Built in Translation

Mirea co-founded Beam Institute of Technology in 2022 with one clear conviction: tech education should be accessible to anyone, regardless of where they come from or what they already know. 

Today, Beam is part of a larger education holding, and the bootstrap worked. 

In this episode, I asked her to go back to the beginning.

“In 2022, you bootstrapped Beam Institute of Technology, and today it’s part of a bigger education holding. If you could go back to that decision, what’s the one thing about it you’d do again without hesitation, and what would you warn yourself about?”

What Mirea shares is something more useful than a success story: a blueprint built in real time, under pressure, with honest answers about what bootstrapping actually forces you to do, and what it costs when someone else eventually enters the room. 

One founder. One decision. One question. Fifteen minutes.

Built in Translation is a podcast for queer founders who built something successful, in a second language, in a world that didn’t always make room for them. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Spreaker Podcast.

Connect with our guest Mirea Cartabbia on:

LinkedIn
Website

Marie is a queer founder from Berlin who owns and manages a hostel in Weligama, Sri Lanka.

She lost her business partner and her investment at the very beginning, so every reasonable exit sign was pointing home. Instead, she stayed, renovated an entire hostel with builders she couldn't speak to due to a language gap, in a place where apparently nothing finished can be bought.

This episode is about finding strenght within your community, instead of following a plan.

The question: "You lost the first partner, your investment, you didn't speak the local language, and you still chose to stay in Sri Lanka. What part of this whole process was game-changing and how were you able to manage the language gap?"

Lorence is a queer founder of UltiMaté®, based in the Netherlands.

She discovered a mate in Patagonia with her girlfriend, came back to Europe, and built this successful business, a.k.a. a queer-owned brand centred on a South American ritual that most people in her market had never held in their hands.

This episode is about deciding what to carry home and what to offer to strangers.

The question: “Every culture has its own way of drinking mate. What did you keep exactly as it is and what did you change to make it land in the Netherlands?”