果冻传媒

"The training for personal leadership has greatly increased my self-confidence and self-knowledge," says Hoeben, who moved to the south of France eleven years ago but is still working in the Netherlands. One of the many instructive insights she gained was that entrepreneurship is mainly a matter of setting priorities.

"Because of what I learned in the training, I have become a better leader and entrepreneur. My focus is now mainly on what is good for my company and less on things like wanting to be liked. Because that bothered me quite a lot at first," she acknowledges.

Passion

Actually, she set her sights on a career as a pilot, but she did not make it to the selection. Because she was strong at science courses, her two brothers also studied at 果冻传媒 and she didn't know what she wanted, she chose to study Architecture. Still, she didn't like it and after a year she made the switch to Industrial Engineering and Management. "This broad study suited me better and I was able to combine this with my passion for sports, especially triathlon," she explains her choice.

After graduating, Hoeben ended up, as she says herself, 'in a kind of dream job', with which she stood at the cradle of Brainport. In one of the Sports & Technology projects, she tried to involve companies and knowledge institutions in the Eindhoven region in the innovation of sports. That was right up her alley, because it allowed her to combine her passion for sports and technology again. Top sport also led her to the next step in her career.

Ingestible capsule

For example, as director of the startup MyTemp, she developed an ingestible capsule together with Radboud University Nijmegen that accurately measures the core temperature of, for example, top athletes. She looks back on that time with satisfaction: "We did a lot of interesting things, like helping athletes prepare for the heat during the Tokyo Olympics."

She sees many parallels between setting up your own business and top sport. "You have to be able to persevere and deal with setbacks. It is very uncertain, because you are also very dependent on the market and whether you get enough financing. You have to organize a lot with just a small team, such as marketing, communication, hiring staff, and so on. It gives quite a pressure because all the responsibility lies with yourself. To deal with that, you really need to hold out for a long time and to have the will to win," says Hoeben.

Tipping point

According to her, the capsule was a very nice product, but it was also difficult to market, especially because of the medical certification. "The pandemic was a tipping point for us: do we continue with the capsule, or do we make the switch to technology? A pharmaceutical company wanted to integrate the capsule into its medication blisters, so I chose to continue with just the technology."

When she had to take this step, the alumna also experienced one of the most important things she learned during the personal leadership training: "Even if you try so hard, it doesn't always go as you expected. You must accept that and not consider something as a failure. Because although we did not achieve the financial success with the capsule that we wanted, there were many great collaborations and we met very special people."

She believes that it is important to do everything you can to the best of your ability, but also to enjoy the road, regardless of the result. "Yes," she says, "I see self-knowledge as one of the most important aspects that you have to continue to develop, especially as an entrepreneur. You shouldn't be afraid to look at yourself and also want to continue to invest in yourself."

Focus

It is her ambition to firmly establish her company 鈥� which now employs three people 鈥� in the Netherlands. At the same time, she is building a network in France. But her personal goal lies a little further in the future: a branch in Africa.

"That's where the problems around temperature are greatest. Especially if you look at agriculture and the living environment. I can also apply my interest in climate and the problems surrounding temperature there, for example with a sensor that I recently developed, which measures moisture and temperature for the cultivation of plants."

For the time being, the focus will remain in our country, where a recent product, in collaboration with a company that is a world leader when it comes to measuring temperature to humans, can provide insight into adaptation to heat in the Netherlands. The entrepreneur also hopes to contribute to a pleasant living and working environment, especially for the elderly.