“How do we make the needle move?”
This is the question we asked ourselves within my group of 6 classmates, when we met for the first time with the founders of Bloomio startup last January. As part of the entrepreneurship stream within the IMD MBA, the 90 of us are divided into 15 teams of six diverse individuals and paired with a startup with which they have the exciting opportunity to make a lasting contribution. That day, we drew a compass on top of the whiteboard in our study room, the needle of the compass representing the impact we wanted to make on this real business venture.
Let’s make it move!
Bloomio (www.bloomio.ch) is a crowd funding platform aiming at disrupting the traditional fundraising model for startups by enabling individual investors to tap into the venture capital world with an entry ticket smaller than the price of a meal in a good restaurant in Lausanne. You read right, disrupting, nothing less.
To rise the challenge even higher, the startup leverages on the blockchain technology to enhance and secure its financial transactions, drawing on the strength of the country’s passion for cryptocurrencies. As a matter of fact, Switzerland has emerged over these past years as a major ICO hub, and is, together with US, the country leader in digital coin offering. This unique environment, consisting of rich investors and blockchain specialists, and the openness of Swiss regulators to business innovation, has made the country a growing swarm of startups willing to disrupt the way people invest their money. Bloomio is at the center of this attention and has set its headquarters in Zug, the famous crypto valley which is the spearhead of the country’s offensive in digital currencies. The founders, Max, Emile and Alexey, who met during their executive MBA in IMD two years ago, possess respectively an expertise in fundraising and scaling startup teams, a strong experience in banking, and a priceless knowledge in cybersecurity and blockchain technology.
To make the needle move, we are already putting into practice the skills and competences we are acquiring every day in the MBA curriculum. Whether it’s about market segmentation, syndication in the venture capitalist world, or product differentiation in order to acquire a competitive advantage, we are learning while doing. On top of that, two months of intense group work and assignments allows us now to leverage on our strengths and skills within the team. Our team competences range from business analytics applied to marketing in FMCG, accounting in real estate in a fast-changing market as Hong-Kong could be, leading engineering and marketing in a consumer product company, running a family business in Brazil, contracts negotiation for the global healthcare industry in Lausanne, and managing R&D projects in renewable energies between Paris and San Jose in the bay area.
Our goal with Bloomio is to help the company burgeon and take a decisive direction towards sustainability. During the last month, we crunched a lot of data in identifying the market segments and quantifying the untapped area where we can can find the “sweet spot”. Now we are bracing ourselves before going on the field, to discuss with investors and business angels, and refining the value proposition of Bloomio.
The deliverables are well defined and under execution, and the team, on both Bloomio side and our side, is committed more than ever. Let’s move that needle!
Michel
The Bloomio team from left to right: Neharika, Adriano, Michel, Cyril, Matteo, Francesco (Bloomio), Emile (Bloomio), and Saba
https://www.bloomio.com
