Photographer: Carly Wollaert ©
Make-up artist: Sharmila Vooren
MINITE
Micky Chen & Linky Chen
Co-Founders of Minite
About
Micky – “I’m the co-founder, CEO, and CTO of Minite.works. Our platform connects vetted top students with companies for ongoing freelance work. This helps businesses grow and at the same time, it helps more than 10,000 students boost their CV. Since our launch 2,5 years ago, we’ve seen explosive triple-digit growth across all metrics. I’ve built the entire platform myself and am laser-focused on ensuring continued business growth together with my co-founder Linky. I love building things and solving complex challenges (in every sense of the word). Our platform solves major pains when it comes to finding and hiring top student talent, and we help students gain relevant and well paid work experience that helps build a strong CV. Two birds, one stone! That is what impact is all about: being a force for positive change.”
Linky – “Hi, I’m Linky, Co-founder of Minite.works. I started my career as the 1st employee of a startup turned scale up and also worked at Indeed. With Minite we connect verified student freelancers with innovative companies so that students get to build their skills and CV with study related work while companies get to focus on their core business. Within Minite I focus mostly on sales and student verification so that we can make the best matches and support as many students and companies as we can.”
What or Who inspired you to pursue your chosen career?
Micky – “My parents! Their incredible resilience and determination in the face of adversity taught me that anything is possible if you set your mind to it. We moved to the Netherlands from Nepal with absolutely nothing, and my parents faced countless obstacles as they built a new life in an unfamiliar country with two small children, my sister and I. They showed me that challenges are simply opportunities in disguise. Growing up, I knew I wanted to make a positive impact on the world through entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur, I constantly face challenges and setbacks, but I approach each one with the same attitude of determination and perseverance that my parents taught me. I’m grateful for their inspiration and guidance – it makes me a better entrepreneur and in turn, I’m able to make a bigger impact.”
Linky – “Looking back at our time as students where Micky and I worked mostly in restaurants because we could not get any study related work, we figured we wanted to help the next generation of students to better prepare for their future career and provide them with opportunities that we didn’t have ourselves. “