[ENTREPRENEUR FOCUS] Koïno - a community of experts dedicated to your success

Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Maxence Morin, I’m 24 years old and a proud graduate of IÉSEG (Grande École 2024). From my very first days at school, I nurtured a dual passion: understanding the mechanics of digital transformation and exploring the limitless potential of data and artificial intelligence.

Alongside my studies, I started working as a freelancer with industrial companies, leading process digitalization projects – from automating production lines to setting up executive dashboards. Step by step, I sharpened my expertise, moving from basic automation to designing AI models and deploying full-scale data pipelines. This solo journey naturally evolved into a collective of freelancers, driven by one belief: combining our strengths was the key to turning POCs into truly scalable solutions.

That’s how Koïno was born — a company I co-founded with three fellow freelancers. Our mission is to offer SMEs, mid-sized companies and large corporates both top-tier talent and a proven methodology to bring their AI projects from prototype to large-scale production.

What is your company’s concept?

Picture yourself as the leader of a mid-sized industrial or financial group, ready to take a leap with AI — but lacking the internal resources or the right methodology to turn a prototype into an operational solution. That’s the exact challenge we encountered during our early freelance projects.

At Koïno, we decided to solve this with a unique two-pillar approach:

1. On-demand sourcing of Data & AI experts

Thanks to our initial freelance network, we can embed a Data Engineer, Data Scientist or MLOps expert into your teams in under 48 hours. Say goodbye to long, uncertain hiring processes — your project starts immediately with professionals who already know the industry’s best practices.

2. Tailored development and industrialization

We’ve formalized our experience into a four-step methodology designed to:

• Rapidly diagnose your business needs,

• Deliver a functional AI MVP in 4 to 6 weeks,

• Set up robust, automated MLOps pipelines,

• Transfer skills to your teams through pair programming and targeted workshops.

In short, Koïno doesn’t just deliver POCs — we scale them into fully integrated, sustainable solutions, embedded in your information system and supported by your own trained teams.

By combining agile sourcing and industrialized processes, we offer a full end-to-end partnership. From the first line of code to full-scale deployment, Koïno is the bridge between experimentation and lasting value creation.

How did the idea come to you?

The idea for Koïno came from my very first freelance missions, well before graduation. Between classes at IÉSEG, I was already working with industrial clients to modernize their processes: automating production lines, deploying dashboards, and building early predictive models.

Very quickly, I realized that the real bottleneck wasn’t technical or financial — it was organizational. Teams lacked the specialized resources to move beyond the prototype stage. Every new POC eventually stalled due to the absence of a structured framework to scale it.

As I connected with other freelancers — Data Engineers, MLOps specialists, and Data Scientists I had met on projects — the idea started to take shape: why not build a collective where each person brings their expertise, and formalize a shared methodology?

We began co-hosting workshops, testing integration and deployment processes, and things clicked.

Over time, the concept became clearer: we didn’t just want to build AI prototypes, we wanted to guarantee scalable, production-ready deployments — with plug-and-play MLOps pipelines and real skill transfer. That’s how, alongside three friends from this freelance network, I co-founded Koïno — a collective journey uniting deep technical talent with a battle-tested methodology to turn every POC into a true performance lever.

You created Koïno while still a student? How did you balance school and launching a business?

Starting Koïno while finishing my studies at IÉSEG took serious organization… and a lot of coffee! I was committed to succeeding both academically and professionally — no compromises. (That meant no retakes, staying at the top of my class, and growing the company at the same time.)

To stay on track, I followed three simple rules:

1. Plan without fail: Every Sunday night, I’d block my calendar into “class time” and “Koïno time,” with clear goals for each.

2. Learn by doing: Instead of waiting to feel “ready,” I immediately ran small tests — with classmates or through my freelance network — and used their feedback to iterate and improve.

3. Leverage the IÉSEG community: Professors, alumni, and friends gave me critical feedback, advice, and even first client intros — turning every challenge into a learning experience.

In the end, this balance became a strength: every academic success gave Koïno more credibility, and every business win brought real-world insights to fuel my coursework. By the time I graduated, I was fully equipped to grow the Koïno adventure.

Where do you stand today?

Koïno has grown from a student project into a strategic partner for around 20 major clients. We now have a network of 2,100 freelance Data & AI professionals, and have delivered over 50 AI and data projects.

On average, our work generates a 30% productivity gain and a 20% reduction in operational costs on critical processes. Our clients include pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions, and e-commerce scale-ups — all of whom benefit from our unique methodology to turn ideas into POCs and then into fully industrialized solutions.

What are your goals for the coming years?

Our ambition is clear: make Koïno the go-to partner for AI industrialization in France and across Europe. Over the next two years, we have three concrete objectives:

1. Industrialize 100 AI projects
   Not just launch them — but actually take them to production, with real business KPIs like time saved, cost reduction, and user satisfaction. We want to move away from the “dormant POC” mindset and embed AI into real operations.

2. Build our product platform
   Today, Koïno is a consulting firm. Tomorrow, it will also be a platform. We’re developing a digital cockpit to let clients track AI project progress in real time, manage deployed models, and activate new features like anomaly detection, scoring, or document extraction.

3. Train and deploy a community of 500 AI/Data freelancers
   We aim to respond to any client need within 48 hours. That means investing in training, onboarding, and rigorous selection to build a skilled, responsive freelance network capable of tackling high-stakes projects fast.

In short: the next chapter is about scalability — but without losing our edge in fast delivery and real knowledge transfer.

You’ve also become a representative of the IÉSEG Network Entrepreneurship Club — what is it, and what’s coming up?

Yes, it’s a role I’ve taken on with great enthusiasm. The IÉSEG Network Entrepreneurship Club is a space for exchange between alumni, founders, executives, and investors — all driven by a shared desire to create, share feedback, and help one another openly.

As a representative, my role is to bring this network to life through practical, action-driven events. The goal isn’t just to host more meetups — it’s to create meaningful formats, like:

• Thematic roundtables,

• Peer-to-peer project reviews,

• Strategic intros through the network,

• And more informal moments like breakfasts or after-work drinks.

The next major event will be a workshop + afterwork in Paris this September — a great chance to cross-pollinate ideas, support one another, and dive into fresh topics.

For me, this club is a way to give back to the school — but also to build a stronger entrepreneurial community. After all, entrepreneurship is rarely a solo journey. It’s made of encounters and alliances. And IÉSEG has a unique role to play in sparking those connections.

Any other initiatives you’d like to share?

Yes — one initiative I care deeply about: Koïno offers IÉSEG alumni a free POC development for any data or AI project idea they want to test.

The goal is simple: help anyone with an intuition, a business challenge, or a product concept turn it into a functional tool in just a few weeks — with no cost or risk involved. It’s our way of giving back, making technology more accessible, and giving projects a jump-start when they need it most.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a freelancer, or an intrapreneur in a larger company, if you want to experiment with a real AI solution — scoring, automation, data extraction, smart dashboards — feel free to reach out.

Every month, Koïno selects two alumni projects to support for free, with the same level of commitment we offer our enterprise clients.

It’s a way of closing the loop: test, learn, iterate... just like we did at the very beginning.

Maxence Morin

Website : www.koino.fr

Phone : 0623490090

Email : Maxence@koino.fr