Overview

The name, Idea Lunchbox, is meant to reflect the children’s creative minds. There is no match for the creative power of a child’s mind, and a way to set ourselves apart from the “other children” was to compare ourselves to the ones that had the best lunches to trade during recess. So, we compare ourselves to “queens” and “kings” of the recess with the best lunch packed away in our lunchboxes. Same as most startups, we also pivoted to find ourselves. Idea Lunchbox had a brief beginning as a Creative Agency but evolved fast to the concept of who we are today. It was impossible not to be moved and want to take an essential part of causing an impact on a large scale to the imminent but almost invisible problem the global innovation ecosystem currently faces, as it is pointed out by the Startup Genome. However, although the concept came fast, the structure in itself took close to 2 years to build. It took a great deal of careful study, observation, and over a hundred concept validations. Entrepreneurship is already hard enough, and when adding the international factor it just complicates it further. Yet, it is this level of hardship that sets immigrants apart. Moving to another country already takes an entrepreneurial spirit, resilient to willingly endure added trials and tribulations. The toughest challenge was getting the formula right. All the right variables, in their right quantity, applied at the right place, at the right time. It also was a matter of being completely different, while also completely familiar, allowing room to develop ourselves as a company, and impact at the level we needed. For that, it was essential to understand in-depth each one of the variables, which are plenty in an internationalization case. The focus had to be at what didn’t work, instead of what was working. The hard work paid off, much better than expected, proved by the buy-in of the level of stakeholders who are part of this project, today.