About les petits géants

les petits géants is an ode to small business

It’s for the businesses that stay small (or medium), by choice or by circumstance, and for the people who show up to them day after day because they love the work and can’t imagine doing anything else. Here you’ll discover stories about entrepreneurs and their business adventures in a series of long-form articles published regularly.

We’re surrounded by talk of unicorns and billion-dollar valuations, and the news rarely looks beyond the biggest companies in the world. les petits géants shows there’s another way to do business.

The name is French for “the small giants,” because I believe small businesses punch above their weight in what they give their communities and the world. It’s in French because this publication was born in France, which is home for me, a native Australian. And because in my experience, the French do big and luxury businesses well, but small businesses even better.

Why small business?

I’ve been around small business owners my whole life. Almost everyone in my extended family owned a business when I was young, and those who didn’t were still involved: an event space, a mail house, a hemp clothing store, an electronics shop, a software company, a café, a service station, a craft shop, a wedding dress shop.

My dad’s mail house has been running since around the time I was born. I helped out with simple tasks from a young age, which is how I earned my pocket money, but also how I spent time with my dad and came to understand him and his business. He’s in his mid 70s, a little slower than he used to be, and having far too much fun to think about stopping.

My mum opened her arts and craft shop when she was almost 40. I was there at the beginning, and I watched her go from being my mum to being a business owner. I saw a creativity I had never properly recognised when she was “just” my mum. She worked hard, sometimes too hard, and she has built something beautiful in her community.

I only recently learned that my paternal grandmother was an entrepreneur too: a highly sought-after wedding dress designer with shops in Sydney, at a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman to own a business, let alone an immigrant woman.

With those influences, it seemed only natural that I’d end up building something of my own. Employment never fit. I’ve tried it more than once, in businesses of different sizes, just to be sure. What I found instead is that I do best building things my own way, on my own terms. Somewhere along the way I also became an Australian living in France, working out how to live in a different language and a different system. It has changed how I see the world, and I bring that outsider’s eye to these stories.

les petits géants is a labour of love: for small businesses like the ones I grew up around, for a good story, and for shining a light on what no one else has noticed.

And who am I?

I’m Serena Carnarvan, the founder of les petits géants. I was born in Sydney, but France is my chosen home and I’m currently living in Lyon, which is a fascinating hub of entrepreneurialism, creativity, culture and gastronomy. I love to cook and I’m working on mastering the French classics, my signature dish being bœuf bourguignon. I am a flâneur, which is a superb French word for wandering around without a goal, just for the pleasure of seeing what’s there. I also love coffee, words and languages, sewing and reading.