“Everything to make women feel better”: with Poppy Concept, Millavoise Manon Espitalier lifts the taboo of intimacy

Pour faire vivre son site internet “Poppy Concept” de A à Z, Manon Espitalier a fait le choix de s’installer à la Maison des entreprises de Millau, ville où elle réside. Mathieu Roualdés – Mathieu Roualdès

Women's wellness products, support for intimate assessments, sharing of advice: in 2022, Millavoise Manon Espitalier launched into the “femtech” sector, a booming business for women's psychological and physical health, by creating her company “Poppy Concept”.

She does not want to be the voice of women, but rather their ear. The one she was for years with her friends, at the time of the first painful periods, the first sexual intercourse, the first questions about intimacy. Or quite simply about femininity. Manon Espitalier has always been curious about it, not to say passionate about it to the rhythm of hours of listening to podcasts or reading on the subject. And each time without the usual embarrassment when a debate opens, without taboo. She does not want to be, either, in opposition to the opposite sex, to a masculinity that is as hard-bitten as it is enduring.

Products for all intimate problems and pleasures

The young woman from Millau, who is about to turn 30, launched her own company two years ago in the sector known as “femtech”, a booming business in women's well-being. She created “Poppy Concept” on the banks of the Tarn, in Millau, far from large cities. But this rurality where intimacy is often kept quiet has never been an obstacle in the development of her company. And the website where the online store offers a wide range of products for menstrual cycles, care, pleasure, maternity, menopause, etc. “Everything to make women feel their best”, summarizes the entrepreneur, who has set up shop in the premises of the Maison des entreprises in Millau.

Above all, beyond online sales, Manon Espitalier has developed support. Still behind her computer, she offers 45-minute sessions where, as you will have understood, we can talk about anything. This is the concept of “Poppy”, with which the young woman is now one and does not hesitate to share her advice, her experiences in a personal diary available online: we can read advice on loss of libido, choosing your first vibrator, accepting your body, managing differences in desire between partners, optimizing the pre-ovulation phase of your cycle… And many other subjects.

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Manon Espitalier does not claim to be an expert, not a doctor, but simply a good advisor. Far from a sort of distance that women are confronted with, “like when we go to the pharmacy for example”. “There is no real proximity, we do not dare to talk too much with the people around us, the answer is often very medical, without real follow-up. I think that women really need to be listened to”, explains the one who also feeds on advice from medical professionals around her.

The trigger for family planning

But the strength to commit, the “go, I'm going”, as she likes to say, Manon Espitalier drew it above all from the Family Planning. She got involved as a volunteer after her return to Aveyron, her native land that she had left to follow her father who was transferred to the Rhône and then to study in Lyon.

“I always knew I would come back, I love Millau and its surroundings so much”, she smiles. Love will make her take the plunge at the end of the 2010s. And while she “questions” herself about her intimate life, her meetings at the Family Planning, a place of welcome, information, prevention and advice, will end up convincing her to definitively throw herself into well-being.

His bac + 5 in commerce and his various experiences in the industry will help him create a “business plan”. Several participations in competitions, such as the Young Talent Entrepreneurs (JTE) challenge supported by the Young Economic Chamber (JCE) or the Start-up challenge of Rodez Agglomeration, will finish motivating the one who launched with a simple capital of €1,000…

The figure: 140

According to the 2024 barometer produced by the Femtech France association, which brings together 75 companies in the sector, and the Wavestone consulting firm, 140 French Femtech start-ups were listed as of April 30, i.e. 22% more than in 2023. The majority of them (57%) are focused on the field of well-being, when 43% are specialized in health. In France, according to Le Figaro, they would have generated in 2023 an average cumulative turnover of 42.8 million euros… A significant increase for these companies booming in the country, like the United States or the United Kingdom, pioneers in the field.

“It wasn't easy every day, but I love what I do. And I do what I love most of all. The hardest part is making your brand and your products known. But I think I'm very well supported and I have no shortage of projects to develop my company.”

Among which we could mention a new in-company training activity to discuss sexism at work, and women's relationship to their breasts, as she recently did in a breast implant company.

We could also mention a self-examination workshop at an event in Rodez as part of the Pink October month – “Six out of 10 women don't know how to do it, that's far too many,” she says –, the installation of menstrual protection dispensers… In short, if the well-known adage is that women are the future of man, “Poppy Concept” could well be the future of feminine well-being and “Femtech” in Aveyron. And, who knows, well beyond.

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