MIETE-BLOG

Francisco Costa is the entrepreneur behind tymr. He holds a Master in Innovation and Technological Entrepreneurship and a degree in Information Systems and Technologies. Passionate about technology and business models, converted Patrulha.TV (a low-cost tech podcast) into a TV show.

MIETE-BLOG: Francisco, with our renewed thanks for your availability to have this interview with us, we would like to go back some years. Can you disclose your motivation to join our Master Program?

Francisco Costa: Thanks for this opportunity to share our project.
The motivation to join MIETE started to grow in me, at a specific moment in my life, where I wasn’t fulfilled with my professional job and felt the need to embrace bigger and exciting challenges. At that time, and after searching a few months for something that could help me grow in a new adventure, MIETE was the most complete program, that covered a wider range of areas such as technological business, innovation management, financial & legal, creativity & marketing and also in the development of personal skills such as ethics, leadership and communication.

MIETE-BLOG: tymr.com was launched in January 2012. Can you let us know the story of how this idea emerged? Which market need do you want to address with your innovative social network?

Francisco Costa: The idea started to develop a few years before when I only knew about a tech event a few days before it happen. At the time I started to think that there should be a catalog that covered different types of events so people could know about them before they happen.
After lots of thinking and studying we came up with the idea of a social service that can help people discover, plan and promote their events.
In the development process, we made successive releases of the prototype website so that people could use and give us some feedback. This was a great approach that enabled the service fine tuning.
We’ve also integrated a marketplace to target professional events such as conferences or music festivals. We intend to offer a variety of solutions, to help professional organizers, efficiently manage their events. At the time, we are starting with an innovative ticketing service that facilitate the process of registrations, selling and check-in validation.

MIETE-BLOG: Which role did MIETE play in the whole process? Was MIETE dynamics and training providing the right background as you developed your work?

Francisco Costa: I attended MIETE with thirst for knowledge and a deep desire of opening a web business. Because MIETE is very flexible program, I believe that is a great opportunity for students to focus their training according to their needs, but also the teaching quality and the high standards evaluation, play important roles in all this process.
MIETE acted as a supportive and integrated backup in my later decision of building this business.
I like to think of it as the best warm up you can get, before running the real marathon. It trains your mental resilience and simulate lots of adversities that entrepreneurs find along the way.

MIETE-BLOG: What is your estimated growth rate and how is it progressing as you compare to you expectations? The network effect is critical in the launching of these social networks?

Francisco Costa: Managing expectations is a big deal when you are starting a company since you have a whole world of decisions, fears and uncertainties ahead of you. Everything depends on a numerous amount of unpredictable factors, and the more innovative or disruptive a solution is, the harder it gets to approach dynamic markets, so they can perceive your value proposition.
At the end of the day, having big expectations is what keeps you motivated, but you have to periodically evaluate some aspects so you can validate your learning or pivoting fast your business development. Build small prototypes, measuring the results and learning from them can be a great way to find your sweet spot.
Since we live in a world were people move fast, its critical to have a long term plan for meeting with relevant players in every areas of any business. Attending conferences or niche meetups do have a big influence in how things evolve. Its during these events you get to know your partners or allies and your possible future clients. I always like to remember these quotes: “It’s not what you know, but who you know” and “Eighty percent of success is showing up” (Woody Allen).

MIETE-BLOG: When people talk about Internet businesses and social networks, a typical question is, how do they pay their bills? Can you disclose your business model? If not, can you give us a hint of the expected sustainability of your business?

Francisco Costa: There are two main options here.
One is to develop software as a service (SaaS) were your solution kills some users pain and you charge them for it. It’s the ancient trading rule were people pay for something they need.
The other is to build platforms for interactions or transactions, within a specific business area. Its more difficult and time consuming to develop and may not be very attractive to investments on early stages, but since this efforts can produce comprehensive and aggregated results, they intend to be more valuable and sustainable in the long term, since you they are difficult to replicate and you keep away some competition.
At tymr we are always developing our business model and we are still in the process of validating it. We try to find a mix between the two options above: the first to generate revenue and the second to become influent. We also plan to evaluate the publicity market in a near future, since it plays a critical role in the events industry.

tymr links:
Site: http://tymr.com
Blog: http://tymr.com/blog
Facebook
Twitter
Vimeo
Video do Pitch
Vídeo Participação no Beta-Start

In September 2010 the MIETE introduces it its curricula the topic of Theatrical Improvisation. The relationship between the ability to improvise and the propensity for entrepreneurship is known and in this interview we talk the two teachers of MIETE Creativity Course: Inês Guedes de Oliveira, a professor at the U. Aveiro,, and Victor Briga, trainer of creativity and communication through theatre improvisation techniques. We are most thankful to both for this interview.

MIETE-BLOG: This was, for both, a new experience to lecture Creativity and Improvisation in an Entrepreneurship Programme. How important is it, for our students to master the techniques taught in this course?
Inês Guedes Oliveira: Creativity is a human trait. It cannot be taught, but, as with intelligence, Creativity is likely to be developed and enhanced. There is no single definition for creativity. Each author defines it in different ways according to his own background. There is, however, a consensus in accepting that creativity is multifaceted and that in itself comprises many other abilities such as imagination, originality, fantasy, inventiveness, lateral thinking, humour, playfulness, and others. Fostering creativity is promoting these and other capabilities that each of us has within him or herself, and that is more or less developed.

The most important thing for me when I help someone to develop their creative abilities is to promote a creative behaviour that I would define as an attitude of questioning, of critical observation and of being open to new situations. It is about helping each one of us to get rid of stereotypes and locks. It is about finding new approaches and new perspectives to look at the issues we have at hand. It is about developing the capabilities inherent to being creative.

In this sense, working on the creative skills or the creative attitude with someone who wants to be an entrepreneur is, for sure, an important piece of the puzzle. This was in our minds when we structured the course sylabus: to create challenging strategies seeking a variety of answers, always assisted by different supporting creative techniques.

Vítor Briga: Einstein said that in moments of crisis, imagination is more important than knowledge. I believe this sentence portrays extremely well the need to train our entrepreneurs’ creative skills, as our market no longer accepts “more of the same”; it wishes to be surprised with new products, new services, and new communicational approaches.
Whilst innovation is widely spoken about, one often forgets that we cannot have innovation without creativity. In fact, although we are all creative beings, studies have shown that over time, and when reaching a certain age, this creativity becomes dormant with the need to adapt socially and to live up to the expectations of teachers, parents, and society as a whole. Following the norm is easier than having to face the consequences of rejection or of the mistakes which may occur when being creative.

In an article published in the Harvard Business Review, called “The Innovator’s ADN”, Hal B. Gregersen et al studied the habits of 25 businessmen and surveyed more than 3000 executives and 500 individuals who had set up innovative companies or had launched products which had made a difference in the market. The findings showed that the innovative businessmen tended to look at the world “outside the box”; they readily and eagerly make new acquaintances and participate in experiences; they have boundless curiosity, even when their questions seem to be illogical, and they have the most varied of social relationships.

In other words, observing, questioning, associating, experimenting, and establishing relationships with others are the five qualities that make up the personality of people who have set up innovative companies, such as Steve Jobs, from Apple.
However, the most extraordinary thing about this study is the findings that these very same qualities are the ones we can find in a four-year old child! Therefore, training creative skills is about awakening the “rebel” in adults, awakening the spontaneity and freedom they had as children, and giving them the tools to create value with those ideas, transforming them into innovation.

MIETE-BLOG: The Creativity Course exists in MIETE since 2007, and Creativity lectures exist in MIETE since the very beginning in 2004. The Innovation was the introduction of “Improvisation”. Which behaviour dimensions are worked with our students in this course and what was the value brought in by introducing “Improvisation”.

Inês Guedes Oliveira: Creativity can be analysed and developed as a process and as product. To speak about the process is to talk about the inherent capabilities of the human being. To speak about the product is to talk about something that goes beyond the your inner self and expose yourself to others.

Another issue of major importance in the development of creativity is to make each one capable of responding, “here and now”, to any situation they face in a new and innovative way. In this sense, the ability to improvise and to communicate must go hand in hand with creativity. It is not enough to have different ideas, one must know how to convey those ideas to others in a confident and self-assured way.

Thus, the improvisation that was introduced in this course has brought, in my opinion, added value to the development of creative attitude. It allowed each student to have the training needed to deal with unforeseen situations and to know how to respond and communicate in an original way and safely.

Vítor Briga: We do not learn how to improvise at school, however, the work market demands a constant adaptation to change; it demands a great attention to reality, to know how to make decisions based on opportunities which emerge at every moment, to abandon plans when they are no longer useful. Theatre improvisation techniques help our entrepreneurs to develop, among others, their skills in:
- Being attentive and focused on the “Here and Now”, saying yes to the opportunities that come up;
- Listening and observing others without bias;
- Trusting that the team will be able to solve a certain problem in a given time;
- Having spontaneous, intuitive, useful and creative ideas;
- Learning that one cannot control everything;
- Adapting to different realities;
- Thinking quickly and acting under pressure.

I believe that including theatrical Improvisation in a Business Master’s is an extraordinary innovation, and an example that should be followed in degrees of other areas, as it is a skill needed to be excellent in any activity of the world today.

MIETE-BLOG: I would conclude by thanking, again, your most generous contribution for this interview. This MIETE evolution follows the trend of World Class Entrepreneurship and Business Schools such as the Babson College in the USA ranked in Top Schools in Entrepreneurship.

O Eng. Manuel Aroso, Docente no MIETE, acaba de ser nomeado para coordenador da Delegação da Zona Norte da APEE- Associação Portuguesa de ética Empresarial. Este facto, que muito nos honra, é a motivação para esta breve conversa com o Engº Mário Parra da Silva, Presidente da APEE, e o Engº Manuel Aroso.

MIETE-BLOG: Muito obrigado pela disponibilidade para esta troca de impressões. Qual a missão da APEE- Associação Portuguesa de ética Empresarial?

Mário Passa da Silva: A Missão da APEE é o de promover a Ética e a Responsabilidade Social nas empresas e outras organizações, de modo a estimular a correspondente definição e implementação de políticas e modelos de governo organizacional visando o acréscimo de competitividade e rentabilidade através de boas práticas de gestão no quadro da sustentabilidade humana, ambiental e económica do modelo de desenvolvimento adoptado.

MIETE-BLOG: Qual a importância da Ética e da Responsabilidade Social para o tecido empresarial português neste mundo tão globalizado?

Mário Passa da Silva: O velho modelo económico, onde a finalidade absoluta das empresas era o lucro, independente da forma como o mesmo era gerado, ruiu essencialmente pelo facto de falta de ética. A actual crise, leva a que pressão da opinião pública que determina uma nova era no comportamento das organizações: as pessoas querem mais garantias no plano da sustentabilidade ambiental e do respeito pela dimensão humana de qualquer projecto económico. Para mais, a Empresa adquiriu na nossa sociedade responsabilidades que implicam não só o seu direito ao lucro mas o seu “dever” de manter estabilidade e crescimento que garantam o emprego e o negócio dos seus vários “stakeholders”.

MIETE-BLOG: Quais as actividades previstas para a Delegação no Norte da APEE?

Manuel Aroso: A delegação Norte não terá um plano de actividades autónomo, pelo que a sua principal actividade será a dinamização das actividades da APEE nesta região e aproximar a APEE do tecido empresarial no Norte. Estão previstas diversas actividades de sensibilização e de formação nas áreas da Ética e da Responsabilidade Social.

MIETE-BLOG: Como prevê a intervenção da APEE junto dos novos empreendedores, nomeadamente os estudantes do MIETE?

Manuel Aroso: Como referiu o Eng Mário Passa da Silva o novo paradigma económico passará a dar importância aos aspectos da Ética e da Responsabilidade Social das Empresas. Os jovens são sem dúvidas muito exigentes e penso que mais receptivos a estes aspectos. A APEE está disponível, como já acontece com outras instituições de ensino, a, em conjunto com o MIETE, divulgar junto dos novos empreendedores estas temáticas. Não me refiro apenas a divulgar o referencial normativo, mas igualmente os manifestos das Nações Unidas, como o “Manifesto Ética Global para a Economia”. Pensamos que esta será sem dúvida a melhor forma de os sensibilizar para esta problemática. que será a diferenciadora nesta novo modelo para a economia mundial, onde a relação com os “stakeholders” será cada vez mais importante.