Entrepreneurial ideas to create jobs

The INESC TEC Unit, which already had a significant number of nationally and internationally renowned companies, once again confirms its excellence and expertise in the area of technology-based company/business pre-incubation.

Valuing ideas is investing in an innovative future

Over the last three years, the activity at LET-In was supported by three major projects – the TEC-Empreende and the PINC. UITT has supported a total of 12 business projects as part of the TEC-Empreende – Technological Entrepreneurship Programme. Approved within the O.N. 2 Programme – Support Systems for Science and Technology Parks and Technology-based Company Incubators, the TEC-Empreende brought together INESC TEC and ANJE (the National Association of Young Entrepreneurs) as partners. A total of 18 projects were selected as part of TEC-Empreende’s competition Ideamove, which received 87 applications. From these, 12 projects were then chosen and supported for two years, after which the six projects with the highest potential were incubated.  

PINC (UPTEC’s Cluster of Creative Industries) on the other hand has been welcoming and supporting since 2010, together with INESC TEC, companies working fundamentally in the areas of design, audio-visual, communication, architecture, visual arts, performing arts and editing. In this programme, INESC TEC stood out for its coaching component, having supported a total of 17 companies developing new products (incubated at UPTEC TEC and UPTEC PINC) and 21 projects in the proof of concept stage. Supporting these innovative tasks was a task that was defined in the applications, and according to Alexandra Xavier, manager of UITT and responsible for the project at INESC TEC, the goal was above all to promote “the realisation of projects, to walk with the promoters and materialise something, instead of just sticking with the idea”, the researcher explains.

“Initially [the support] is based on coaching. What we do is work with the promoters on the questions that are critical to assess an idea”, reveals Alexandra Xavier. “Basically we give them a set of clues so that they can seek information on their own and try to validate the business opportunity as much as possible: validating the concept and trying to understand the problem at hand”. This is a “creative exercise to create more value for the idea/solution”, the manager adds. After trying to understand the problem and to develop the concept, the next step is learning how to implement it, “and for that it is important to be familiarised with the existing programmes, and to know which technological partners and what kind of client/consumer we should add to the project so to as to be able to validate things constantly”, adds Alexandra Xavier. According to the researcher, “the coaching work promotes joint learning and its dynamic is all about finding partners and contacts”. 

Creating jobs is an asset

More important than the idea in pre-incubated projects is the promoter. This happens “because the idea undergoes many changes when developing a project as a business project. Therefore, it is important to understand if the promoters have the capacity, the motivation and the commitment to go forward with the project”, the researcher explains. “And these projects are innovative not only because of the attitude of the promoters, but also because of the products and services that they want to implement. TOP Research [mobile apps; TEC-Empreende], for instance, developed an app like no other on the market and the promoters are extremely motivated and committed to that project”, she reveals. And she adds: “with the results that they have achieved we were also able to learn new dynamics, for instance, how the apps market operates”. “Grabmark (TEC-Empreende) is another interesting case. This is a work of perseverance since even though they found a few obstacles along the way they were able to succeed because they found the right partners at the right time”, she adds, also highlighting Kognit, a company that develops science toys. This is a project “that is innovative not only because of its approach to materials, but also in educational terms and in the way the toy can be explored”.

“All these projects are valuable; they are not disruptive technologically, but they all try to understand a market need and provide a solution that creates value and is innovative”, the manager guarantees. For Alexandra Xavier, supporting these ideas is an investment in the future. This is “a way of creating new market dynamics, and above all creating jobs. Research studies have proved that start-ups are the main engines of job creation”, she reveals. The TEC-Empreende was concluded on 28 May with a conference that took place at the Casa da Música, in Porto, Portugal, which welcomed Howard E. Aldrich of the University of North Carolina (USA), and the goal at this conference was precisely to discuss the role of start-ups in job creation.  

Some of the examples supported by the PINC include FYI (proximity marketing solutions; incubated at UPTEC PINC), 3Decide (3D technology services; incubated at UPTEC PINC), OSTV (creator of the Canal180, the first TV channel dedicated to culture and creativity), Power Mill (renewable energies; moved on to the second stage of the Acredita Portugal competition), DreamScanner (travel platform), Minimobil (service to rent mobility support equipment; moved on to the second stage of the IUP25K competition), Som à Letra and Engenho de Ideias (digital media; incubated UPTEC PINC), IBEEN (a t-shirt brand based on a co-creation platform; pre-incubated), or Webankor (e-commerce platform www.bewarket.com, based on Facebook, that was at Silicon Valley, in the United States, for three months), among others.

Acknowledging potential adding credibility

Created in 2007, the LET-In already has a vast number of incubated companies that succeeded nationally and internationally. In its first years of existence, the service provided by INESC TEC had already incubated five companies: Tomorrow Options (medical solutions), AUDOLICI (audio equipment), NextToYou (network engineering solutions), SmartWatt (energy efficiency) and Process Net (business process management). Before that, UITT had already incubated Fibersensing (advanced monitoring systems based on optical fibre sensors) and Xarevision (digital signage and corporate TV). But the numbers go on. Between 2008 and 2013, the LET-In supervised a total of 68 projects and 39 companies.  

“Fundamentally, I think that over the last six years we have contributed to a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship with the thousands of projects that we receive for assessment”, Alexandra Xavier reveals. Furthermore, “I think we have managed to make ideas come true. This only works if there is a continuous coaching at the pace of the promoters and the nature of the projects; this rhythm is not imposed by us”, the researcher explains.

Supporting researchers and project promoters to value knowledge and technology, and to develop ideas and viability studies, is the main goal of the LET-in, always valuing people, organisations and knowledge. For its reputation and experience in the fields of innovation and technology transfer, INESC TEC adds credibility to companies, a key factor for technology-based start-ups. Acknowledging the potential of materialising an idea, INESC TEC plays a fundamental role while supervising companies and watching them grow, allowing them to become stronger institutionally. By providing this support to technology-based projects, INESC TEC confirms its strategic position as an interface and market-oriented institute.

The promoters speak

• Statement by CleanSweep (finalist of the TEC-Empreende)

“Participating in the TEC-Empreende made it possible for us to acquire a set of skills that are essential to start an entrepreneurial project. We believe that the different workshops of the programme, as well as the interaction with other entrepreneurs, are assets that we’ll certainly be using in this project, and in other projects we already have in mind. (Luís Pinto, Ricardo Greenfield, Hugo Sousa Pinto)

• Statement by TOP Research (finalist of the TEC-Empreende)

“The project-company TOP Research started with an idea submitted to the Ideamove/TEC-Empreende, where we were able to turn our idea into a business plan, create a strategy to develop products, form a company and find funding sources. 

The initial idea has evolved considerably during the first year of the start-up, and the strategic consulting support provided by INESC TEC has been extremely important for our evolution.

INESC TEC was also an active consultant in an application we submitted to the NSRF, helping us to develop a portfolio of apps for academic productivity. This application would have been impossible without the tireless guidance and support of INESC TEC”. (Nelson Pereira)  

• Statement by JoinIT (finalist of the TEC-Empreende)

“The JoinIT is a project by Join-Architects, a finalist of the Ideamove/TEC-Empreende, a technological entrepreneurship programme promoted by ANJE and INESC TEC.

The support provided by both institutions was fundamental for us to mature our idea. The guidance provided by outstanding professionals was key to developing the project, not only in terms of the product itself, but also when it came to defining the structure to develop that project. Because of this guidance, we became aware of a set of business tools that we believe to be the most important thing we learned in the Ideamove.” (João Almeida e Silva)

• Statement by Grabmark (finalist of the TEC-Empreende, incubated in PINC)

“Participating in the TEC-Empreende was very important, especially the focus on defining the business model.  Because the team behind this project is entirely made up of engineers trained at FEUP, the mentoring provided as part of the TEC-Empreende, in which Professor Alexandra Xavier played a fundamental role, was important to fill in some gaps and to give a more coherent approach to the business plan.” (Pedro Neves)

• Statement by Kognit (finalist of the TEC-Empreende)

The support provided by the INESC TEC team (Alexandra Xavier and Andreia Passos) as part of the TEC-Empreende was fundamental for us to consolidate our idea and start our project. Our idea has been objectively and assertively assessed throughout the different coaching sessions, allowing us to improve on some weaker points, which made our project more robust.

Through INESC TEC and its associated enterprises we were also able to find some partners that are complementary to our work and will help us enter the market. We can’t help but mentioning the encouraging words and support we have received. Structures such as INESC TEC are fundamental to support entrepreneurs so that they can develop their ideas and business projects, and thus reduce the "early mortality" that is so common in the world of start-ups.” (Rudolf Appelt and Nuno Rocha)

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this article are associated with the following partner institutions: INESC Porto and FEUP.