Originally, no one had thought of Anthony Bourbon. Except himself. “After the first season of Who wants to be my partner?we were looking for big name investors to attract more viewers”, remembers Jeremy Henriet, co-founder of 1team Productions. It is 2020; the producer of the M6 program is bombarded with messages from the entrepreneur’s team. The thirty-year-old, who no one knows, is pushing hard to join the show. “It wasn’t necessarily obvious, but as he insisted, we finally decided to meet him,” explains Jeremy Henriet.
During the interview, Anthony Bourbon gives a sample of what he will be on the air: “We were all amazed by the power of his character. He had such strong words that he could only arouse fascination or rejection.” Banco for the stubborn. On set, Anthony Bourbon immediately puts on a show. As a juror-investor, he shines. “Since I was young, I’ve had flashes and I’ve seen the future, actually. It’s crazy, but I see bits and pieces. Now, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen, he said to a candidate. We’re going to work together, and you’re going to become very rich.” In front of another designer duo, he made an unexpected counter-offer. “I offer you 100,000 euros, for 20%. But if you listen to the other proposals, I withdraw my offer,” he says in a video clip viewed nearly 5 million times on Facebook. Cheeky and not overwhelmed by embarrassment.
Broadcast in prime time on M6, Who wants to be my partner? begins its fourth season. Its principle: to connect entrepreneurs and investors. Inspired by a Japanese program – the American version Shark Tank has been broadcast for 15 seasons – the show has established itself as one of the channel’s flagship programs, with 1.9 million viewers on average in 2023. The cast brings together a sample of the greatest French fortunes . Among them, Marc Simoncini (264th French fortune according to Challenges), founder of Meetic, Jean-Pierre Nadir, of Fairmoove, or Eric Larchevèque (348th fortune), co-founder of Ledger. This year, former basketball player turned millionaire Tony Parker is joining its ranks. In this varied panel, the face of Anthony Bourbon, founder of Feed, a company that offers meal replacement powders or bars, and Blast Cluban investment platform, has gradually established itself.
“I was perhaps a bit virulent at the beginning. I wanted to compensate for the extra benevolence of the show,” said Anthony Bourbon today to L’Express. “That the viewer would have a more authentic vision of the business.” On TV as in “real life”, Anthony Bourbon wants to show the toughness of entrepreneurship, especially “when you come from the bottom”. His credo: to arm ordinary people so that they too can “realize their full potential” – which, for him, is often equivalent to saying: earn a lot of money. “When I observe the social reproduction of the elites – who all went to the same high schools, evolve in the same environment -, and I see the gaps between the rich and the poor, I tell myself that my mission is to try to trigger some form of societal change,” he says.
“Constructive” but “divisive”
Sense of the formula, way of capturing the light: M6 seems to have found its 2024 version of Bernard Tapie in Anthony Bourbon. “He can be constructive while being divisive,” believes Jonathan Curiel, deputy general director of the M6, W9 and 6Ter programs. His speech is audible, because he has had a bumpy life journey. He can therefore afford it.” The thirty-year-old, born in 1988, has recounted dozens of times his childhood in the middle class – an abusive father, a controller at the SNCF, a mother sales representative in electronic equipment – in the suburbs of Bordeaux. The street he knew for a few months as he approached his majority, after his parents separated. The sequence of schemes and business projects – sale of high school calculator programs, scooters, cars, then real estate or import-export… “And even frozen pastries in Turkey!”, s he jokes. The creation of Feed in 2016 with his lifelong accomplice, Mélanie Der, met in 2010, during his studies – law before a master 2 in real estate sciences.
His talent for storytelling quickly attracted the attention of the publishing world. Having heard of the entrepreneur’s upcoming participation in the second season of QVEMA, Michel Lafon editions contacted him, interested in “his incredible life journey, with very hard moments”, says its editor, Marie Barlois. From this meeting a book with an evocative title will be released in 2022: Force your destiny. Backed by the community and the success of the show, the book sold more than 20,000 copies. A second opus is also under discussion between Lafon and the Bourbon teams.
Find your WHY”
In this first book, he takes up his story, develops his advice over 200 pages: “Find your WHY” – your reason for moving forward, he tells his readers – so that everyone “realizes their potential”. In the midst of marketing advice and personal development, the Bordeaux resident delivers a structured political discourse. He often quotes Class childhoods, the work of sociologist Bernard Lahire, which tells the story of social inequalities at children’s level. “Anthony always says it: if you come from the bottom, you have to work four times as hard but to “only” get there twice as well,” summarizes Mélanie Der.
In his book, he criticizes social reproduction: “The venture capitalists are the investors who finance start-ups. They all know each other, live on what they have acquired, spend a lot of time talking, exchange positions. Always the same very French names and often with a particle.” He also evokes the yellow vests – whose “energy” he liked but not the “method” – and his detestation of political elites. “Despite appearances, we do not “We are not in a true democracy, but in an oligarchic system”, he writes. His work is not just a tool of denunciation: taxation and inheritance – which must be indexed to merit -, schooling – we should put an end to at private school -, end of the Fifth Republic… Bourbon offers some confusing lines of thought for an individual who says he only wants to deal with business.
“A product of the Republic”
“I try to give a speech that could seem political, but which is in reality more “motivational”, assures the thirty-year-old, who says he is voting blank but does not deny his interest in public affairs. “I am often asked if I want to do politics, he admits. Obviously, it intrigues me, because it’s the place where we can change things the most. But I am convinced that we can succeed in having an impact through entrepreneurship.”
“I think his secret dream is to be President of the Republic,” imagines his friend Eric Larchevêque. “That’s where we can really change things, and he has great ambitions. But I believe that he would only admit it under torture.” Anthony Bourbon already has his fan club: he was the guest of honor at the Chinese Business Club, which brings together senior civil servants, business leaders and politicians. “That day, we had 500 requests for 300 guests present at lunch. I had never seen that,” says Harold Parisot, the president of the club. “To succeed in life is first of all to choose, to want to become everything,” sang Bernard Tapie in the mid-1980s. At the time, he hosted a show with a strangely similar concept: helping the French to create their society.
.