Inclusive and Social Entrepreneurship
The goal is to accelerate an eco-systemic change by providing social and under-represented entrepreneurs with advanced business support services, incubation programmes and networks that allows these entrepreneurs to develop novel & sustainable businesses.
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (CoP)
LIAISE has cooperation at its core. This works through international Communities of Practice (CoP) that will research and co-design the best practices through three approaches:
01. As a research centre to create best practices
02. As an observatory to monitor inclusive entrepreneurship programmes
03. As a thinking lab to explore the policy dimension.
FOR WHO?
For entrepreneurs that are passed the idea stage and want to grow their business. The LIAISE project works with a thematic CoP targeting to establish the needs for 5 distinct groups: Women, migrants/refugees, people with disabilities, youth (age 18-29) & seniors (age 65+).
WOMEN CoP
Impact Hub Amsterdam is involved specifically in the Women CoP, incorporating best practices and activities within incubation programmes to deliver a gender inclusive entrepreneur support programme and increase the overall visibility, credibility, and representation of women entrepreneurs.
We are additionally working on increasing the visibility of female entrepreneurs through a series of interviews on social platforms. Read their stories here:
Q.What made you decide against working for another company and starting your own?
My mother and my sister are both classical pianists and as long as I remember, I‘ve always been inspired by the way they filled their lives with something they are truly passionate about. Making music on their own terms: I would do the same when I would grow older.
Q.How did you acquire the needed skills and knowledge to build up your business?
Absorbing as much knowledge as I can, wherever and whenever I am. Watching endless Youtube tutorials, doing an internship after graduating or applying for (women) startup competitions and excelerators such as the Boost je Buurt from Amsterdam Impact.
Q.What are your goals for the future of your business?
There’s so much I still want to accomplish: I love fantasizing about the future. For Off-Track, I hope to be able to contribute to people’s lives all over the world by creating a moment of rest and happiness in their day. But first, launching the off-Track app this Summer in Amsterdam!
Q. What would you recommend to other female entrepreneurs who want to start their own business on how to get their business started?
Gather likeminded female entrepreneurs around you. Plus share your idea with them! You will be surprised how many people want to help you.
Q. What is your life motto? Would you say it can be related to your position as an entrepreneur?
“I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.” Pippi Longstocking.
I think we could all canal our inner Pippi Longstocking more. But especially as an entrepreneur it can be really helpful. Being an entrepreneur means you need to be bold, make a lot of decisions and stand for what you believe in. So when in doubt “I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.”
Q. Can you please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
I am Hanna Sundermeier from Germany, I am currently working on the Good Registry, it is an app to make it easier for people to accept help.
Q. How would you describe being an entrepreneur in 3 words?
Exciting, challenging, connecting!
Especially when you start, there is a lot of support coming from anywhere and people are thinking along. The moment you start telling people about your idea, they immediately start brainstorming. Everybody wants to contribute and is really excited about connecting you to others. I think that this kind of enthusiasm might be unique to social entrepreneurship.
Q. What does a normal week look like for you?
One thing I learned is whatever happens, I take at least 2 days per week off. Because some people say as an entrepreneur you have to work 80 otherwise you won’t make it, so If I work 80 hours I am not very productive anymore.
Q. What do you think would make more women start their own business?
If you have an idea, just start, even if you don’t know how or if you don’t have the money to start it or it doesn’t look in your mind yet how you want it; start spreading around the fact that you started and just continue! So many things along the way go wrong and there are so many challenges, but the only way to go through is to keep believing in yourself and just continue finding a way.
Q. What is your life motto? Would you say it can be related to your position as an entrepreneur?
Being clear is being kind, and being unclear is being unkind./ Clarity is friendly and unclarity is unfriendly. – Brenée Brown
Q. How did you come up with the idea to start Mimo Cookies?
During the pandemic I found this recipe for vegan chocolate chip cookies from a bakery in New York. I posted on Facebook that I am selling vegan cookies package free and I had so many people ordering that I was cycling all around Amsterdam. For a university course, I started writing a business plan with 5 other people on my idea about this cookie company. We were thinking about how we can get these cookies fresher to the end consumer. Finally, the idea of pre-portioned, frozen, ready to bake cookies for retail stores.
Q. What has been your biggest challenge when starting Mimo Cookies?
Practically speaking, the production process has been one of the biggest challenges because I went from a very small scale to trying to do something on a very large scale. So, I had to change the production method. Now, we produce in a production facility and we share it with another food startup company.
PARTNERS & APPROACH
LIAISE is funded by the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) under the initiative of the Impact Hub network, The European Business and Innovation Centre Network (EBN) and the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA).
Together with these project partners, we aim to create the Better Incubation Toolkit, a versatile kit for further dissemination of the capacity building process within the sector.
IMPACT HUB & INCLUSIVITY
Find the latest updates, events and publications from our inclusivity ecosystem here