BlueCity: From swimming pool to innovation hub

Season 07 of Startup Pass-port by Frontwalker continues with Episode 28 – William Vuijik, Venture Lead at BlueCity.   William Vuijik, Venture Lead at BlueCity, discusses how BlueCity is a hub for circular innovations in Rotterdam, with around 60 impact entrepreneurs working on technologies including solar technology, solar panels and new building materials with mycelium. He explains his role in managing BlueCity's incubator, where he helps ideas turn into scalable businesses, and shares his view that impact is mainly about the motivation behind an idea and how entrepreneurs want to make a difference for people, organizations and society.   He also discusses the challenges impact entrepreneurs face, particularly when idealism comes before the business mindset. William explains that entrepreneurs can have ideas with a lot of impact without considering who will buy the solution, who will pay, how much they will pay or what competing solutions exist. He also shares how impact and a profitable business can go hand in hand, and why having co-founders with different skill sets, mindsets and cultural backgrounds can add value to a team.   William also talks about what makes a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem, identifying talent, money and a facilitating ecosystem as three necessary inputs. He explains how universities and places like BlueCity can support research, validation and prototype development, and says that what is key for a successful ecosystem is having "more givers than takers." He closes by sharing his goal of helping companies move from "an idea on the back of a napkin" towards technical and commercial validation, with the hope of seeing one of the companies he has worked with grow into a unicorn.   This new season brings conversations with founders, innovators, investors, and ecosystem leaders shaping the future of entrepreneurship, recorded at the Upstream Festival in Rotterdam in partnership with Erasmus Enterprise.   These conversations are powerful, inspiring, and game-changing, and we can't wait for you to hear them. Stay tuned! New episodes dropping soon!