How creative SMEs and entrepreneurs can grow up and internationalise their business

Welcome to the Pulse, a brand new podcast series produced by the European Commission, specifically DigiGrow, so that's the directorate general that is responsible for the internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs. Now in this five episode series, we'll explore how things are and what the future holds for all sorts of creative and cultural industries or CCIs as they'll sometimes be referred to in the European Union. We'll be meeting SMEs, we'll be meeting entrepreneurs, creative practitioners, policy makers, the works. So, do embark with us on an exciting journey of challenges, insights and success stories which really are shaping the European creative landscape. I promise you'll be entertained, informed and critically inspired. Yes, this is the Pulse. And I'm your host, Katrina Sickle. I'm a moderator of all sorts of policy-oriented events and, well, a podcast host. Now in this episode, I'll be discussing with three fabulous speakers, business development and internationalization, that all important concern of entrepreneurs and SMEs, small and medium-size enterprises of all kinds, not least creative and cultural industries. So we'll have a look at some of the typical challenges for CCIs to access the market, not least the single market, and we'll explore some of the needs and the skills of creative entrepreneurs and the kind of support, of course, that the EU offers in this particular arena. So, a lot to get through. Let me start by briefly introducing our guest speakers. Let me come first to Maveretortador. Now, Maveret is director of what's called the Blue Factory. It's a European startup incubator affiliated with the ESCP Business School. So that's a French Business School and Gehond de Gaulle, which is founded in Paris, but based across Europe with campuses in Paris, Berlin, London, Madrid, Turin, Warsaw. Now, it's a mission is to accelerate entrepreneurship projects right from the ideation to that international expansion. So this is all about support. Anything to add to that, because that's already a lot, Maveret, but what did I miss out that might make anything clearer for our listeners? OK, what I can add is that ESCP, in fact, is a French school since 200 years, but it's a European school students 50 years. So today we are in Newark, French school, which we are really a European school. And another thing that may be interesting from my testimonial will be that we have been co-funding La Boussole des Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurs en plus, five years ago, an association that gathers 85 incubators and accelerators in all France. So that is also a way I can share some elements from this experience. Fantastic, because the more examples we have, as I said to all of you ladies when I met you in the studio, the better. And yes, we asked four ladies today. That's exactly it. Coming to my second guest speaker, her name is Shifra Kahati. And she is founder of what I think is a fabulous name, a company called Jump The Hedges. Now she's a senior designer, she's a consultant, but the most important thing to know is that her company is a, well, it's a technical bag making company. It's based in Belfast, in the north of Ireland. And Shifra founded it after spending many years working in the fashion industry. So from that high end couture fashion to some technical sportswear with Adidas in Germany, actually, for any fans of Game of Thrones to costume breakdowns with that series in Belfast. But why? Why did she start this company? Well, she was unable to find a sustainable and ethically made bag for carrying a yoga mat. And thus, Jump The Hedges was born. Now, I know I'm going to ask you in a bit to expand on your business. But what did I miss there? What was that? Catalyst moment, when you thought, this is what I want to focus on. Thanks, Katrina, that was a great intro. Yeah, the sort of the catalyst moment was probably a moment in San Francisco, actually, when I was carrying my yoga mat out of a cafe, knocked a cup of coffee out of someone's hand and realized that I needed a better solution for carrying my yoga mat. And I decided to start making bags and couldn't find any sustainable materials. And then I started to look at maybe using recycled materials. And that's really where it all came about. I love that. And of course, it was in San Francisco. It couldn't have been anywhere sort of less, I don't know, appropriate, I think. The word San Francisco and yoga mat, that goes very, and coffee, of course, goes very, very well together. And of course, last, but by no means least, we're joined by Seil Philippe, who is manager of the Innovation Department of AEP. So that's the Portuguese Business Association, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. And she's a business mentor in startups and a business advisor for highly competitive companies. Now, very useful for us, and part of the reason she's in the studio is that she is the chair of the sector group on cultural and creative industries of the Enterprise Europe Network or EEN. So more on that in a moment, Seil is working very, very closely with industry, with education, with research entities. So that triple, what do you call it? The triple helix, helping acquire skills, helping spread skills, helping with this internationalization aspect, particularly support for innovation. And it's very important she's here because you, Seil, and Chifra, of course, you know each other. Tell us just briefly, why you two are in the studio together. Usually, she and I, from five years from now, we became clients and supporters, as you so well mentioned Katrina, but nowadays, she is a friend. She frees a client, EEN client coming from Ireland to Portugal with the supporter of EEN partner in Ireland. This is very, very good work because it's not about relationships. Absolutely. And your enthusiasm seriously jumps through, I think our listeners can feel that. So let's start with you again, Seifra. Let me just give you a moment to tell us a little bit more about Jump the Hedges so that we can understand more specifically why the support that you got from the EEN was so important. But let's start at the beginning. Tell us, tell us what did I not tell the audience? Well, thank you Katrina. You give a very concise overview of Jump the Hedges. So we run a sustainable design studio here in Belfast in the north of Ireland, creating bags from reclaimed materials, mainly truckter pollen, reclaimed leather, seatbelt parts, basically whatever I can get my hands on, amazing. That's been going on for about six or seven years now. And over the last 18 months, I've been developing a project which is basically the fashion equivalent of farm to debil, so it's farm to garment, trying to develop a garment that is transparent in its supply chain. So understanding where every part came from, I wanted to create a project that was fully transpired that had a full clear chain on where the start and end was. Very interesting. And you are both with the curve and ahead of the curve, I think, in terms of EU priorities and consumer priorities critically in terms of that transparency. There is a huge demand for that, as far as I were, a rising demand for that. Okay, let's leave that there just momentarily and of course, chip in when you like, because I'd like to allow Maver to elaborate on the blue factory. Now when I look at it online, I see it called the European reference for entrepreneurship. You know, you said you've got all these sites, any sort of ways you can pinpoint just two or three exactly how it helps creative entrepreneurs with their business development. Absolutely. So the blue factory was started in 2009 and I'm running it since 2011, so it's been it's been a while and from the beginning, my point was to say, okay, we have this school that is based in five countries in Europe. We can from the start have a mindset for entrepreneurs that are that is not nationally based, but that is Europeanly based. So of course, when they start, they start somewhere, but they already have this origin that they can nurture themselves from other origin. As we are in the business school, we are interested in supporting entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. Just clarify that for our listeners. If we call entrepreneurs, people who are able to innovate within an organization, entrepreneur as those one who create their own organization, and so through the blue factory, we had this European first, we had this also creativity taken in the sense that you have people from the creative industries that need to be business people and we have people from the business side that need to feel creativity within their companies. So we had this point of view of not clusterizing, but having the same programs, people from different industries so that you can have the same enrichment from countries in Europe and the same enrichments from different sectors in your own program. Okay, so let's just take a step back because I know that a lot of the listeners will be also here to see if we are going to identify some of the challenges that they might be experiencing. So let's just have a look at that. I'm going to come to you now, as CEO. And just two or three of the main challenges that you see that you live in terms of creative entrepreneurship today with those that you are providing support to. What's coming to you? What's being presented? We are all very cautious that we have a lot of information coming from all the sides. And to perverse business people don't have time to look at all the information. It's very relevant that we connect them with the relevant information, with the especially information on your legislation jargon, you know, and think the keyword is to connecting SMEs from different countries, from different sectors sometimes to making themselves accessible to work together to exchange ideas and to benefit from the innovation that each other are doing. Sometimes they are competitors, but they are collaborators as well, you know. But competitors can learn, can they not, from their peers? And it's a good, you know, it's a good barometer to boost you. So, okay, so that's clear. So it's challenges is like, oh my goodness, there's too much information. And sometimes there's just not enough of the right people. So I need synthesized information that's very customized. And I need to sort of dive right into that pool of my peers because it's going to help me expand. Just what resonates in that for you, Shifra? Well, from my bag perspective, the bag business, that's all manufactured here in Balfast. So it's very much stretch forward. But with regards to the Farmed Garmin Pro Sales, it's been much more challenging. And it is, I always find it kind of funny that the smallest businesses want, they have the highest demands, we want the lowest quantities, we want the low price, and we want the highest standards. So I think that factories probably get to see small businesses like me coming along. And very often, you don't even get a reply, maybe. But after five years now, really, back and forth to Portugal and building relationships, I have eventually found people. But that has been massively through the support of Sue and the team, you know, it's been using to just be brought to places. And the support has been huge and essential, really, to be honest. One thing just to make sure we're clear for me, but for the listeners, Farm to Garmin, give me an example of a farm to Garmin. What would that be? What would that Garmin be? Where does it start? So the Garmin, I've started with, I decided to start with the most iconic item in anyone's wardrobe, which is a t-shirt. So they farm to Garmin Pro Sales, and that would be me being able to tell the customer, this is where your cotton was grown, this is where your cotton was processed, this is where it was woven, and this is where it was stitched. Goodness me, do you know I sit here and I'm just jealous of your job. Well, let's just stick with that and ask Maver, because obviously you're there to provide lots and lots of support to entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes. What are you coming across as the challenges? And maybe just pinpoint a couple of the main barriers to accessing the market. In fact, I took a word from what Sales said just before, which is, she spoke about jargon. I think that's the main barrier, especially for creative industries and entrepreneurs, because those people, often they come from design backgrounds, from art backgrounds, they're not from the business backgrounds, and in the business, we have a lot of jargon. We have a lot of acronyms, we invent words, extremely complex, for a very common sense logic. And so the first thing is really, we have to stop having our jargon, or at least to explain it very clearly, and to stop making people afraid and having the impression that they don't know, because doing trade, doing business, it's a human capacity that's going back to the millennia. We know how it is. Okay, we don't need those complex. The second thing Sales said is about the mission that we have to identify the right contact efficiently. There's a word that we say in the French ecosystem, which is that usually 90% of the opportunities of resources for entrepreneurs are invisible, because of this very high complex organization. So we, as providers of resource and support, we need to be clear about what we can offer in this sense. The EU is doing a wonderful job, and we build on this at the Blue Factory to have this capacity as a European beager to flow people with our tagline and Blue Factory is opening ways for entrepreneurs. This is this idea of helping people to identify the right ways depending on what they are creating. I think the last point I would bring on the table is really this challenge to dissolve mental barriers. So we do each of us, we have mental barriers that can be either because we are trapped in our national vision of things, or because we are trapped in the education we had. And so to dissolve those mental barriers, I was in at the beginning, I think the best is to gather people who have those different view on the world, from their nations, from their competencies, and to enrich each other. And that's why one of our men's program at the Blue Factory is called the Start Program, and it's 100% online, 100% in English. And we can then gather people from many, many, many different origins, and that's a high value. And Europe is a great place for doing that. Thank you. And there you echo what CEO who I will come to now said it's all about relationships, it's all about people. I'm going to say I'm going to pick up on two things, eliminate the jargon, dissolve the mental barriers. It's been a bit of a teaser thus far. We keep saying enterprise Europe network, but I haven't let you say you expand upon it for those who don't know about it. So just say a few words about what it is, because it is fabulous. And then just a few words on how specifically that network, EEN, can help specifically creative entrepreneurs and SMEs. When we speak about all the things, the ideas that came on the table this morning, this is all about enterprise Europe network. But you can picture as strong the largest network that exists founded by, created by European Commission, to help specifically startups, scale apps, SMEs, to go abroad, to go to new markets. You can picture 1, 460 people, people just like me, just like Miwa, just like with clients, just like Shifra, in the 40 different countries, people that know each other, that are connected companies in Portugal, in Greece, in Italy, in Finland, in Norway, this work of connecting people, connecting companies for them to work together. That's at the heart of it, is it? Is that that's the gateway for business to innovate, to grow in the increase the competitiveness in Europe, while we are working in resilience, in sustainability, in access to finance, in all these areas that are crucial. And also to scale up, right? Yeah, basically you're helping cut through all the stuff. I think that the best one is to connect the right people with the right people, the right companies with the right companies. An example, you know, a Portuguese company went to Internet of Things, brokerage event in Barcelona, to get meetings, to present themselves. And we looked at the profiles that are in the platform to have these meetings. And we said to the Portuguese startup, "Please request a meeting with this Spanish protocol, they are talking for us, we have the same interest, it's not a good idea." We influence, they have a very good meeting, presenting themselves, and they decided to go together to Japan, because it's a very big market for them to go there. So the most important thing is to connect innovators, connect investors, connect people. And indeed, and that's a brilliant example left. Let me just, if I may flip back, because as I said, you have this collaboration, you and when I say you to Shifra. And it's very explicit, I think, and Shifra's already touched upon it. How you were connecting her with those Portuguese textile producers who were in that sector, just to articulate, so our listeners can understand how this fabulous EN program actually works for somebody on the ground. Why did you decide to address it enterprise Europe network? And how do you find your experience? I find my experience hugely positive. At one point Ireland was a manufacturing hub, and unfortunately, we'll longer have, and we've Little or no manufacturing facilities for clothing, but just with the scale the Portugal has we've not thinking of ours into that Like we don't have huge we've got small little kind of cottage industries But we don't have these functioning huge factories that supplied world basically for me It was just an opportunity to go to more of a professional level with my work and Just I was offered everything really so I arrived and Sue and her colleague Susanna both brought me to places that they felt would be suitable for me And I was able to discuss my project any language issues And Susanna were able to translate it and just from a small business perspective I think it's really important for people to recognize that if you are asking for kind of above and beyond things Maybe smaller quantities maybe different timelines I think it's important to get in front of people to put your face in front of people and for them to see you're serious about your project because If you just communicate via email It's never going to be taken seriously the only reason I've got to use this specific Intressable brick cotton is because I've been and they saw my enthusiasm But they're normally only supply huge quantities, but they saw my enthusiasm undecided to let me have like a one-off Fear for a smaller quantity. Thank you. And thank you so much for bringing to life. You know, it's all very well to say oh look Here's this support network, but it's so critical to actually hear from somebody who has used it and and and benefited Now I'm going to come back to you. We got the last sort of twilight minutes of this because I really want to keep our listeners with us But I touched upon this I said needs and skills, you know fall that entrepreneur Now I linked it Meva earlier to your comment when you said listen so many of the resources are invisible What do you identify when you're in front of all of this different myriad of creative people? What do you see as the main needs and skills for entrepreneurs? So the first thing for me it's really To welcome those creators and to tell them that everything is possible and for me that's something important because during the last 15 years there's been a lot of things done to push entrepreneurship and I think that's a great thing because today I at least I can see it from the students They consider creating their own company as a possibility as any other The issue now is that most of the entrepreneurs I meet are looking for recipes and way of achieving success And so there is this idea now that entrepreneurship. There's a way of doing that is The right one like a cookie cutter like one single way like one silver bullet and as as Institution that support entrepreneurs that Bring resources we need to tell them no there's no specific way of doing we are the one that needs to create this Open place where everything is possible in our case what we do is like anytime we Bring entrepreneurs as testimonials for to show models, we are sharing experiences of people who did it in a very very different way So you're freeing people up as well. You're freeing them up to have confidence and trust with you know That's like yeah, it is very important and then of course you still have hard skills to bring And those what we call hard skills with can be around And I know finance things sailing say marketing and all these and this can go roads, but it does to be free from any You know kind of predator mind model. Okay, so it's a it's interesting. It's a good balance to have and And then regarding the access to opportunities. I think first of all there is a new job That has been growing in the last years and that is going to rule which are the people who support entrepreneurs Yes, and and this is a rule that we have to be aware Understanding what other resources and to be able to redirect the people and to do this very very very specific much making Yes, almost a wedding That's nice. Yeah, to connect them with the right resources. You're most wedding planners. There you go Okay, I've heard that you you are using the word clients while it's a free program It's a free. Yes, and I think that's really important to emphasize in this podcast That's what you bring to entrepreneurs is for free because if you say gladiators, we No, thank you. It's too bad because it's it's amazing. What's what you with bringing so that's an excellent point Thank you. In fact, thank you for doing doing my job for me may be there because I should have I should have picked up on that Let me just stay with say you and then I'll come back to Shifra for a last word What resonated there needs and skills that that you identify? With accessing the single market just a couple of things that that these good listeners need to bear in mind We must keep in mind that when we today or when we speak about cultural integrative industries we are not speaking only about pure creates creatives or arts but This is this industrial ecosystem includes gaming includes architecture includes museum includes people that are In mind that they don't that they can be only creatives, but they must be businessmen In the in the market. We have a thematic group leading leading with these that Provides us with relevant information in no programs European programs and National programs in each country that the companies that we are supporting from all sectors of activity and our work as Meeve a mission. It's free of charge. Our water at the end is business support on your doorstep Yes, yes, I like that. Let's come to you, Shifra and you know You heard their needs and skills. Did you have all of those? Did you find all of those? I think the The opportunity that I've had with Portugal has been a really inchanger for me because it also was around Being taken seriously to like I remember a factory owner giving me a really in-depth tour of the factory And I kept thinking to myself the whole time. Does he realize how small I am like? Like he love Nike. I was thinking why is he taking so much care around, but it was probably because I was so enthusiastic and I think for me It's been taken seriously which has given me great confidence in my Business approach and development and I'm moving ahead with projects and then also just in something that Meeve was speaking about around like Perception and of entrepreneurs. I think it's really made me recognize that I had I was like I had a I had a perception that I wasn't aware of that An entrepreneur is a business man with a break. Yes, in a suit And so the whole process and the whole the relationships I've been in Portugal have let me recognize and see that no one entrepreneur comes in all shapes and forms and Protecting the creative entrepreneurs and the confidence that I have been given through the relationships that I've built have really helped me Develop my work and see that yes, I can be Holly Savemployed and have a successful business, but from a creative perspective. That's great I thank you such such an important point to make and again, you know, very much articulating from a very personal Perspective what Meeve was sort of headlining there in terms of yes coming in all shapes and sizes So with your permission ladies, I'm gonna bring this is there anything you didn't get to say if such importance that the listeners will be Cross or I can bring this to a close. I only want to say that This work is a lifestyle is Bachelet in life because it's about people. Oh, thank you, and I'm glad that you chipped in with that because you have been three utterly Delightful people. Thank you so much for being part of this episode. Let me underscore a huge warm thanks to my three Wonderful speakers. Don't forget to our listeners. You can listen to all the pulse podcast episodes on the European Commission So DG grows website and you can get inspired to be a Shifra here in this case to create to innovate and to benefit From an array of EU support. Sorry. I felt like I just jumped over you Meeve and say you but you are all fabulous Entrepreneurs and of course to our listeners if you like what you've heard if you like what you're here Please don't hesitate to leave us a review and Importantly share an episode or two with your colleagues your contacts your friends and Of course for more information you can find us on social media there You can stay updated on all the latest trends and developments. So that's it from me your host Katrina Cicl Until next time feel the pulse