EIC Coaching Programme

Good business coaching can make all the difference for the success of your project!
Proper coaching saves you time and money, helps you avoiding rookie mistakes, and boosts your leadership. Ninety-five percent of your peers confirm the significant 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 with crucial insights and guidance. They have signed a Code of Conduct with confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements.

The EIC offers coaching free of cost. Your individual business development priorities require a good match, whether you are just coming from the laboratory or a versed entrepreneur. From our large pool of experts, 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 (2nd 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 into 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.

Interested? Check our resources to learn more about what to expect from your 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 an early-stage SME environment. 

You will be required to indicate your specific industry and market experience, to issue an executive summary with keywords, and to 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

 Learn more about becoming a coach in our Handbook for EIC Business Coaching. 

If you have any questions, please contact us through the EIC Community’s contact page  with the subject 'EIC Coaching Programme'.