Combining passion and entrepreneurship – the story of Geopyörä
Marcos de Paiva Bueno is the founder of Geopyörä. Cycling is his passion and while touring around the world with his bike, he decided to pursue his idea of developing a new rock breakage test. When he went back home, it was time to take the first steps towards building a business.
Marcos is a mining engineer who graduated in 2006 in Brazil and has worked in the industry ever since. In early days of his career, he moved to Australia to study his PhD while working as an engineer Down Under.
Aside from working life, Marcos has a passion for cycling and that has moved him around continents. At the point where he felt tired of his career, he decided to take a sabbatical year and cycle around the world in 2016. During the adventurous year, the idea about the mining industry business started to build in his head stronger than earlier, while sitting on the saddle.
Marcos’ idea was to make a more efficient breakage test for mining. “The traditional way of doing breakage testing has issues. It is very laborious and takes a lot of time and as a result, only a few samples are tested. The uncertainty about rock hardness is a huge risk for mining companies because it directly affects the production rate, cost and ultimately the revenue of a mine. The grinding process accounts for the highest capital and operating costs of any mine. To put this into perspective, a single large grinding mill can take as much energy as the city of Oulu does”, explains Marcos.
Moving to Oulu and applying for funding to develop the business idea further
Marcos needed to do research and validation to bring his idea into reality. He then started to search for jobs around the world to support his aim. The job was found from University of Oulu Mining School, where Marcos started to work in a project as postdoctoral researcher doing lecturing and more research in 2018.
While working on his assigned project, he looked for options to raise funding to develop his idea of a simple, low-cost, and fast breakage test. Marcos soon met Pekka Räsänen from Oulu University Innovation Centre team, who told Marcos about Business Finland’s TUTLI (now Research to Business, R2B) funding. With a strong commercial application for his idea already in mind, the application for the funding was filed soon with the help of Pekka.
The funding was granted, and the project started in the beginning of 2019 lasting about two years. During the project, the most important thing for Marcos was to develop the two-wheel rock breaking system further to prove that his technical idea can be applied to the final product. Marcos explained that the concept and even the business plan have remained similar during the whole company building phase.
Where Geopyörä rides now?
The Geopyörä breakage test allows companies to test several rock samples efficiently with low-cost for geometallurgical, comminution design and control applications. Now the company is in the state where they license their technology to laboratories, while mining companies buy services from these commercial laboratories to test their material.
The milestone of the first paying customer was reached a year ago. Marcos shared that it was a surprisingly long process to close the first sale and reminds that not everything goes as smoothly as planned in the start-up life. Things often take more time than forecasted in the business plan.
The importance of building the team for a start-up
Marcos emphasized that building the team is extremely important, but it can be also difficult. It requires a lot of trust among team members to “share the cake”. "When the start-up starts to grow and it is time to go talk to investors, they ask about your team. They don’t invest in a sole entrepreneur”, says Marcos.
People often need to give up a stable income when joining a start-up. It is a big risk and needs commitment from everyone. These are decisions that need to be made when building the team.
“Mechatronics Research Unit in the University of Oulu has been a key player of the project building the first prototype. Geopyörä would not exist without them”, says Marcos emphasizing that collaboration between research units is important. Also, business developers outside the team have been working on the project to develop it forward doing for example market research.
In the end of 2021, Marcos realized he needs commitment and employees to work full-time for the start-up to build the team forward. At that time Marcos also asked an Australian Professor Malcolm Powell to join the team and bring in a well-known professional in the mining field to help start-up to sell their technology to potential customers.
Now the members of the founding team have diverse backgrounds, with strong academic and professional experience both in mining and financial markets. The economist and co-founder, Ronan Cruz, is one of the members.
What else to keep in mind when building a start-up?
Participating in business accelerators has helped the team and Marcos recommends them to other researchers and business developers as well. “You meet other start-ups doing their own thing in their field, but you can learn from them and their challenges a lot”, tells Marcos.
Team participated in EIT RawMaterials Accelerator in Berlin to get external sparring for the business. Marcos hopes that in the future more incubators and accelerators would be organized to help starting entrepreneurs also in Finland.
Marcos has been working in the mining industry for 16 years and knows a lot about the market and its potential. The start-up did a bold move and went straight to international markets when founded. “It is important to know where your markets are. In the context of mining, big mines are located outside Europe”, Marcos explained the decision.
Life as an entrepreneur – Rewards and challenges at the same time
“Freedom is the most rewarding aspect of entrepreneurship, no one tells you what to do and when to do it”, Marcos states. For him it also equals the possibility to cycle. However, entrepreneurship is also very time consuming, you cannot switch it off and forget it. Business is always on your mind, even when cycling, Marcos sums up.
It is not easy to get stable revenue as a start-up developing its product and sales. First, you need to pay your employees, not yourself, Marcos reminds others planning to start a company.
Taking risks and having capital are also necessary when building a start-up. “Have appetite for risk, or don’t start it”, says Marcos and explains that when starting a company, you also make a bet with your own money. Thus, saving money is a smart thing to do before jumping into business development.
Have courage to follow your dreams
“When doing the cycling trip around the world, I decided to aim for my dream. It is not the easiest path, but when having a good idea of product or service, you should try”, Marcos encourages.
Maybe you need to even drop everything else and trust your instinct. You can lose your stable income, but at least you try to achieve your dream. The dream can be either to start a company you wish to work for, or maybe sell it to make an exit from the industry to pursuit other dreams.
More information about Geopyörä: Geopyörä Breakage Test (geopyora.com)
EIT RawMaterials Accelerator info: RawMaterials Accelerator - EIT RawMaterials
Emilia Hoikkaniemi
Yliopistoharjoittelija // Intern
+358 50 346 9906
emilia.hoikkaniemi@oulu.fi
Innovaatioviestinnän harjoittelija kesällä 2022, blogitekstit, uutiset, sosiaalinen media, tapahtumaviestintä.
Innovation communications intern in Summer 2022, blog posts, news, social media, event communications.