This article was written by Ana Prata and Helena Vieira, Co-Founders of MY.SKINMIX, Winners of The Lisbon Challenge Fall 2014. How does it feel to be the winner of the biggest start-up accelerator in Europe and how did they do it? Read their amazing story right here…
“MY.SKINMIX won the fall edition of the Lisbon Challenge 2014!
The 1st prize was awarded to a team of girls for the very first time in Lisbon Challenge history! And to a non ITC start-up! Also a 1st time!
How was this possible you may start to ask? How can the biggest accelerator in Europe, with a track record in ITC background start-up launches allowed this to happen? Is the jury of this competition changing mindset? No, we don’t think so.
The Lisbon Challenge is a very fierce competition, only the best get in, only the fittest and fastest survive it and only the excellent get out in the end!
So, how did we do it?
WE WERE THE EXCELLENT ONES! That is how! It has nothing to do with being a girl’s team or a man’s team. It has nothing to do with being a web-based or an app start-up or not. It is based upon the merit of our path. On believing and executing. On delivering what we promised. On going out and try it out. On excelling in exceeding beyond our initial aims!
How did it all started?
Well, it started in a trivial girls talk between Helena Vieira and Patrícia Calado when they realized they were using the same products for totally different reasons! While Helena used it for the action it had, her friend just wanted the texture and smell – which by the way Helena hatted the smell! And then the question came:
“- Why should I buy the same product as anyone else if my needs and tastes are unique?”
From then to now many months have passed, a lot of technological development has been made, exclusive formulations were developed, prototypes were built, tested and trashed, business models have been tested, pivoted and adapted until it reached its first competition – Energia de Portugal 2013. There we tested the real world, learned to listen to clients, tested the business model and made our first minimal viable product. And we won the 2nd place at that competition!
But, oh my God, it was so far away from what we have today, and we were so naive to think we were almost there!
In the next months another miracle coincidence happened. Helena’s previous start up closes and her life is turned upside down… And then Helena Vieira meets Ana Prata. Where? In the classroom!
Ana was by that time on the first year of her master degree in Applied Microbiology, and between lots of disciplines about bacteria and other nasty things, Ana had a discipline termed “Innovation and entrepreneurship”, taught by who? That’s right, Helena!
In that discipline, Ana developed a project in the cosmetic’s area, and soon after the semester ended, Helena spoke to Ana about this crazy idea in cosmetics and co-creation and challenged Ana to join the project and help evolving the concept. And of course, Ana was crazy enough to say “Yes, let’s do this! How hard can it be?”
Well… Until today we believe Ana didn’t realized then where she was putting herself into.
A few months after they started working together, a funny email appeared: “Are you ready for the Europe’s biggest start-up accelerator, The Lisbon Challenge?”. Again, they thought “Why not? We can do it! Let’s try to enter The Lisbon Challenge!” Of course Ana and Helena had their lives a bit hectic with Master’s thesis to end and a life to put on track filled with ongoing scientific projects and classes, but that didn’t stopped them!
And so we applied. Got into phase 1, passed phase 2 and it was real – MY.SKINMIX entered The Lisbon Challenge Fall 2014! It was 3 months of a crazy life, of fears, fights, baby steps and huge steps and most of all made of a large will power! And in the end, they called the 10th, the 9th …the 5th…. the 3rd… our agony was horribly increasing! And then it was the 1st… MY.SKINMIX WINS THE LISBON CHALLENGE FALL 2014 on the 5th of December 2014!
However, our success isn’t measured by the amount of money and awards we won so far. it’s measured in bus and car parking tickets, in the amount of emails we send and reply to every day, in sleepless nights, in desperate phone calls to half of our (many and great) family, friends and fools to help us. It’s measured in hours talking with each other and in words like “please, thank you, I’m sorry, you can do it”, in trust and friendship and a huge big belief in this project!
We are passionate about what we do, and there is no other way to tell this: in the end, it’s all about how much you want it and how much you’re willing to fight for it. Because true dedication isn’t about one special day where you are giving everything that you have to make it happen. It’s about every single day getting up, washing your face, see how horrifying you look because of the hours you simply didn’t sleep and even then smile and go out for the fight.
But why do we smile? Because we know we are never alone in the fight; each one of us knows the other one is looking to the mirror with the exact same face, both believing we will be successful no matter what! And that is all it takes for you to get the job done.”
Ana Prata and Helena Vieira
Co-founders of MY.SKINMIX
Winners of The Lisbon Challenge Fall 2014