Youth Start-Up Competition 2023 – let's meet the finalist Pauline Bellec!

 We're excited to take you behind the scenes of the 2023 Young Startup Competition (YSC), that not only celebrates innovation but propels young entrepreneurs into the spotlight. The windy atmosphere at the SME Assembly in Bilbao reached its pinnacle for our finalists of the YSC on Wednesday, November 15, as the audience awaited the announcement of this year's winner.

Mariia Alipova secured the trophy and after the awards we also had the chance to meet the other finalists and we asked them some questions regarding their experience and ideas, so brace yourselves and let’s get to know Pauline Bellec and her company.

Pauline is founder and CEO of Coat-ing, which offers an Exterior Thermal Insulation (ETI) process that is set to transform heating and air-conditioning needs. By using a micro-perforated fabric on facades and filling the gap with loose expanded cork, they achieve a process that is both economical and eco-friendly. 

What made you enter the YSC? 

I heard about it on Linkedin and then I thought I was just a perfect candidate. Plus not all the time big contests like this take place in big assemblies and it was a great opportunity for meeting and connecting with people.

What is the problem your company aims to solve?

We are trying to find a solution for energy efficiency in building, I think in Europe we need to work on the building that exists already and that are using too much energy. We need a fast and efficient solution. I started to do an internship in an engineering office. I worked in research and development in building coating, studying several materials and the idea came up, and then this experience allowed me to start my company.

What was it like to be announced as a finalist of the Youth Startup Competition?

I was really surprised and happy, it has been a great opportunity. It is something that doesn’t happen all the time even like to have the chance travel in Bilbao. It was nice to meet with other people and discover that being a young entrepreneur in Europe is cool.

What are the main takeaways you got from the 2023 SME assembly?

I was able to listen to a session about women entrepreneurs and it was super interesting. I met quite a lot of people and especially I met people working in the insulation and building.

Youth entrepreneurs often face unique challenges: What is the main obstacle for you?

Main struggle was to understand how to be entrepreneur, its vocabulary words like business plan, benchmark. Understand how your presentation should look like, understand that you have to go and talk to people, now I am more comfortable with it. Finally, another big problem of course is to find investments.

See who were the other two finalists of this year’s Youth Startup Competition and read more about the Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 of the 2023 SME Assembly.

Finally, we invite you to stay updated on the event on the Promoting enterprise news portal and also via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.  LinkedIn so stay tuned. It is possible to check the photos from the event also on Promoting Enterprise | Flickr.