A Journey from Strangers to Climate Innovators with Mirra

Topics: team launch * startup * team-building * superpowers
Format: several months engagement
Team: 3 team members 

Starting a company is never easy. Starting one with two complete strangers, under pressure, in just 16 weeks? That’s rare — and exactly the challenge faced by participants in the FedTech ClimateTech Studio, a program sponsored by MassCEC to ignite climate-focused entrepreneurship.

Thirty passionate individuals, each driven by a desire to tackle the climate crisis, were selected for the program and matched into 10 brand-new teams. None had met before. Each trio was handed a breakthrough technology from a national or academic lab and a mandate: uncover real-world market potential for the tech and pitch a vision of what it could become.

As a coach in the program, my role was to support the teams through this journey by meeting weekly, facilitating workshops, and guiding them through the messy, high-stakes process of building something new. One team, later named Mirra, leaned deeply into that support. And what unfolded was one of the most inspiring examples of rapid team formation and purposeful innovation I’ve seen.

Day One: Vulnerability as Superpower

At kickoff, I introduced the teams to an exercise called The Best of Me, designed to build trust fast. Each member shares what brings out their best and worst as a teammate, and how others can support them. For a trio of strangers, this can feel uncomfortable. But Mirra – three women from diverse professional backgrounds – approached it with uncommon openness and emotional intelligence.

They didn’t just complete the exercise. They used it. They listened, reflected, and began to shape their team culture from that very first day, building on the lessons of past experiences and a shared commitment to doing things differently.

Weeks of Discovery: Clarity through Intentional Learning

Over the next few weeks, I checked in regularly as the teams dove into customer discovery, learned about their assigned technology, and began mapping out potential climate applications. The Mirra team juggled dozens of possible directions: food systems, cosmetics, packaging. 

When the team came up with the idea to organize a multi-industry expert workshop during their in-person week, they asked if I’d facilitate so that they could fully participate. It was a powerful move: owning their learning while trusting me to hold the space.

We brought together a surprising mix, from a military food scientist to a boutique skincare formulator. Through ideation prompts and “how-might-we” challenges, the team sparked unexpected connections and surfaced ideas they might never have reached through traditional interviews.

Workshop participants share application ideas.

Reflecting to Move Forward

At the program’s midpoint, following their first major pitch, we paused for a team retrospective. I introduced to the teams a framework for reflecting not just on the work, but on how they were working together. Mirra approached the session with the same thoughtfulness they’d shown from day one, expressing appreciation for one another, celebrating strengths, and confronting friction points with grace.

Out of that reflection came a realization that they needed clearer ownership of responsibilities. But they didn’t default to task lists or rigid roles, instead I ran a superpowers workshop for them to grapple with division of labor more thoughtfully. We explored what each team member loved doing, what energized them, and where they wanted to grow. From that, a new structure emerged; one based on strengths, not just functions. And still, they committed to backing each other up no matter what.

“Tiana has been an amazing coach for our team – understanding our needs, being very open to new ways of leveraging her experience in our customer discovery, opening connections for us and coming up with fun yet impactful ways to build our team’s connection. We were lucky to have her as our coach especially during the early phase of us coming together as a team” – Kirthika Padmanabhan, co-founder

From Exploration to Impact

In the final stretch, we ran targeted virtual workshops to explore key market segments. Using digital whiteboards, we mapped opportunities and surfaced blockers. The team kept refining their vision and their pitch as they began to uncover what was possible and map a path forward.

By the end of the program, Mirra had conducted over 150 customer interviews and four market discovery workshops. They pulled all of that insight into a powerful pitch at the Startup Week Boston pitch contest — where they won 2nd place and a $30,000 prize, complete with a giant cardboard check.

But the real win? They walked away as a unified team, confident in their collaboration, clear on their next steps, and deeply committed to building climate solutions together, grounded in trust, shared purpose, and their unique superpowers.

Co-founder Kirthika Padmanabhan, technology inventor Leila Deravi, co-founder Elizabeth Bridges, co-founder Christa Campbell, and coach Tiana Veldwisch at Startup Boston Pitch award ceremony.

If you are kicking off a new team structure, get in touch for tips on how to set a strong foundation for a supportive and collaborative team.