of your business, you could have not immobilized capital and put it back into the business. It's for a very specific purpose. We were talking about traditional banks at the beginning of the video. In fact, I wanted to leave my salaried job as quickly as possible, and I know that you borrow easily with a permanent contract. I had no trouble borrowing for 15 years. Besides, at the time, I thought 15 years was much cheaper in terms of interest than 25 years. I regretted this decision very quickly because it blocked me. It blocked a lot of my capital. I regretted it very quickly, but I told myself, well, if I'm 100% on my own, I'll struggle to get an apartment, so I'll secure a real estate purchase because, in fact, even if we take out a loan and resign 3 months later, we can be at ease for 25 years. It's counterintuitive, but that's currently the case in the French system. So I secured the opportunity to buy because, well, I come from a very down-to-earth family. You need real estate, you need to be a homeowner as quickly as possible. You need to have a roof over your head. Besides, it's often said that renting is throwing rent out the window, and that ultimately a loan is like renting to yourself. That's true in part, but what we shouldn't forget is that real estate still has a lot of associated costs, taxes, renovations. We tend to buy the largest apartment or house possible or go to the maximum of our borrowing capacity. I don't know anyone who says, "I'm not going to buy to the maximum of my borrowing capacity for my primary residence." I feel like that's always the threshold we aim for. It's reassuring. And there are also studies that show that having your own home increases happiness. So it doesn't surprise me. I totally share this vision. Today, you don't regret this decision. In fact, I was a student in many different cities during my youth. I'm still young, I'm 26. But and the fact of really being at home, we buy more qualitative furniture, we really furnish, we take our time because we say to ourselves, I'm going to be here for at least 2 or 3 years, and besides, I bought it rented. This allows us to benefit from a discount because it was pharmacists who were renting well below market price. So this eliminated all investors from buying this property. The market price was perhaps €800. They rented it for €550. No one wanted to buy this rented property. So there was a discount. And then there was a need for work, and luckily my dad knows how to use his hands. I don't have that luck, unfortunately. And so he helped me, well, I helped him rather, to redo the bathroom and the kitchen, and I find that it greatly increases the value of the apartment. This explains a large part of the capital gain and eliminates the notary fees because here we see €18,000, but the notary fees add €12, so that makes €30,000, €12,000 in notary fees. So indeed, you made a good deal. What else do we see in this cash flow? Daily life, would you say you limit yourself in your lifestyle today? Do you pay attention to spending? Do you look, I don't know, on your statement or on Finari or whatever to see where the money goes, or are you rather relaxed? Uh, no, because in fact, my lifestyle forces me to pay a lot of attention. Okay. There are categories where I don't pay attention, that's travel. You can see that out of €1,300, there are €500, so €6,000 for holidays per year. That's right. It's very substantial. I'm aware of that, but I've worked a lot. So, 80% of the time is for my company, but 20% of the time is for traveling. So, I'm careful. Netflix, you can see that I have Netflix with ads. I've forced myself not to get Spotify for years. I told myself "No, it's too expensive." So try to counter the inflation of desires, which is one of the biggest scourges of the human species. In fact, when we increase our standard of living, we feel like spending more, but in fact, it impoverishes us. It's mechanical. You saw it in Morgan Housel's book, the inflation of desires. It's not bad, is it? I like it a lot. It's true that we often say that the richer we get, the more we tend to spend money, and therefore it cancels out the effect, and having observed it a lot, you can earn €10,000 a month and have very little at the end of the month because, well, you have a nice apartment, you travel business class, and then restaurants, all that, it goes very fast, and you said it, there is inflation, all that costs a lot. But in any case, we still see that you have leisure activities, you play tennis. Yes, I love it. Sport is very important. Indeed, it's very important mentally for happiness too. We'll perhaps talk about the notion of happiness later, but it's super important. It's an excellent investment. And then you have loans, and I think this is where your profile is quite incredible. This stands out, we don't see that every day. Absolutely. Especially since it's over a very strong, it's a very short duration. That's why, in fact, I don't have a lot of loans strictly speaking. I have €23,200 in loans for a primary residence at €173,000. So it's not inconsistent, but it's that I have an average loan duration of 7 years, and that's much too short for me, and so it's a somewhat particular arrangement that took place with the founders of my company. I had a student loan at the beginning, a bit of consumer credit. Yes, it's a bit of a strange organization. I'm not really proud of it, but it was done especially to develop my company because at the beginning, you should know that banks don't trust us at all. I mean, when I borrowed €30,000, we put in a lot of down payment, we put in all our savings, we believed in it so much with my associate. And then, we said, "But we have clients, they are ready to sign, we have contracts, they can sign on the dotted line, we just need to bring them the bikes to their campsite or their hotel." They told us, "Ah, no, you'll see in 2 or 3 years depending on the growth you have." And I was speechless. I said, "No, but so, I found other solutions to help my company." That's why I ended up with, so now that I've repaid my shareholder current accounts with, so significant loans. But it was never done to invest in the stock market, it was done to maximize my company. I see it in my daily life that people in France are really very involved in their work when they create a company, and moreover, the work is very hard. We often see people who succeed, but how many people don't succeed? I mean, like here, very humbly, when we see that we have more than 300 electric bikes, we are developing well, it's not paradise on earth either. We still have difficulties sometimes, there are many problems, I imagine, unhappy clients from time to time because, well, and then you always have new challenges. So that's part of it, that's entrepreneurship too. But so, it's also normal that you capture an important part if you generate wealth and value for your clients. It's logical. You had a strong conviction in Boursorama and Société Générale. It should be said that Boursorama is a subsidiary of Société Générale. They bought Boursorama, I don't know, quite a long time ago actually. I did a case study with friends in my master's, I think it was 2012, something like that. Yes, I would have said more than 10 years ago, and it's true that if you look at the annual report of Société Générale, which I do now, you give it to AI, it summarizes it for you, there is a Boursorama section, and it's true that the figures are incredible, and I also know that Boursorama is quite competitive with Revolut, which is growing very, very fast, although it doesn't have the same product range, but in any case, Boursorama, it's true that it's Revolut, €75 billion, Revolut €75 billion valuation, several countries, of course, for a long time, the banking industry was the only one among the major industries to grow, despite having a negative NPS. NPS is basically, you go on a website, and they ask you from 0 to 10, what is the probability that you would recommend service X to someone? You've all seen that banner at the bottom, right? Well, that's NPS, it ranges from -100 to +100, but in France, it has a negative NPS, so that's incredible. So that means people were detractors. It's called detractors or promoters. They are detractors, but they stayed. There is no competition. There is no competition. And by the way, tell me in the comments if you have ever closed a bank account. Who has ever closed a bank account? We always keep the bank account, but just the idea of closing it, we think we have to fill out forms, it's going to be a pain. Okay. But in any case, Société Générale has a gem which is Boursorama, which is growing very fast. So, you opened your PEA, you said earlier, you invested €24,000, it became €70,000. You had a 20% discount, so that, you had the double effect that compounds. You had the discount and the appreciation of the stock, which is crazy. But at the beginning, there was a sharp drop. So that, and it's important, I think, in the stock market to hold your positions, because you should know that currently the stock at €70, if I had had the opportunity to sell, frankly, I would have sold before. So sometimes in the stock market, selling too early can have impressive and undesirable effects. The fact that I couldn't sell really helped me in the end. And today, the employee savings plan is the PEA PME and the PEA, in fact, I have my stock accounts, I have unlisted shares, so which are in other assets and not in stocks, I deleted it from Finari to manage it, it was easy. Okay, so you unlocked your PEA when you created the holding company. What was the tax rate upon early withdrawal? 8262. Okay. And so in terms of tax rate for early withdrawal, 17.2%, and this increased in 2026, but at the time it was the initial rate of 17.2%, which is not too expensive. So maximum risk-taking by taking out numerous loans in order to invest. We will also look at that here. So very concretely, what, yes, we can stay on this graph and we can see, however, the impressive decrease. It goes fast. It goes very fast. In 2027, it's good, I reached the value of my apartment in 2027. Yes, you see, we are here, and it drops very quickly, and we see, yes. Average duration, it's quite short, and the average rate is also higher than what we usually see on, that's it. Well, this is explained by the proportion of 5-year loans which are more significant. But then with the student loan or other, the rates are not catastrophic either, and that's what I was explaining. It's more interesting than a Lombard loan in the end to have 3.10% with a decreasing capital each year. Absolutely. Student loan of €50,000 and consumer credit. That's what allowed you to get your foot in the door for the company. Well, in fact, I already had savings because, in fact, I come from a hardworking family. So a family of workers, we were initiated to work very early. So I worked during the summers. Then I had odd jobs. I worked in supermarkets, I worked as a cashier, stocking shelves, and moreover, that's the biggest financial trigger I had, is when I saw that I was working weekends, school holidays, and one day I added up the amounts I had earned, I added up the amounts I had in my bank account. I realized there was a problem because I had spent everything. I was 19, 20 years old. In fact, I told myself, well, in fact, I finish my evenings, it's 4 am, at 7 am, I'm at the bakery to stock the supermarket, and in fact, it's useless. I don't have the fruits of my labor. And then I had a revelation. It was a mistake, but it taught me a lot, and I will remember it my whole life that you must preserve the value of your work by saving and investing even better. You have to pay yourself first. You tried ETFs, but they don't amuse me, or rather, they don't amuse you. I liquidated them to focus on stocks that I believe in a lot. Amazon, Booking Holdings, Booking, that famous site Booking.com, Visa, Mastercard, Uber, FDJ, Stellantis. So yes, it's after the proportion, I know that diversification is key, but I am not at all for diversification. I have always been very concentrated, and I am aware of the risk and that one must diversify as much as possible. That's why ETFs are the best for 90% of investors.
Absolutely. But here's the thing, I'm aware of it, but it's a choice I've made and stand by. You're talking about gold, so you have a pretty significant position here in your CTO, in your securities account. So what is this? It's Gold BNPI Open. What does that correspond to? It's completely transparent gold. I don't even know if it's synthetic or physical, but in fact, it's one of the only ones eligible for Bourseau's CTO. Okay. And so there you've done, I invested at the end of December when the PE was released. So it's quite impressive in less than a month. In less than a month, 7%. Well, it's true that if we look at the gold price, gold is gold, and all metals too, 65% last year. There you go, over 2 years, it's the same. It's it's crazy, actually. Over 10 years, it's incredible. I mean, gold versus the S&P 500 over 20 years now, it's insane. You have the same thing with silver, with all precious metals. In reality, what's happening is quite wild. So, are we in a bubble? I hope not. Well, it's hard to say, but it's true that having financial markets, I mean, stock markets at their peak and gold at its peak is a bit counterintuitive because normally, it's one or the other, not both at the same time, and it's surprising. So there you go. In any case, today, what is your strategy for this position? Do you want to hold it defensively? So defensively. Compared to startups, I compensate for startups with real estate and gold. Okay, so that's really your reasoning. Somewhere, you're managing, I mean, you're canceling out the volatility of one by I'm trying to counterbalance the risk. And you tell me you invested €50,000 in startups. So that's extremely significant. We won't name them, but there are the sectors. So there's fintech, foodtech, biotech, Y Combinator, other fintech, car rental, sports, and a mobile application. But there's one position here that takes up the, well, the biggest part, actually. Why did you invest in two tranches? What's the conviction here for having put in an amount that corresponds to 10% of your net worth? Huge. Because in fact, we often talk about the risk of investing in the stock market, but there's also a huge risk, which is investing by creating your own company. And I think if I had wanted to create an equivalent company, it would have cost me much more, and I would have liked to be in that core business. So I told myself, in fact, I'll act as if I hadn't, I'll specify, and I wanted to tell myself, well, there is a risk, indeed, but I think there's less risk in this than when I created my structure and put larger amounts into Explore than currently. But you don't control this company. So, somewhere, you're putting your destiny back into someone else's hands, but you're comfortable with it today. Does that keep you up at night, knowing you have almost €120,000 invested? No, thankfully. Otherwise, I would advise everyone not to jeopardize their health. If I stopped sleeping, I wouldn't do stock market investing, and there are plenty of other personal fulfillments besides financial ones. So, be happy. And so you continue to do deals worth several thousand euros. Well, in fact, I think I've blocked my investment capital until 2026. I won't have any more significant income, normally, but if I could, I would do Y Combinator. Okay. I think that's a little nod to Finari. Okay. Okay. Okay. Y Combinator, which is an incubator that we did with Finari and which saw Coinbase, Airbnb, Stripe, OpenAI created, not funded, but created at Y Combinator. So, good companies come out of there. I don't like traditional real estate, except for my primary residence. It gives me real moral well-being compared to being a tenant. And so that's what you said about buying, renting. So, concretely, how should one imagine today, do you still have someone who is? No, in fact, I have the property, I bought it in June 2023, and I was able to live in it in November 2024. But so you didn't know at the time that the person would finally that the No, in fact, it's not very protected either because the person could have stayed much longer. They could have stayed, I think, 2 years at the time, but we know it when we're at the notary and the escrow, we know they can stay up to 2 years, and then they decided to leave early because they had problems. So there you go, and you were, you were comfortable with that? Or, therefore, your question is, should I repay my outstanding loans given my net worth, or does the fact that these loans function like a Lombard loan at a lower cost make sense? That's the first point, I think it's very interesting. By the way, before answering your questions, we looked at quite a few categories. We didn't look at other assets. So your car, the shareholder current account, a motorcycle. Oh yes, it's a bit of an all-terrain motorcycle. No, it's a supermotard because when I was younger, I had a 50cc and I dreamed of having a Beta, and then I told myself, "Go ahead, we can do it." Treat yourself. And you also bought a watch, a Seiko Presage. It was the best value for money to thank myself for congratulating myself on my master's degree. Okay. Okay. Okay. Finance. Very nice. What haven't we looked at? Savings accounts, you have, I imagine, yes, you have a Livret A, you have the LP at its maximum. Obviously, I would have been surprised if you weren't aware of this trick. Bank accounts, well, you limit, I imagine, the money you have on them to the maximum. You have unit-linked funds. That was to please the banker for my primary residence. Okay. To get the loan. And did it help, do you think, to open the life insurance? Well, he asked me for it. I didn't want to be difficult. Okay. Credit card, that's not too much of a problem to have a card with, what is it, deferred debit, I imagine, and so you pay everything at the end of the month. It's my main card. Okay. So, well, anyway, I track my expenses, I have Finari, I track my expenses, so I control and I'm very careful about what I spend. So there's no risk. Okay. And so the loans, and that's your question. Is it worth paying off your loans? I mean, do you have the liquidity today to pay off loans? Well, I can sell positions. You could sell positions, arbitrage, de-risk positions in startups. In startups, it's very complicated, but I have about €80,000 in the securities account. That's true, you could, and with that, I could already pay off a large part of my loans. I find that the opportunity cost is not very interesting. I mean, the opportunity cost of selling a stock in a market where historically we get, let's say, in a very bad scenario, 7% annualized return over a long period, I don't really see the point of doing that. That was my view as well, but I wanted your opinion as an expert. The question I would ask myself is, how will you get your next loans personally, for the company? That's a strange topic, we'll have to talk about it. So, first of all, we'll have to go full-time, but in any case, for me, this setup works. Can one be legitimate to support individuals at only 26 years old? What do you mean by that? In fact, precisely, thanks to the videos and my passion for finance, I feel that I want to be useful because earning money is good, but in fact, I find that young people are mostly looking for meaning, and what I'm most passionate about is entrepreneurship and finance. I tell myself, why not combine the two at a microeconomic level, try to support people with one-hour or half-hour appointments to try to organize, discipline strategies, and with the experience I have, even if it's minimal, I can try to support and avoid beginner mistakes. So I'd like to combine the two, but I really feel like my age is a curse, and even in my current job, sometimes they prefer a 45-year-old who knows less than a 26-year-old who is very curious and seeks information. Our age can be a disadvantage. However, with digitalization, I think that can be counterbalanced. But that's the big question. I wanted your opinion because I'm here, I have the chance to ask you this question directly. I think people who think there's a correlation between someone's quality and their age are completely out of touch. It means nothing. Besides, you told me earlier, it's surprising, your team is very young. Yes, at Finari, there are people who are 40, others who are 20. It means nothing, actually. Since you've been working since you were young, you don't have the same path as the next person. It's really not a limitation. For me, it's even a strength. Besides, it allows you to stand out. I think when you face your clients, I imagine when you have a hotel, your clients aren't 25, generally they are older. But on the other hand, they see a young person who is motivated, who goes the extra mile, who will perhaps do that little extra thing, well, that's great. And they probably have children. So, in fact, I think I'm sure you've developed excellent relationships with many clients precisely because you're young, because it resonates with them, and they also see themselves in you because at one point they were in your shoes. So I think it's a strength. Now, the question I would ask you is, today you are in a permanent contract, you've started a company on the side that seems to be doing well, you want to do an LBO, and so on. So there are many projects. Is Explore the project you want to dedicate your next few years to? Yes, of course, but after that, it's the notion of balance that is very important to me. I find precisely in my personal happiness, the balance between sports, family, many things. Work is really what makes me happy, and I think that limiting myself to cycling, even though I love it, that it's exciting, that it's stimulating because we meet new clients, we have meetings with inspiring people, with chateaux, we speak English, I spent a year in Ireland doing bus tours, so I tell myself, at least speaking English was useful. I try my best to speak English, I'm not an expert, but I tell myself that a company on the side could allow for better personal balance. In fact, I'm mostly looking for daily happiness, and I tell myself how to maximize my happiness, and I think that will have to be part of the equation. I don't know when, but it will have to be part of the equation. Now, I'm going to say something that is politically very incorrect. When you're an entrepreneur, there's no work-life balance. There's an imbalance. The reality is that you're going to work a lot. But will that prevent you from being happy? No, not at all, because you control your time, you control, at least you can decide to work with this client or not. I mean, you'll be the master of your schedule. And a very good technique, which I recommend to everyone, is to organize your personal life first, and then your professional life will follow. So, for you, typically, you like traveling. What's stopping you today from planning your trips in advance? From ensuring that in each week, you have your slot or slots to play tennis, that you set aside time to see your friends. Now, you have to be aware that you're going to make sacrifices elsewhere. So, you're probably not going to go to all the parties. Besides, you say, but I'm already aware of it, it's been 3 years since it existed. So, I'm already aware of it. But we sign, we sign at the bottom right, so we can't complain about what we chose ourselves. Exactly. However, I think that adding an activity to your schedule when your main activity, soon to be main, isn't yet, you know, it's not a multinational yet. I think that's a risk and it's a defocus. The reality is that, in any case, I don't know how to be good at two things at once. Okay? So I'm often asked, do you do startup investing? No, I don't. Do you do conferences? No, I don't. In fact, I do nothing else but Finari. I wake up in the morning, I do Finari. There's no secret. In fact, the secret is that there isn't one. It's that I wake up, I only do that, and then I go to bed, and most days, well, I love it, but it's not very glamorous. I mean, you see, it's not like in the movies where, I don't know, I take a helicopter and go for a ride. The truth is, I go to the office, I'm in front of my computer, I talk to people, and that's it, I try to move things forward, and little by little, things happen, but it's precisely, you know, it's like compound interest, it's because you spend 1, 2, 3 years, today you're much better at Explore than you were 3 years ago. Obviously, obviously, you're much more relevant. I'm sure that in 3 years, you'll say, "Oh my, what we were doing 3 years ago was so bad." Fortunately, you've progressed. Are you legitimate to support individuals? Yes, 100%. You're even more legitimate because you are, you are like them. Would I do it? Yes, but in that case, I would stop the other activity. Okay. Well, I appreciate your advice very much. Great. We'll see each other again in a year to see if you've implemented the LBO, if the business has grown. In any case, I believe in it completely because, as I told you, I've seen this, a hotelier will never go, it's super annoying for them to buy bikes. If they're broken, they have to be repaired. I mean, and you said it, it's minimal in terms of revenue contribution, but at the same time, it brings satisfaction. After, they make x3, right? Yes. Yes. Hotelier, as we discussed at the beginning of the video, very good profitability for that matter. Exactly. But will they buy them themselves? I think it's exactly the right niche. They have every interest in delegating, and so you just need to find the model. Perhaps, you know, tomorrow you'll franchise the model, or perhaps tomorrow you'll put someone in charge of managing the company, and you won't need to, you know. I'm too attached. It's like if I asked you, can you leave Finari? I think I can't. Finari is either you love it or you leave it, but I can't, I can't, I can't leave Finari. In any case, we'll finish with your score of 77/100. Well, you lose here because, indeed, there's a small loophole, but well, that's also part of your system. You don't have a safety net, apart from the current account, even if in reality we could consider that you do, but in any case, the safety net remains thin because 3 to 6 months, you're in a permanent contract, but you have an activity on the side. Tomorrow, if you're self-employed, you said you don't want to pay yourself income, so you'll have to be sure, you'll have to be rather rather serene. After, you can do a negotiated departure, I mean, there's no, they don't want to, okay, okay, well, ask. Well, yes, I imagine, I imagine. Investment priority via the PEA, no, by the way, we haven't talked about that. Why are you buying? Because it seems to me there were securities related to liquidity needs. My PEA expires in July 2027, and I need, in case of urgent need or otherwise, to be able to reduce certain positions. And so, that's why you don't see it here, but I have unlisted securities in my PEA, but in the structural organization of my wealth management, I don't think it's the smartest thing, and we don't talk about it often, but the securities account can be very interesting for carrying forward your capital losses for 10 years. Selling in December what didn't work. Very interesting, very important to do. I did it, I think it's perhaps thanks to your book. Learning things stimulates me enormously. But there you go, when I learned that, I said, "Yes, but in fact, it's obvious. Why didn't I think of it before?" And that's why no one knows, but it does require a bit of administrative work, you have to fill out forms, and there you go. But it's not the end of the world either. Investment in ETFs, well, you said it, but it doesn't interest you, so there you go, why not. Monthly contributions, you do lump sums. Stock picking, well, you're exploding all the things. No crypto, by the way. Why doesn't that interest you? In fact, I operate on the principle that for every investment, I have to believe in it enough that if it suffers a loss, I'm comfortable with my losses. Because in fact, there's nothing more unpleasant than having a loss and saying, "Anyway, I only half-heartedly went into this stock, so I'm selling quickly," and selling at the worst moment. And every conviction is assumed 100%. And I'm not enough, I understand the principle that I find fascinating with a limited number that takes up a bit of gold with a safe haven value or something else, but I leave that to others. It fascinates people, and I don't want to follow trends because if it loses money, I'll only have myself to blame because I strayed from my own strategy, and I'd say there's no universal strategy. The strategy must suit us. That's beautiful. You have to be, you have to be consistent. So you are consistent. Long-term vision. Well, yes, there are still a few things to clarify, but I think you can, this is the year of all changes, but in any case, congratulations on your profile, Romain. It's quite impressive. I'm eager to see where it will take you. In any case, Romain, congratulations on your wealth journey. Congratulations also on your entrepreneurial journey. I'm eager to see what it will lead to. Will you become the king of bikes? Well, I hope so. Or perhaps the best banker at SG? Apparently, today, the match is not yet decided, but do you have a final word for people who want to get started, a little recommendation, a piece of advice that could help them? I would say that you really have to try, because in my family, for example, no one has ever started a business. When I told them I wanted to start a company, they said, "Why? Why? You have a permanent contract? You have job security, why do you want to create something?" I said, "But I need to stimulate my brain, to challenge myself, to learn new things." So I would say that I wouldn't be fundamentally happy staying an employee my whole life. And I can recommend to everyone to try, precisely, as a side business, to test the waters, which is what you're doing. Yes, indeed, but at the very beginning, you don't realize it as much. After, I didn't have the courage to switch, but to test the waters, and if you realize that it's taking off enough for you, then go for it. And anyway, it's a unique experience. I think every entrepreneur can say that there are many problems. We often have more reasons to stop than to continue. But it's a unique experience. A unique experience, I wish it to all of you. In any case, if you want to sit in Romain's chair, apply using the form in the description, and each week we select a new profile. So, I'll see you next week. I wish you good investments, and I'll see you very soon. Bye!