Episode 2 - Sofia Fernandes of BGI.pt #backcatalogue

Welcome to the Canopy Founder Friday series

In Episode #2 of our back catalogue series we are joined by Sofia Fernandes who is the head of marketing and projects at Building Global Innovators (BGI) in Portugal.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofia-fernandes/

• Surround yourself with people who are doers and that ‘want to make it happen’
• What to look for in startups
• Moving careers from academia to innovation
• Open innovation - working with both corporate and startup cultures
• What makes a good investor

Share in her gifts of wisdom and experience & join us as we seek to discover what makes this inspiring founder tick.

Guest Co Hosts: Pedro Guimarães, Tijana Momirov

Note: this episode was first recorded as a webinar in April 2020 and converted to a podcast so we could all enjoy it away from our screens.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Founder Friday podcast series from Canopy, where we interview inspiring entrepreneurs and innovators about their experiences and seek to find out what makes them tick. This series was recorded live as a webinar and then converted into a podcast so we can all enjoy it away from our screens. All right, let's dive into this episode.

SPEAKER_03: 0:23

We are live. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for being here today. And thank you to Sophia for being the star of today's Founder Friday. All right, Sophia, thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm lucky enough to be joined today by Pedro. I wonder if you could introduce yourself quickly, Pedro, to everybody who's watching today.

SPEAKER_04: 0:41

Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming. Well, I have 25 years of entrepreneurship and general management of companies. I came from the marketing industry, later emerging technology, and I'm a huge fan of digital transformation, very people-centric approach. And I love to meet people as interesting as Sofia, so it's a pleasure to be here today learning from her.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06

Now, I want to doubly thank Sophia for being here because it's enabled me to wear my Boston hat and to bring an extra jug of coffee for the rest of the thing and kind of channel my inner Bostonian. And for those of you that don't know, I spent a little bit of time in Boston. Canopy was born in Boston. Matt, the co-founder, is still there with Kelly and Anna. And I also got married in Boston at night just over nine years ago. So it's a big part of my heritage. So it's wonderful to have Sophia here talking about BGI and other things. So Sophia, tell us a little bit about BGI to start off with and we'll sort of go from there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38

Okay, thank you so much for both you and Pedro for being here with me today. And thank you so much for the kind invitation. So just like you, BGI, or just like Canopy, BGI also was born out of MIT, so very Bostonian. And they're still part of our acceleration program that is still there. So just to give you a little bit of context, how did BGI born? It was MIT who did a cluster, and they do clusters in all continents. And the cluster that decided to do in Europe to scout for technology technology in Europe and bring them to MIT, they decided to do it in Portugal. We are very fortunate in Portugal to be part of the European Commission. And geographically, even if we are in Europe, we are pretty much close to America. And so that was something that put us in an advantage. Also, our history of good diplomatic relationships with several countries. And so that was the reason why they chose the cluster to be in Portugal, actually headquartered in Lisbon. And this started actually as a partnership between the the Portuguese government, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, led by the Professor Manoel Heitor, and of course MIT. And Professor Charles Cooney was actually designing the entire thing with Gonçalo, our CEO. And so that's actually how BGI was born back in 2010. This is the story.

SPEAKER_03: 2:59

You make 2010 sound like so long ago. I guess it was a decade, right? Have you been involved in the program all the way through or just more

SPEAKER_02: 3:07

recently? No, no, no, no. Actually, before that, I was working more in corporate. And then I decided to, I was a little bit trying to find something different from the corporate world. And that's when I joined BGI in 2016. So I've only been there half the way.

SPEAKER_03: 3:24

Okay, fantastic. And your role now within the organization, what's your leadership role now?

SPEAKER_02: 3:29

So at this moment, BGI started, as I said, with this program with MIT. And this is actually called, at the beginning, it was the MIT Portugal Entrepreneurship and Innovation Initiative. And we actually had a partnership with Caixa Capital from Caixa Geral Deposit, which is the largest public bank we have in Portugal. And they had one part that was precisely to invest in startups, and BGI was helping managing it throughout our program. But that was at the beginning, and that was how Our first program right now, that's one of 10 acceleration programs and one of 33 different programs because BGI now is divided into three areas. Actually, in 2013, we became a company, BGI SA, which is an anonymous... How do I say this in English? It's an incorporated company, pretty much. And basically...

SPEAKER_03: 4:23

Pedro can always translate for me. It's all good. Don't worry. It's experience on this call.

SPEAKER_02: 4:29

Yeah. And so... So basically when we start doing that, we start pretty much increasing our portfolio. So right now we do three main areas. One part, which is education. And so if you want to be an entrepreneur, we can help you out being an entrepreneur. A second area, which is if you are an entrepreneur, I accelerate you and I get you funding opportunities and contact with clients and mentors, such as Pedro, for instance, or such as you. And then a third part that you are looking for entrepreneurs, and this could be both investors or corporates. And then we have specific programs for those. So at this moment, what I do at BGI is that I help designing and managing. Of course, then there's project managers for all the projects. But I help on, let's say, the strategy of how we are going to implement it and do a lot of business development, which means pretty much just getting more clients and potential people we can collaborate.

SPEAKER_03: 5:25

Okay, fantastic. Do you enjoy it?

SPEAKER_02: 5:28

Yeah, I really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03: 5:30

What are you so passionate about in BGI?

SPEAKER_02: 5:33

Well, I like to say that BGI, we are a group of builders. And when I say this, human resources for BGI is a huge thing. Like we only hire people who are, you know, doers. We want to make it happen. And sometimes there might be even not the perfect way, but at the end of the day, we make it happen. We never get an excuse to not. If you need a client or if you need 10 introductions, we are going to get it for you. We do all the lengths to do it. And we are all in this together because at the end of the day, you work with startups, so you know this. These people, most of them get out of their jobs. Sometimes it's very hard. Sometimes you might have some grants to help you out throughout, I don't know, three, four months. But then after that, what happens? And most of us, we work with deep tech. It's actually, I think, It's one of the very few accelerators in Portugal that just focus in deep tech. And we have one accelerator just for that. And these guys, some of them have been conducting research for, you know, 10 years. So it has been your life work and make it, you know, come to reality to the tech transfer and make it, you know, in a successful way. It's hard. So I think it's, and then of course we have this Bostonian DNA and it's impossible not to, you know, all of these. I remember when I entered BGI, in 2016, where it was my first time in Boston with MIT Network. And I was just asking, you know, some of the researchers and fellows from MIT. And I was just saying, yeah, I came from corporate world. I've been there. I want to do something different. Like, why would you go to the corporate world? Like, you know, you need some experience first and then for you to run your company. It's like, no, you should, you know, just try it because, you know, the faster you fail and in Europe, we're like failing. No, we can't fail.

SPEAKER_01: 7:27

Right. It's

SPEAKER_02: 7:28

bad for your family and your name. So you can't fail. And it's interesting to see that there are actually some people who are open to fail. And that's already very scary because you do fail. Most of the times you will fail. That's just the reality of the numbers, the statistics. So I think when we hire someone at PGI, we want to try to find someone who looks at this and goes like, no, that's too risky. We look at people that somehow are as crazy as we are but at the end of the day they are productive they are loyal they are dedicated to the cause and that's exactly what we try to find out and that's why I'm so passionate because I work with people like this

SPEAKER_03: 8:07

I was going to say it sounds like you just described Otis perfectly there

SPEAKER_02: 8:10

yeah Otis is a builder that's definitely

SPEAKER_03: 8:16

So just before I turn to Pedro for his questions, I think we should reflect that we're both a little on brand today. So obviously, I'm Bruin's brand, and you show your... There you

SPEAKER_02: 8:25

go. BGI.

SPEAKER_03: 8:26

Absolutely, all the way. Pedro, did you bring your own brand with you today, or are you just going to the studio to look at the books and stuff?

SPEAKER_04: 8:32

Yes, that's just a book

SPEAKER_03: 8:36

thingy. So what do you want to ask Sofia, Pedro? First

SPEAKER_04: 8:39

of all, congratulations for your amazing work and results. I have a set of questions. For the first one, you talked about the passion and how HR is important for you as a team and you hire a team. How does that reflect on the entrepreneurs that actually you help develop?

SPEAKER_02: 8:58

So, and I don't know if we have here any PhD or any professor from university, but we always like to say that we work a lot with them because deep tech companies you know, usually comes from people who have been in a lab or doing research for a long time. And this is the kind of people that typically apply to BGI program. I mean, right now we have a lot of people that are just, you know, young entrepreneurs and have ideas. But we still scout a lot for those guys because this is what, you know, enters the market, scales really fast. So this is my target. And typically these kind of people, want to put the idea on the market, but they still want to teach and they still want to keep their... let's say, regular activity, right? And so then this leads me to typically what happens that this professor will have a student that somehow got involved in the project and this is going to be the new CEO. It's not at the beginning, but will be. So these kind of people typically that we try to look for are very enthusiastic. They fall in love with an idea or a project that the professor was already guiding. And typically they are in an age or at least... At least they are in a certain period of their life that can still be a little bit risky. And so they are very keen, because they were students for not so long ago, they are very keen on learning everything and applying everything, all the tools that BGI gives them. We typically have one very intensive bootcamp where it's basically hands-on. We just go and we identify the entire BGI team and our mentors that are going to be helping the startups. We need to work with these guys, and so they have to tell us everything about the startup, and we need to give them all the tools to you know, do the technology transfer. And so the kind of guys that I'm looking for are guys that won't be afraid. This is what we interviewed Rita Marques, the former PV CEO and right now Secretary of State in Tourism. And she was saying something very interesting. And I think it's very true for BGI as well, which is you look for someone who is very humble, that knows how to get feedback from everyone around, but somehow a little bit confident. She used the word arrogant. Not sure if that's the word I would use, but that somehow know that the technology is good and are going to defend it. So if I talk with someone and if they show me that they really trust their idea, that's already halfway. And then if they are coachable or not, and that's the second part. If they are coachable, that's the kind of person I'm looking for to work with.

SPEAKER_03: 11:34

Great. Great question. So this is quite an important thing for me, the coachable piece. One of the things we talk about in Canopy is the light bulbs. So we say, the old joke is, how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? And the answer is one, but the light bulb has to want to change. And so we look for those people who have the light bulb in them and that you can... But I don't know a better way of describing it. How do you define coachable? It's not just a willingness, right? It's not just an aptitude. It's like this special source which says... I want to, right? But how do you describe that?

SPEAKER_02: 12:07

Well, I'm thinking right now of some entrepreneurs that really show a lot of credibility. So let's say that right now, I'm telling you that in your pitch, for instance, or on your term sheet, you have this one line that you should definitely have it there, or these, or you could look into information. And these sort of guys are the ones that don't just do it immediately. They typically consult several mentors. They typically ask to the accelerators, namely in this case PGI or any other enabler. And once a person tells them something, they don't take credit out of it. Oh, it was this guy who said it. He knows nothing about our industry. No, it's a guy that whenever the person was, whoever the person was telling them a feedback, They will go assess it and check with other people to make sure that this is really something that they should improve or not. And after that, they make an informed decision, but they act on it. This is being coachable. Another second thing that for me is coachable is I've put them in contact with you, Stuart, for instance. And we know you are very occupied. All the mentors are. Everyone has a lot of things to do. And you are giving the time to these guys. to give them feedback, to provide them or share your knowledge or your expertise. If this guy doesn't answer you one time, doesn't put you on top of priority when you ask him something, that's also showing that it's not very coachable because it's not giving the value. So it's someone that knows how to give value to the people that can give them expertise and feedback, but at the same time, look really deep into stuff when someone tells them to. So it's someone that can be guided, but guided in a very own cautious way,

SPEAKER_03: 13:50

I would say. Nice. Now, I see we've been joined by Tiana. Tiana, it's great to have you on the panel. Thank you for coming to ask some questions. I should also caution you, Sofia, that Tiana speaks even faster than you do if you let her, okay? So let's try and keep up. Tiana, what sort of questions have you got for Sofia?

SPEAKER_01: 14:05

Thanks for that reminder. Yeah. Okay, guys. First apologies. I basically just woke up here in Brazil. It's 9 a.m. and received an email from Seward. So I'm with my first morning coffee and trying to understand what's happening. But from what I was hearing so far, it's an amazing project. I've been working with tech startups. My background is software engineering for more than 10 years. So this is definitely super interesting for me. What I wanted to ask you, Sofia, is you were telling that mostly the founders are either people who are very academic into these researchers, super tech, and on the other hand, they are super young entrepreneurs who just have some ideas and enthusiasm and dreams that they want to make happen. I also have experience with many people who are already deep into business, but not in tech field, but they just simply know their domain very well and their customer base, and now they have some idea how they could upsell or just improve their business by launching a tech product. So this is like the third group that I also identified the people who want to launch a tech startup. And I wanted to hear from you, like which type of founder, if we say we identified those, usually gets out of this adventure with big success and exit from this adventure. Which

SPEAKER_03: 15:29

of us runs the best rate? I like it.

SPEAKER_02: 15:32

So to answer you that, I might have to go a little bit back. At BGI, when we started, in technology readiness level, that can go from one to nine, let's say, at least in theory, BGI typically looks for at least four upwards which means that at least you need to have a not a prototype but a proof of concept or an MVP so if you don't have that you are still not ready to come to BGI and if you do apply for BGI we can forward you to other incubators very good in Portugal or elsewhere if you are international that can help you on the ideation process but if you want to be an entrepreneur in the tech area but you still don't have an idea or you might have an idea but you don't know if it's going to work or not, we advise you to work with Ubi Medical, PCA, any other in Portugal that can help you out. And what we can do is a little bit even earlier than that, and that we do because we have a huge partnership with EIT, the European Innovation Technology, And in that sense, what we try to do is if you are a really good engineer student, we help you out or we put the seeds of what it could be for you to want to become an entrepreneur. And we do that through summer schools, through hackathons, through impactful internships, several of activities and tools that we give them. But actually, we don't do the part between that and the MVP. That's something that PGI doesn't do. Mostly because we also work a lot with investors and investors won't invest before that. And one of our key differentiation points that we find you really good deal flow in terms of a startup for a potential investor. And if you are way too early, it's very difficult for me to help out with someone to put money on you. So that's the main reason why I don't do that target. Then the other two that you were telling about, I'm a young entrepreneur I already had an idea and I want to do something. BGI is divided into two main areas. One of them is deep tech. And that's our, let's say, it used to be our core business because of MIT. And then we have another one, which is food and sustainability, where we start to create spinoffs. Meaning, let's say that right now, the three of you are startups of BGI, right? and all of you work in the supply chain in the food industry. And you came out, one of you with IoT system, the other one with a connected network for suppliers, and then the other one that's connected, I don't know, a lifecycle analysis for transportation. I have no idea. And what I do is that I put you together. I do an innovation project with you. We might do a demonstrator with the three startups. And then if you work, I sell your product as a package. And so this is something that we are doing a lot of in food and sustainability, which is systematic approaches. And then in the end, you become kind of, you're not one company, but you are a consortium and you sell as one company. And so these are the kind of two areas we are looking for at this moment. Entrepreneurs typically already have their MVP or proof of concept.

SPEAKER_01: 18:47

That's interesting. This is very interesting how you put people in these collaborations. Yeah, great idea.

SPEAKER_03: 18:52

So we've had a great question from Annie in the chat over here, which is quite appropriate, I think, for the moment. So it's obviously a different scenario we're all playing out at the moment in the shadow of the COVID-19 thing in different countries at the same time. And his question is really, you know, how's your program changing as a result of this? And I guess particularly around the funding side. So two things, like how are you structuring the program and delivering it in this lockdown period? And then what are you hearing and seeing from investors as well?

SPEAKER_02: 19:21

Yeah. So two things in here. So the first of all, I think that's everyone all over the world that works with startups immediately. Their first reaction to these was, okay. what are the startups in my portfolio that can fight coronavirus or that can make people's life easier because of coronavirus. So we launched a video immediately with the startups that we had that could help on coronavirus. We sent a PR to media and some government stakeholders and hospitals that could potentially be interested and the media to give visibility. And then we also immediately sent an email, and we are actually launching it today, so the video of startups that can help you out. They don't solve coronavirus, but then can help your life be easier during this process. This was the first thing we did just to give visibility for those. But of course, there are a lot of startups who won't be in neither of the videos or neither of the situations, which is I don't fight coronavirus and I don't make your life particularly easy because most of our startups are B2B. And so what we have created, we are doing bootcamps online. And what we have created was a program called Why Not?, And why not? It's basically, I go to the main investors in Portugal, I don't know, Bind Ventures, Armilar, Shilling Capital, all of these guys, and we find out one investor that will meet them. The program has not started yet, but we'll start, and we are right now aligning all the investors that are going to do that. And each startup has eight sessions with different investors. The investor has no commitment to talk with them, but they have to tell them why not they would invest in the startup. Why would wouldn't I invest in you? And so this gives, first, it gives really good context with no commitment. It's like

SPEAKER_03: 21:09

the weirdest dating game ever, right? It's like the weirdest speed dating game ever. Just go into this room and somebody's going to say why they won't date you, right? It's just...

SPEAKER_02: 21:19

Yeah, but let's say that I have a meeting with you and in the end I have no reason to not invest in you.

SPEAKER_03: 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:30

Then it's game over, right? Yeah, but... Because I feel like sometimes investors don't want to meet with the startups because they don't want necessarily to commit to invest. And I mean, they don't. And because this is like a more personal interview with just you online, no one else is here. It sounds like there's some sort of commitment. But if it's set on the basis that nothing is going to happen, I think it's easier. You can get feedback. potentially you can get a good read for the future. And in terms of clients, in June, we are going to launch a series of workshops that are going to be online just for sales to help out people during this process. And BGI, with some of our startups, namely the ones from our core program, which is BGI Accelerator, we have been helping them out. We actually hired one person just to help out on the communication and sales strategy that is going one by one startup to help out on these topics And in the short run, this is what BGI managed to do, to help out with the guys that cannot be on the forefront and actually take some advantage of the situation, the set situation that we are in right

SPEAKER_03: 22:51

now. Okay, thank you. Pedro, what have you got?

SPEAKER_04: 22:54

I've got a specific question. It's like merging two different areas. You're coming from MIT, which is a huge school, and now you have this COVID-19 scenario. How do you foresee the interest for the investors to really invest on the education sector? Because it seems to me that is one of the biggest sectors in the society where digital transition is, I would say, kindly not so well developed or there's still a huge potential to increase. How do you see it? How do you find it?

SPEAKER_03: 23:32

Sofia, before you answer, I should tell you Pedro has a vested interest in that question because he's involved in an education project right now.

SPEAKER_02: 23:38

In

SPEAKER_03: 23:39

terms

SPEAKER_04: 23:40

of

SPEAKER_02: 23:42

investments, I have to say that I don't know if you know Mariana Mazzucato. but she was helping out Carlos Moedas while he was in front of EIT because actually he was the father of EIT and the EIT I have to say EIT is a little bit Portuguese because the person who decided to go with it was Durão Barroso and he was in front of European Commission and then lately the guy that was in charge of the innovation part was the European Commissioner Carlos Moedas which was also a Portuguese guy so I have to say that EIT is a little bit Portuguese and there is one section that is very forefront. These are public funds that are allocated to boost entrepreneurship within the best students, top students in Europe. And so that's where BGI comes in. And Mariana Mazzucato says, and she actually has some books regarding this, that BGI, we always try to keep up with these news or with these developments. She said that some of So some of the things that don't give you an immediate return will always have to come from public funds or public sources. Just like if you want to build a trail for trains, it's very difficult probably for you to have a private entity to build the entire thing or bridges. But then the way to manage it... This might be private. And so the idea here is actually the first part in the sector of education so far, and for at least what we have been working with, has been always public funds. And then only if these guys then turn into a startup or turn into monetizing the knowledge, That's only when private money comes in. And we do a study, which is the scale-up report, and Stu knows this very well, unfortunately, where we study the Portuguese ecosystem and we try to analyze a lot of different data. And it is the reality. There are still this part of education activities, corporate and investors, which are the main private topics that we could deal here, will only work with technologies that already work and technologies that are already put in the market and that immediately can show you a reduction in resources or an improvement in efficiency or productivity. Anything else, it still has to be the public funds to do it. I'm not saying that's the way it should be. I'm just saying that that's the state that we are at this moment. And, yeah, so... I don't know if that answers you.

SPEAKER_04: 26:28

Perfect. I was just looking for if you see a change in that because I foresee now there's an opportunity because it's one of the undeveloped sectors. It's interesting to actually change. That usually attracts investors. It's like an open field and it's a huge open field. I was looking for your insights.

SPEAKER_02: 26:56

I have to say something that is very interesting that we also found out with studying the report is that even if we invest in education in this kind of you know good education for the students they don't have to pay fees to go to school and even pay them these programs where they get in contact with innovation entrepreneurship and we have grants for your research and PhD etc then the most talented guys if they do monetize their knowledge they are going to U.S. And we are talking about a huge percentage, like around 80%. It's a lot. So we are creating talent and we are not monetizing it. Maybe if we had somehow any private commitment or any plan of follow-up with these students and with these researchers and with these talent people in tech area, maybe they would stay in Europe and maybe they could even go abroad, but the headquarters of the company or something else could stay here, which is not the case at this moment.

SPEAKER_04: 27:58

Would you see an opportunity there? Sorry? Would you see an opportunity

SPEAKER_02: 28:01

there? I see an opportunity there. I see an opportunity there. I see an opportunity where a lot of companies, and this is true, a lot of companies that we exited and we worked with, for instance, with EIT Digital, and they had some exits and the exit, even if EIT Digital belongs to EIT, it's a European commission or European funded initiative, you know, the exits go there and The headquarters moved there. So we are doing the very hard job of the public funding, but then we are not doing the hard job of private acquisition or being a little bit riskier or at least plans with these guys that are starting to do innovation projects and somehow... having any binding tools for the companies or for European potential incentives to let them stay here. So we are losing them. And there might be an opportunity. And once again, I think that's why Mariana Mazzucato was working with Carlos Moedas. How can we keep these guys after the part that is public funding?

SPEAKER_03: 29:06

Very good. Very good. Tiana, how do you want to follow that up? Where do you want to take us next?

SPEAKER_01: 29:11

One topic, Steve, that I'm super focused on these days, people think of products, people think of product itself to have a little bit different mission than it used to, or just simply jumping from one vertical to another in order to stay relevant under the change circumstances. Is there some example successful from the startups from your organization that have done something like that? And how do you help startups maybe find their way to build a product or jump from one vertical to another and which verticals that would usually be.

SPEAKER_02: 29:43

Okay. So I might give you a very successful example of a startup that did what, there's a lot of startups who have to do this throughout the acceleration program. They started one vertical, with the technology, and then we need to pilot because that specific vertical was not working. I'm going to give you, I think that is more or less a public example, what grid. It's one startup from BGI. Basically, what they do is that they have, let's say, a small device that can measure some criteria within liquids. And this can give you... For instance, temperature or different levels within the liquid. And this could be any liquid. And at the beginning, we were using it for water. For instance, to determine if the water was polluted. This might be interesting if you are in a big reservoir where the water is going to supply the entire city. or the village or whatever, or the region. And at the beginning, this was research, and this was a professor, and then he entered PGI. We started getting in contact with a lot of municipalities because those would be the payers, let's say the customers, the clients. And guess what? The water is an important resource, but there was never a huge contamination in water that could lead us to think that the next, well, I hope I'm not giving anyone an idea, but you know, contamination through water of population. And so because of that, we saw that the municipalities didn't feel the needs of it. So we thought, okay, let's pipe it. What other liquids might be very profitable and people might be interested on completely monetizing it to the end? And we ended up on wine. So everyone cares about wine. So... more than water. And so they completely pivot. They went to a completely different industry. The kind of sales and the pitch that they were doing was completely different. The market, the way to address it. They went from a public sector to a private sector. But guess what? Now they are extremely successful. They just raised a new round of investments. And right now at this moment, some of the biggest wine industry companies, production companies, use it to to actually understand if the fermentation process of the wine is good. And we knew that a huge percentage of it was actually going to waste because you're not going to open each pipe to see if the wine is good or not. And if you do, you are actually damaging the process of fermentation. With this technology, it won't happen because you know it's real time. on your tablet. You don't have to open it, so you're not going to damage it. And you know it in all pipes, because if you do a small trial, you only know in one. So the idea, the way we use it is completely different. The technology, it's still the same technology. They did some small adaptations, but they had to completely change it because there was no market. I'm not sure if this is the kind of vertical you were asking for. Yes,

SPEAKER_01: 32:44

completely. And it's a great example. Not to mention, it's funny that in Portugal the wine works so well. But yeah, it's a great example. Exactly what I thought. I mean, this one is not related to the crisis that we are having right now, but it's a great example how you can jump from one vertical to another. And I think this is what many startups need to do these days. They have great technology for communication and collaboration regarding work or even entertainment that can actually be used for education.

SPEAKER_02: 33:16

Well, we also have some startups who are doing that, for instance, in this area. some startups that were not being used for COVID. I mean, GoParity. GoParity is one of our alumni. I don't know if you ever heard of them, if you saw them on the news. But basically, these guys had a crowdfunding platform for efficiency, like solar panel or, let's say, climate change technologies that you could, from 50 euros, just invest. And then, for instance, you could invest in a school that could have a solar panel, and then in the end you would have your return on on investment and because they're going to sell some of the energy to the grid. And at the same time, you are helping actually a building to be more efficient. And so they start with this, but because of coronavirus, they completely change it. They did a crowdfunding. They use the exact same algorithms and the platform, but they use it to buy ventilators and masks for the hospitals. So we had some sort of completely change. I mean, are they going to be kept on this side more of solidarity or not after COVID? Not sure. But for right now, they apply the algorithm, they apply the platform for this purpose. Not sure if they're going to keep it on that after COVID. So,

SPEAKER_01: 34:33

yeah. Yeah, great example. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 34:39

All right. So before I take you in a completely different direction, Sophia, we just had a question here from Annie around the tech for COVID-19 stuff, which is a group that Pedro is also involved with. And he's asking, you know, are you aware of that? Are you involved in that? Are you helping those people? And can you help them maybe navigate some of the complicated verticals of biomedical and stuff?

SPEAKER_02: 34:58

So actually, yes, as soon as I knew that there was a group, I entered as BGI, let's say, and I put immediately, I went to the group of doctors and all the startups that we had that were working in that area immediately. And some of them, for instance, we have a lot of things that are to avoid infections or to avoid virus transmission. different kind of technologies. But as soon as I knew that, I put it there. I tried to reach out. I reached out to my startups and to look at this group. And this is pretty much what I did back then and disseminate throughout our startups if there was some specific need from nurses or anything, we put it on our newsletters. and if someone had a potential solution or a potential approach to go there. But we are part of it, and we saw that a lot of BGI alumni are also there. For instance, InnovationCast is a platform that is being used right now for corporates to, let's imagine that you work at, let's say, Microsoft. And at Microsoft, any person can give an idea from an intern to a C-level person. And so this basically aggregates and also does some gamification for you to interact Give ideas. Improve bottlenecks in your administrative work. Identify some problems that are within the company that potentially no one is addressing them, but they do exist. And what they did was exactly that, but to build ideas for a COVID-19 fight. And so, for instance, Innovation Cast is one of our alumni that's changed completely for this purpose. Well, they didn't change completely. The way it works and the software, everything kept the same. They just did one for coronavirus. And in that sense, we also called out our startups to be part of it, to go there, to interact. I'm also part of it. But my role in this is being a connector. If I see that someone has a need and someone has a solution, I connect them. And that's where BGI work stays. We don't do much more than that.

SPEAKER_03: 36:59

Okay. Okay, interesting. So here's the different direction I'd like to go in for a second, because obviously this is Founder Friday. This is all about what makes people take on challenges, be leaders, be CEOs, be founders and stuff. So I'd like to have the greatest respect for you in terms of the energy that you have and the kind of hustle you have behind things. And yes, you're a builder, but you also do something which I think is incredible, which is you break down walls. You kind of kick doors open and you make things happen for BTI and for the startup. So I guess I'd like to openly ask you, what makes you you? How did you evolve to be this kind of person? And let's explore that for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02: 37:38

Okay, so... I don't know how to answer

SPEAKER_03: 37:43

this, but yeah. So to give you an example in return, one of the reasons I do what I do and I'm the way I am is because I'm an only child and it's an annoying trait, but basically I make my own rules up. I don't like other people's rules. I'm basically unemployable because no matter if I worked for you and you made the decision I would have made anyway, I still don't like it because you made it and I didn't. So I have to be in charge. It's kind of like the trait about me and it's taken me a long time to work that stuff out, right? My wife reminds me quite regularly about all that kind of stuff. But how did you get to where you are? Is it something genetic? Is it something in the family? Is it something in your life?

UNKNOWN: 38:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 38:20

Yeah. Uh, so maybe I will, I will explain why I left. I, I, before this, I was a professor at novel, uh, school of business and economics, and I've also worked in the corporate world and maybe I can tell you why I didn't fit in. And so, and then why I came to this job and now I love it. So since ever, I really like to create stuff. For instance, for my, I'm going to give you a weird example for Barbies. For instance, I would like to do the clothes for the Barbies, or I would like to even build some of my toys made of woods. I've always liked to create stuff. Uh, I'm not an engineer. I've never felt in love with an engineering area. I've always liked more social skills because I love to talk. I did theater for many years, so that's something that I really love. And so I was trying to find out in my life, what can I do with creativity and social skills? And then I ended up in management and marketing. And so when I started my first actual job, was actually teaching classes. And I really loved it. And you can create some methods, but somehow you have to follow the rules a little bit and then everything. So I could try to implement new stuff, but it's classes. You always have to teach the same thing and the system's always the same. At the same time, I was also working at L'Oreal and I was actually managing the perfumes area of Yves Saint Laurent, the brand in Portugal. And I remember to have some crazy ideas. And most of them, of course, if you are in a big brand... You have the team, and this case was in Paris, the main team that could decide what you would do. And then, you know, it would just fall down to each one of the countries and then we would have to implement. So I didn't have a lot of freedom to go crazy with stuff, even if we have a very interesting budget, which is something that right now, unfortunately, I don't have. And so for marketing. And then I became aware of this idea of working potentially with startups. Actually, some of the students I was working with were doing a consulting work for startups from BGI. So there was already a connection between BGI and Nova. And after this, I was like, oh my God, this is amazing because I had to go through all the consulting works of my students and I had to evaluate them and give them feedback on it. And I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. So there are moving houses. I remember that one of the startups that I was most in love was a moving house. It's a house that moves and right now your living room can have 40 square meters, but if you want to move it, it can be 20 and then your room increases. It's insane. I was like, is this even possible? And so I remember Gonzalo talking to me and say like, why don't you come here? Why don't you do the rebranding? Why don't you help out these startups more in the consulting area of marketing and how to put this in the market? If this is so good, why are they not passing their value proposition? So when I entered PGI, my first real job was to talk with startups, understand how to basically making consulting of how can they put their ideas out there in a way that's, you know, how can you be the purple cow? And then at the same time, also put PGI a little bit on the map and how can we be the purple cow? That's how I started. But soon enough, Gonçalo is like this person, a very intelligent person that always has crazy ideas of how can we make... And this happened. This was my first year at PGI. So, okay, we are working with this rural area. No one wants to move to rural areas. How can we create here kind of a shopping mall? Not a shopping mall, but like an attraction, a huge attraction that people want to go there. And so we start ideating. And four years later, we have 8 million brand for creating Aidanga Food Lab, which is a living lab that puts together, it's an IKEA for agriculture. And so basically we are putting a small IKEA of agriculture in Aidanga. And the fact that I have so much freedom to go crazy to create an IKEA for agriculture or that tomorrow I have to help out on neurofeedback and the next day I have to work on open innovation. And you can just have a a zillion ideas and it still won't be enough to put everything on the market successfully. The main reason why I think I'm so suitable for the kind of work I have right now, it's because I might have a lot of ideas and all of them, as long as I prove them that they would be profitable, I can make them happen. And that's extremely rare nowadays to work in any kind of corporate. I remember that I was doing a consulting work for Unilever and we had some really crazy ideas. And the first reaction that they had for it was like, No, no. And so I think that's the why me for this job and, you know, having the freedom, because when I entered PGI, we were only working with EIT Digital and PGI. And now we have, you know, 30 other projects. It's because you can just go crazy. And yeah. And so I don't know if this explains really well. That's the reason why I really like it.

SPEAKER_03: 43:23

Very good. Thank you for those insights. Tiana, what do you want to ask Sophia about this kind of personality stuff?

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

I had a very general question, but I would like to hear Sophia's view based on everything I heard so far. And I got really impressed. What's your opinion on the future of corporate? Because I have a feeling all of us, when you mentioned corporate, we almost get like goosebumps with something we don't want to be involved in because we prefer the whole excitement about entrepreneurship. But for sure, it exists and it's very solid. It's here. And then there is this entrepreneurship going on, but So in your opinion, with all the experience you had so far, what's the future of corporate?

SPEAKER_02: 44:09

I think that's, and we are fortunate, like half of the people, I would say that half of the people that work at BGI had previous corporate experience and the other half is more like a startup kind of people. And corporates do give you a lot of good logic, give you a good structure, give you a good organization system. And even at BGI right now, we are growing a lot and we feel like we need to put more structure, we need to create more procedures. And that's something that the corporates have. It's good, and it's good to have that experience. The problem is that sometimes it becomes so rigid that if you want to just move left or right, it's impossible, and you have to be in your square. But I know, and we have identified these. I mean, if you look to Mark Thier, every year they tell you what are the best corporates for you to work on. I mean, you see a lot of stories of Google and how their HR and how at Disney every Friday they dress like any character from business. You see a lot of companies that more and more are trying to interact with their employees, make them a little bit more loose and creating, and this is an important part, and creating departments that are not the marketing department, which is really good, that are for innovation. And so you're starting to have a lot of people in head of innovation that wants to work more and more with startups. The only problem, and this is BGI also does open innovation programs. The only problem so far is that sometimes you have one person, but that person kind of is leaving a different reality from the rest of the corporation. So what I think, and this is actually what in my job I'm trying to do right now, is creating a strategy between these, let's say, this body within the companies that wants to work with innovation and the rest of the company and create champions within the corporate in different ways in different departments that know what these, let's say, boogeymen of startups are, what they do, how to work with them, how can we implement them and do pilots. I have to say, we are working with one specific corporate, Vodafone, which has been absolutely successful. We have over 20 people, champions within the organization that have been trained by our mentors. They are right now implementing and things happen. Pilots start running, collaboration starts running, and it does happen in the end of the year. But I think that so far, What we need is that the corporates stop looking at startups as a waste of time. Okay, it's nice, but then nothing really happens. It's just more to put on a report and start identifying champions within their organization. And I think it's probably identifying champions to help these startups crossing this border and I think that's a normal process for the corporate I think it will start happening more and set loose a little bit this rigid I mean you need procedures I'm not saying that you don't need you absolutely need procedures in the organization but setting a little bit loose

SPEAKER_01: 47:20

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 47:23

I think that's the yeah And of course, I mean, if you want really to change, you should put in place an open innovation program, talk with people that already did it, people who know how to do it. And yes, and then they can help you implement it.

SPEAKER_03: 47:44

Yeah. So,

SPEAKER_01: 47:46

Pedro, I think

SPEAKER_03: 47:47

we've got time for one more question from you, Pedro, if we may, and then I'll ask Sofia to give us a top tip for first-time founders who are maybe watching this call today. So, Pedro, come on, the honor of the last question.

SPEAKER_04: 47:59

Thank you so much. It's pretty much like a reverse question from the journalists, which is, I see a lot of corporate companies trying to act like on a pretty much more like startup mode, at least opening to, as you described so well, being really open to working with startups. But I also see some startups that after becoming incorporated, after a few rounds of capital, becoming more corporate and losing what made them so special and so different and so agile and so significant in the world. So it's kind of mysterious for me. It's like, you see, the big ones, the trying to act like the fast ones and the fast ones forgetting what was written there. How do you see this? Am I saying it wrong? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 48:48

So I have to say, I'm just going to, I think we still have a little bit of time. I'm just going to tell you a story that is going absolutely in line with what you're saying. We do something like a top 25 every year we identify on the last five years because actually a startup by the first, let's say, definition of a startup and on the agreement we had with MIT was a company, deep tech company with less than five years. This was a description, highly scalable, very differentiated. This was what a startup was meant to be. And so identify within the Portuguese ecosystem, what are the top 25 startups? One of them was Talkdesk. And what we did was we went to a lot of offices to give prizes and you would enter and everyone would be so, it was like a family office because startups are family, they're not family offices, but they look like family offices. You enter, everyone's like, what do you want? Everyone is so nice. Oh my God, we received the prize, et cetera, et cetera. And so it was a really cool environment. And then we entered Namureiras. We went to the uh, you know, one of the top floors and we had to talk to me and like, Oh my God, this looks like a corporation. They don't, they don't look like a startup. And we felt exactly what you are saying. Like sometimes they grow so much that you, the vibe is different. Uh, right. It's no longer the, the feeling of, you know, just a set of people that are very, everyone is very, everyone knows everything about the business and everyone is able to pitch and to talk to the investor and to do a sale and to do almost software development. Like, Everyone can do everything at a startup. And over there, it starts to have more structure. And I think that's all of this to conclude in one thing. I think that's the vibe that the startup has is different between a small company and a big company. And it's always going to be different because in one of them, you have to do everything. And in the other, you have departments and you are allocated to a specific topic. And that's the only topic you will probably know about. Yeah. Which doesn't change the fact that if I go to Talkdesk and tell them that I have a startup that can be potentially interesting for them, they would be open to talk to me. And they will be like, okay, let's schedule for next week. They will have probably a department that is looking for merchant acquisition because they started like that. They know how important that is. While a corporate, I can say to them, who are you? Why are you talking to me? You need reference. You need a champion that can help you in And the mindset is really different. They won't probably want to do a pilot. If they want to do a pilot, how much money will it cost me? What is the implementation plan? I have enforcing this for 2020. It's very different. It's very different. So the vibe is different, but the way they work with me or any innovation is different. And a startup will, someone that right now even can be a corporate and organize this process as a corporate, you can still feel in the DNA that they are open for innovation, while the corporates, yeah, not so much still. So there are still some differences, I think, even in the big corporations.

SPEAKER_03: 52:00

I think, Sophia, looking at my fellow panelists, you have some new raving fans for the Sophia Fernandez Club, okay? I hope so. So it's been wonderful to have you here today, and thank you so much for bringing your energy and your vibe into the Founder Friday series. I'm super excited about, actually, who's coming in the next edition next month as well, and I wonder if I might invite you back to actually interview her. So it's Brittany McDonough, and she is the head of global expansion for MassChallenge, and you guys have a very similar vibe. It'd be quite interesting

SPEAKER_02: 52:32

to see you. I know Brittany. You

SPEAKER_03: 52:34

know Brittany already?

SPEAKER_02: 52:35

Yes, I know her.

SPEAKER_03: 52:36

Come on in. Come and interview

SPEAKER_02: 52:37

her. I know her. I met her in Boston. Yes, I know her.

SPEAKER_03: 52:40

Yeah, she's a great lady and it's a great program. It's one of my favorites in the world, you know, non-equity program and stuff. So, yeah, I'd love it if you could close us out today and just kind of give your top tip, just one tip for people who are maybe first-time founders watching your interview today and saying, what should they be doing? What should they be aware of? Or maybe, you know, What should they look for inside themselves to become a founder?

SPEAKER_02: 53:02

I'm going to do three tips. Can I do three tips?

SPEAKER_03: 53:05

It's your interview, man. You can do whatever

SPEAKER_02: 53:08

you want. The first one is funding. Well, the first one is really check if you have a market for you. And this will mean do the most stupid job of going online, see who could buy you, call these companies or call these clients, check out, do a normal, statistically do a normal. If you have less than 30 people, don't take conclusions. So at least 30 people, talk with them, check if they would buy your product, yes or no. Only if they do, then try to fight funding. There are very interesting lines of funding right now, grants. I would always start my company by going for grants, not giving equity to anyone. Only when you have at least one client, which proves that you work, try to look for investors to scale. And if you look for investors, try to look for someone that doesn't just give you money, because there are, even if you think that everyone is smart money, that is not true. Talk with the alumni they have, talk with the startups of their portfolio, Like, look, you know, it's really calling people. Look, they have invested in you. Did they help you find clients? Did they help you find the new round of investment? If they don't, that's not the investor for you. Just try to find out a good investor for scale up. And then during the entire process, I really believe that there are no$1 billion ideas. There are no$1 billion ideas. I totally, if everyone's like, oh, this startup is amazing, the technology is like, it might be. But it's really, really, really about if the person is going to make it happen or not. So surround yourself with people that make it happen. Because in my personal experience, I can only make things happen and BGI could only grow so much because I have since moment one been surrounded by people who make it happen. And you know this too, you know BGI team. Surround yourself with people who make it happen. And that won't just flip on the first opportunity to get a better paid job. So try to identify people. Of course, everyone has to pay their rents. Everyone has to pay food and hospital and everything. So you have to consider that you have to make it somehow attractive to these people. If you don't have money, give equity. But surround yourself with people that can make it happen. That would be my three main tips.

SPEAKER_03: 55:33

Very good, very good. I think the last one is particularly important. You know, for me, always in every business I've been in, it's been the group of founders, co-founders that have made the difference between success and failure. in good times and bad. And also, you know, when you're really stuck, the fact that you can count on those people just as they can count on you, you know, when you're at your lowest, when everything seems to be defeating you as a person, and then there's still two or three other people kind of like pulling you up and helping you and you're doing the same for them. You know, it's huge. It's huge. And you can beat everything with that.

SPEAKER_01: 56:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 56:07

If you don't have that though, everything can beat you. It's kind of like, it's only so far you

SPEAKER_01: 56:11

get. So

SPEAKER_03: 56:11

Tiana, anything you want to say before we finish today?

SPEAKER_01: 56:15

A question or just maybe to thank everybody, and especially Sofia. I got super impressed with your visions and views and the experiences from different sides of the story. It's very related to what I do, but then again, from some different perspectives, so super impressed. I'm going to follow you on LinkedIn and what's happening there for sure. And I think that Pedro wants back, too. He's been writing in chat.

SPEAKER_03: 56:39

It's too late. It's gone. It's gone. Hang on. Let me see. I've got two seconds to get him back on just right

SPEAKER_02: 56:46

now. I think it was a problem with internet. But yes, I think execution is really, really important. And I also think it's interesting, at least in our history of, well, if you look online, it's also the history of all startups, is that the doers that make it happen at the beginning are not actually the doers that potentially, like Uber. The guy that founded Uber is not the one that's going to be the CEO right now because the skills of a big corporation CEO and the skills of a startup 10 people CEO are so different. the kind of things that they have to do. It's as well interesting to check what kind of skills do you need to actually pull this up from a very early stage because not everyone can do that.

SPEAKER_03: 57:31

Pedro, do you have a final word? He's gone very quiet.

SPEAKER_04: 57:40

I can't hear Stuart. I don't understand if he's talking or not. Thank you, Dijana, for putting me in again.

SPEAKER_03: 57:48

Yeah. Yeah. You have any final words to say?

SPEAKER_04: 57:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 57:52

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. So thank you, Sophia. It's been wonderful to have you here. Thank you so much for your time. And thank you everybody for being here and watching. And I hope if you're watching on a replay or you're watching it right now that you'll reach out to Sophia afterwards and connect with her on LinkedIn. And we've had a little link at the bottom there. Thanks everybody. Stay safe. Look forward to seeing you again soon.

SPEAKER_02: 58:14

Thank you. See you

SPEAKER_00: 58:16

next week. Thank you. Thank you very much everyone.