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Story 05 March 2022
Public

Coaching Corner with Minespider: Trusting the business gut

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Joana Moreira

Often, we tell startups' stories through their achievements: the disruptive innovations, the new funding rounds or international partnerships. But to get there, innovators have to undertake a long journey, facing the challenges of an unknown market, conducting pilots and trying to stand out in a crowd of competitors. For the third Coaching Corner episode, we bring together Ella Cullen, Co-founder and CMO of the German startup Minespider and Christina Rytter, the business coach that follows Minespider's journey in the EIC Women Leadership Programme.

 

Before creating a product, there's always a prototype or even a simple idea. And before the idea, there are just people with a particular ambition for change. Each product and technology has its own history, full of strategic steps, business-driven actions, and many emotions. There is a feeling-driven motivation behind each entrepreneur and startup to address specific uncovered needs. It's precisely on this essential point that Christina Rytter likes to focus her coaching experience. The Scandinavian business coach is also a business entrepreneur for more than 15 years. Last year, she joined the EIC Women Leadership Programme to support other female CEOs and co-founders striving to succeed in the business world. Thanks to this programme, Christina met Ella Cullen and supported the young entrepreneur's business journey.

 

The art of knowing your "Why"

The startup Minespider is a blockchain-based traceability platform, helping actors in the raw material supply chain to capture and communicate their sustainability data. They do this by creating digital Product Passports that distinguish their products in the market. Minespider's public-permissioned blockchain is designed specifically for supply chain traceability and is highly energy efficient. "We share a powerful vision in our team, we're very addicted to the idea of making the world a better place. But, somehow, I think we become too product-focused recently and lost some of this perspective in our external communication. Now with Christina, I've been working on the "why"! Why are we building sustainable supply chains? Why does this matter to the world? Why should it matter to companies? We want to help them understand how they can outperform the market with competitive sustainability," said Ella Cullen during an interview with the EIC Community. 

 

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According to Christina, many entrepreneurs have difficulty stepping back and analysing their identity, but the message can be the special secret sauce to connect with the clients. "The 'why' is all about where we come from. What are values, why are we getting up in the morning, what we want to change in the world, and why we even start a business. And often startups talk about their product, and what they are doing, but they forget that they can capture people's attention through these feelings."

 

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Dreaming big

During the coaching experience, and once their go-to-market strategy is addressed, Christina Rytter also likes to explore the pricing models and guide the companies to position themselves. "Startups don't need to be the cheapest in the market just because they are new. They can always change and take a focus on highest quality and go for top clients instead of taking what is left from competitors. They need to dream big, and I'm sure Minespider is already doing that". 

 

Since its founding, Minespider has launched several traceability projects with industry players, and it's definitely dreaming big. In 2018, Minespider partnered with Google to create a multi-stakeholder end-to-end mineral traceability consortium for the tin supply chain. The partnership formally started in 2019, followed by other projects with Cisco, SGS, Volkswagen, and the Peruvian mining company Minsur. "In the past years, we've had incredible opportunities to work with the world's most innovative companies. These are people looking to lead the way and be sustainable. We've been working with companies like Google, Cisco, and Volkswagen to optimise and build the sustainable supply chains of the future", reinforced Ella. 

 

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In October 2021, Ella Cullen was one of the 50 Female entrepreneurs selected to join the first cohort of the EIC Women Leadership Programme. The Programme seeks to increase the number of women-led companies created and succeeding in business by providing unique mentoring, coaching and networking opportunities to female entrepreneurs. "Running a startup is always going to be challenging on numerous levels: you have to manage your own department, scale the company, and on top of that, you're always trying to fundraise. I think the best thing about being part of the EIC WLP was to recognise that everybody is going through the same issues and share experiences and solutions", concluded Ella.

 

A new cohort of the EIC Women Leadership Programme will start in May, and the application process will be announced very soon in the EIC Community Platform. For additional information, please refer to our helpdesk (please choose 'EIC Women Leadership Programme' as the subject). If you would like to discover more information about our coaching services, please visit our EIC website

 

 

DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.

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