Coaching under the EIC

You have heard it; good business coaching can make all the difference for the success of your project!
Good coaching saves time and money avoiding rookie mistakes and boosts your leadership. Ninety-five percent of your peers who went before you, confirm the great impact of coaching on strategy improvement and speeding up the market entry (check Vesna’s testimony!).

The EIC has recruited excellent coaches who have already walked the road that you are about to take. Our coaches are independent business experts with entrepreneurial and fund raising backgrounds who will provide you crucial insights and guidance. They have signed a Code of Conduct with confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements.

EIC offers that coaching free of costs. Your individual business development priorities require a good match, whether you are just coming from the laboratory or you are a versed entrepreneur. From our large pool, you can find a coach with ample experience in your specific industry and market context. Your coaching priorities may vary from go-to-market, or acquiring partnerships, organisational or financial development. The coach will challenge your assumptions and will let you consider new options in a learning-and-solving manner.

The EIC business coaching is available for various target groups and will be tailor made to deliver the desired outcome for each of them:

• For Accelerator applicants (2^nd stage) and Seal-of-Excellence teams, the objective is to improve the value proposition, business plan and investor pitch.
• For Pathfinder researchers the objective is to discover innovation opportunities and to provide insight in the entrepreneurship potential.
• For Transition teams the objective is to analyse the industry and to create a value proposition.
• For Accelerator start-ups and scale-ups, the objective is to improve the business plan, the strategy implementation and a faster market entry.
• In the Women Leadership Program (WLP), we offer additional WLP coaching to help leaders tackle potential glass ceiling issues.

As soon as you are in one of the above target groups, you become eligible for three days of coaching service.

We will notify and guide you to your coaching site, where you can search among 600 excellent business coaches.

On that platform you indicate your market and industry context, your most acute business development topics and your biggest challenge. You then ask a few matching coaches for their availability, who will respond within three working days with interest in your case. You select your preference after a chemistry call and then you are off!

You improve your business and we organise the payment. To inspire your international ambition we encourage you to select a foreign coach.

Please follow the link to the Call for Expression of Interest, open for high-level coaches with proven business development experience and entrepreneurial and/or investment background in early stage SME environment. 

You will be required to indicate your specific industry and market experience, to issue an executive summary with keywords and upload a CV in PDF format, all in English language. Separately you are required to register as an expert on the Funding & Tenders portal.

We are currently fully stored. Your potential inclusion in the list of selectable EIC business coaches depends on:

• the evident need among coachees for a specific experience profile
• the rotation of coaches for refreshment of the selection pool
• the acceptance of your qualifications and experience profile regarding the set criteria
• the rated impact of your coaching interventions according to coachees when applicable