Free events coming up, and an interview with Olga Kirillova
This free newsletter has information about community events in Lisbon, plus an interview with Olga Kirillova, Founder of Open Coffee Ericeira and mettaCOllective Ericeira We now have 1657 subscribers. If you want to help with the project or contribute content, please contact me. If you want to reach my audience with an announcement about a project of interest to them. Please get in touch.
Tuesday May 30th
Open Coffee Lisbon #15 @ Startup Lisboa , 9:30 to 11:30 AM at Startup Lisboa
Open Coffee is a friendly informal networking event for entrepreneurs, professionals, locals, guests, people in the startup community, and students in Lisbon.
Your host for our May event will be Richard Lucas, the Founder of Open Coffee Lisbon. Big thanks to our volunteers, Carla, Lawrence, Dhara and Olga.
You may find a mentor, investor, client, co founder, employer, vendor, inspiration or a friend.
Sign up and details here
Tuesday, May 30
Lisbon Newcomers Welcome Club - #15 @ Titanic 6:00-8:30 PM
Signup and details here and here hosted by Richard Lucas, Founder, That’s me.
This "Lisbon Newcomers Welcome Club" gathering is for people who are new to Lisbon or want to welcome them, and increase their number of connections. The first meetup was held November 2021 and since we have welcomed 1180+ people to these events. Each event creates new bonds between newcomers to Lisbon and those who have been here for a while in a simple, fun, yet effective way.
Full details of both events are at the end of this newsletter if you want more details. Inclusive, tolerant and introvert friendly - we welcome all who welcome all.Friday,
Friday June 2, 2023
Open Coffee Ericeira launch @at 10:00 AM R. do Norte 16 · Ericeira
Open Coffee Ericeira is a friendly informal networking event for entrepreneurs, professionals, locals, guests, and people in the startup community in Ericeira.
Your hosts for our June event will be Olga Kirillova, Carsten Pfisterer, and Richard Lucas, the Founder of Open Coffee Lisbon.
Sign up here https://www.meetup.com/open-coffee-lisbon/events/293767377
Interview with Olga Kirillova, Founder of Open Coffee Ericeira and mettaCOllective Ericeira
Richard: Please introduce yourself
Olga: I’m Olga, Olgi (my german friends think it sounds cuter), The OG (“the original gangsta”, as my team used to call me when i worked for adidas Originals:)). I’m an entrepreneur, a founder and a CMO of mettaCOaching, a coaching & consulting business that we’ve been building in the last 3 years with my husband and co-founder.
Before starting my own business I spent over a decade in business across Marketing, Business Strategy, E-com & Sales in Fortune500 companies, managing up to $2bn businesses. Now I help lifestyle entrepreneurs to start and grow their purpose-driven businesses from $0 to $100K, as well as supporting tech startup founders with stress management and productivity (mettaCOaching is an official partner of startup Lisboa and Build Up Labs Studio & Incubator).
I’m also a mom of 2 beautiful girls (7 yo & 3 yo), a neuroscience nerd, a wanna be surfer, and a lover of fine arts. I’m fascinated by humans, their brain, emotions, and behaviors and i truly believe that our human experience in our physical body is aaaaawwwesome!:)
Richard: What is the vision for Open Coffee Ericeira and mettaCOllective Ericeira, Why are you attracted to this type of community building?
Olga: There are many digital nomads, freelancers, and lifestyle entrepreneurs in Ericeira, especially mindfulness professionals (yoga teachers, breathwork practitioners, meditation teachers, etc) and creatives. However, the community seems fractioned and doesn’t use synergy in building businesses by utilising the connections in local community. On top, Lisbon, that is just 30 min away, is full of tech startup founders, but these two worlds don’t mix somehow. So the idea is to 1. unite and use the synergy of entrepreneurs locally to support each other in growing our businesses through partnerships 2.bring together the more spiritual world of entrepreneurs in Ericeira with business savvy tech founders in Lisbon (to learn and benefit from each other). I believe that it’s much easier to build new things and innovate together, rather than on our own. We’re 7bn people on earth, we don’t need to struggle in isolation or figure out things by ourselves that others probably have already figured out.
Richard: What are you doing/planning? What problems are you aiming to address?
Olga: One of our community members in mettaCOllective (that’s how we call the community part of our business) helped us to build a platform, where all community members have their profiles. So we can refer clients to each other, find partners, mentors, provide each other with standard discounts on our services within the community. This way we all can benefit from being part of this community. Open Coffee is a great platform to meet each other monthly, ask for support, and also welcome newcomers to our community.
We’re working on a festival, or, potentially, series of mini-festivals that are organised by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to bring together the entrepreneurs of Ericeira and Lisbon.
Generally, we’d love a part of our business to become a business incubator for lifestyle entrepreneurs going forward, as those businesses don’t get into traditional incubators & accelerators (as they mostly don’t want to become unicorns:)).
Richard: Who else is involved in this project?
Olga: My life and business partner Carsten. Nick, the owner of The Base Cowork, who is supporting us with the space and free breakfast and coffee for the meetup. We’re also planning to recruit more volunteers from the community.
Richard: How is it better/different from existing ways for people to get together in Ericeira?
Olga: It’s focused on people and helping them to get support they need in their business. The “stage” exists for them, not for speakers or experts. Open Coffee is a no bs format, where people can actually benefit from a networking format of the event, because it gives a great possibility for people to connect exactly with the partners/clients/mentors they seek.
Richard: What are the main challenges?
Olga: Ericeira is a laid back community with a chill “surfers” vibe. People are less focused on business aspects of running their businesses and more on the lifestyle they want to experience. So it’s less of a “get it done” mentality here. People might prioritise going surfing if it’s a nice swell, rather than coming to a business breakfast:) The community needs a bit of action-oriented vibe, more tech and business savvy entrepreneurs from Lisbon coming in to bring some fresh energy. Doesn’t need to be rigid 9nobody wants a burnout), but it would definitely benefit people here in terms of gaining stability in their businesses.
Richard: For Open Coffee Ericeira and mettaCOllective Ericeira to work, you need to have promise value and attract people who contribute value in parallel. Is it easy to overcome the Chicken & Egg problem, and bring on board by standers who are waiting to see what it is like before they commit or get interested?
Olga: I believe it’s always a matter of finding a win-win. As long as people see and understand how they can benefit from being a part of the community, they will be engaged. Open Coffee is a great format, cuz it’s focused on solving people’s problems, not just listening to another speaker. That’s a massive win for everyone in the community. Ensuring it’s a safe space with a lot of support is important too. And, a free breakfast might overweigh the good surf for a day:-P
So far we’ve experienced a lot of support and engagement actually. So i believe it won’t be a challenge going forward to have people on board.
Richard: What will you regard as a success?
Olga: People finding partners, mentors and clients to grow their businesses. Majority of businesses here are businesses for good. It’s an honor to act as a catalyst for growth for these businesses. They need more revenues, more power in voicing their opinions, and in building a different economy. I want to be known as someone who helped founders build businesses with massive positive impact socially or environmentally. I’ll be popular and we’ll have a kinder and more sustainable world. My ego will be happy:)
Richard: How are you funded/cover any costs?
Olga: So far we rely on contribution of community members in terms of them providing the resources of their time, expertise and skills. Nick provides the space in his cowork and a free breakfast, Tobi helped us to build a no-code platform to host the profiles of community memebrs. People have provided connections, knowledge and information. We’ll see if we need funds and sponsors going forward. But let future Olga figure it out:)
Richard: How can people contact you to ask more questions or help?
Olga: people can whatsapp me on +31915422781, get connected to me on Instagram or LinkedIn.