Femme Lead S02 E09 Entrepreneurship: How two women disrupted the fishing industry with Nima Tisdall, Co-Founder at Blue Lobster.
Social Entrepreneurship | Social Change | Impact Business | Blue Lobster | Fishing | Disruptors | Business Acumen | Innovation | Digitalisation |
Nima Tisdall is a well-known entrepreneur in Denmark. Together with her co-founder Christine Hebert, they founded Blue Lobster, a platform for sustainable fishermen to sell their catches at a fair price.
In 2020, Nima Tisdall became the European Laureate for the Obama Foundation Leaders' Program, and in 2021 Nima was listed as one of Forbes 30 under 30.
In this episode, we sit down with Nima to discuss her path to entrepreneurship, how Blue Lobster became a profitable business and what challenges the co-founders encountered along the way. We deep dive into building a support system, building confidence, and keep on going even if the journey is not always easy.
At the beginning of 2020, Blue Lobster got a new round of funding and started planning for a B2B model that will serve restaurants with fresh fish. Soon after the pandemic hit, the company started selling to private customers. Within three weeks, the team stopped this plan as it was not playing to the company's strengths, including technological developments.
Blue Lobster's pillars are:
- Low Impact by working directly with fishermen using low impact techniques.
- Fairness by pay the fishermen 2 to 4 times more than what they would usually get.
- Fresh by delivering the freshest seafood on the market directly from the harbor.
Follow Nima Tisdall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimatisdall/
Check out Blue Lobster: https://bluelobster.app/
Episode Timeline:
01:38 Nima Tisdall, Obama Foundation European Leader Laureate
03:20 What is Blue Lobster's current setup?
05:21 What were the challenges of digitalizing the fishing industry?
07:05 How did you decide to look at the problem Blue Lobster solves?
08:52 How did you choose to start Blue Lobster?
09:55 What was the feedback Blue Lobster received from the competition?
13:30 What was the reaction from Blue Lobster to threads?
16:15 What advice do you have for young women who want to start a business?
20:30 The importance of support systems.
27:00 The development of Blue Lobster from idea to business.
32:10 The pivot during 2020.
37:05 What advice do you have when building a team with a co-founder?
41:18 What is something you wish you knew five years ago?