M-Cubed Research Consulting

M-Cubed Research Consulting’s First Year, Reviewed

Starting a business is tough. You’ll find learning curves look like right angles, and celebrating little wins is key to maintaining some semblance of sanity.

M-Cubed’s first yearly review is bit like our twenty quid Christmas tree – sparse, dimly lit, and loaded with tinsel to fill it out – nonetheless, it’s time to grab 2024 by the baubles:

Imagine the scene, it’s New Year’s Eve 2023. After a twelve hour shift, I think I may have preferred to have been in bed, rather than freezing in crowded Westminster, waiting to see the fireworks – only to inevitably get blocked by police officers riot helmet. Instead, I had a desire to well rested, ready to hit the New Year running.

As soon as the festivities were over, on January 2nd – I hopped on a bus to Uxbridge and commissioned the printing of our M-Cubed Brochures. As our first little win, they were ready in a week – not months like we’d expected.

Though being ahead of time was not without it’s challenges…

You often hear about entrepreneurs starting their business in a garage, or a shed. M-Cubed Research Consulting, you could say, started on a little shaggy rug in a cramped West London Airbnb bedroom on January 10th.

Our production line was Asha and I, with a budget office printer, a rather pitiful paper guillotine, and more sticky labels than a passive aggressive post-it noter could ever dream of.

There could have been a benefit of getting our brochures, and being able to produce our information packs so early. In early March, I was invited to Delhi for a wedding.

I could not resist half filling my hand luggage with 35 Information Packs, and trying to send them at local rates. Several days, three post offices, and 35 more envelopes later – I ended up repacking them all on the way back to London.

Here’s a useful tip for anyone wanting to start a global business, international postage is not the way to go. Right now, I still have a box full as a doorstop.

On March 23rd, M-Cubed Research Consulting expanded – Scott Robinson, a longtime friend and fellow earth scientist became a Director. This was great news, because – first and foremost – we could send a box full of information packs across to Michigan, to distribute all over the Americas.

We were building up to our big launch, at the UN Oceans Conference in Barcelona – in early April. ‘On a budget’, might be the understatement of the year.

I travelled via coach. For any Americans in the room, that is not economy seats of a flight, that is a literal coach. On wheels.

Forty hours from London to Barcelona offered plentiful opportunity to bodge together a poster which we had arranged to display at the conference.

My heart sank as the coach crossed the Pyrenees, when an automatic text buzzed through the update, that I had no money left. The eighty euros or so which Asha had given me were all I had.

When the coach pulled up, and I retrieved my carry on suitcase filled with brochures, and a camera stand – I dragged it to the conference centre to book in. Turns out, although I had arranged the poster – the email to complete the registration months before, landed in my spam inbox.

Print the poster, 26 Euros. Put that up. Cheeky picture with it. Then we problem solve.

Scout a second venue. Try to record a video. Security interrupt. It’s not going well.

Until. An idea.

I emerge from a supermercado outside the conference with two A3 Canvases and a pack of white board markers. In my best guerilla-marketing typeface I scrawl on them “Deep Sea Mining Must Be The Exception, Never The Rule: The Key to That is Exploration”

Now, there are some pictures of me barefoot, standing next to this placard outside the conference centre. I could tell you, this was a decision to indicate that I was not going to run away from a debate. In reality, I had used my shoe laces to hold the canvases upright.

Very quickly, I got noticed. At first, by plain clothes police officers checking I wasn’t Greenpeace – but soon the conference participants followed.

Some shared looks of disdain.
Some said “that’s exactly what our countries think”
Some told me Deep-Sea Mining should never happen.
Some applauded the pragmatism and bravery.

One person walked past, and doubled back to tell me how stupid my position was. A few minutes of discussion later, we were on the same side.

Here’s another useful tip for those disruptive businesses. Go somewhere you know most people will disagree with you. After three days of talking about Deep-Sea Mining in a conservation conference, and with my arms looking like drumstick lollipops. Another idea, another angle, was inspired.

M-Cubed needs to pave a way for coastal developing countries to conserve resources if they want to. Our services should Discover, Document and allow the state to Decide how they want to proceed. That’s the benefit of exploration-only consulting, that is the third dimension of our business.

That’s the beauty of exploration as a service, of exploration-only consulting.

After the tourist tax, minimal food, two canvases and a poster – I left Barcelona with 47 cents – one of my canvas signs taped to the suitcase, and pocket full of business cards.

Back in London, I heard about the EarthFest Conference – I had spent months trying to get sponsorship from micro-mobility companies to sponsor a mad dash to hand deliver our mission packs to embassies across London. I knew they would attend, so I put on my networking shoes…

Although, on June 6th, my patience trying to get a sponsor expired. It was a sunny day, so Asha and I filled up our rucksacks with information packs: and set out hand deliver as many as we could. We had 96. We delivered… 15.

Our timing was serendipitous, the UK Parliament had just been dissolved for the 2024 Election – and diplomatic missions around the country were in a state of limbo, waiting for the new Government to form. As such, to some surprise, we were even invited in for conversations about our services.

When budget and weather permitted, I went out again and again, delivering, ready to pitch to embassies representing coastal developing countries around the world – but I never quite got the same luck.

In late August, I decided to change my regular job – it didn’t go as smoothly as planned. So during a period of six weeks, I focused solely on M-Cubed. I delivered more mission packs, and I put together our first big campaign: OWN YOUR OCEAN.

It became clear that our approach towards universities was wrong, the subscription model was not the way forward.

Instead, building a symbiotic partnership with universities, inviting them to invest rather than subscribe – to own a part our mission: seems more equitable.

We wrote open letters to Universities and Ministries of coastal developing countires. We published everything on our website on the third of October.

That day is special to me, and now it is for M-Cubed. It was my granddad’s birthday. We chose to launch our campaign as a way of honoring the man who inspired my interest in geology and minerals. It has always been that innate curiosity which has driven me to study, to work in this field, and to found
M-Cubed Research Consulting.

Pursuing the same awe I felt as a child, when we first broke open a geode – is why this company exists. It is a pursuit for the joy of discovery.

Following two days of email marketing, we broke our own records for viewers on our website. We achieved visitor numbers in October which matched April to September combined: and broke 1000 views since our website opened. It was the highlight of 2024.

For about a month.

In November, on an unremarkable Monday morning – I received a phone call from an Embassy. It was one of the last batch of information packs I had delivered.

A few weeks ago, that phone call became a meeting. A meeting has become a referral. As we approach the new year – M-Cubed Research Consulting might be on the cusp of a breakthrough.

We have a long way to go. We still have information packs to deliver. We are still having ideas on how we can forge our path. Make no mistake, we are moving.

So how can we wrap this review up? (I am terrible at wrapping, it really shows this time of year) – maybe what we’ve learned.

Perseverance has, at times, felt like defiance this year. As a startup, limit your patience, if you can do it yourself: what are you waiting for?

Guirella marketing tactics have been just as effective as traditional ones. Yes – the police thought I was a protestor – a few times – I’ve been called worse.

Take your shoes off, don’t run from debate. If people disagree with your business, talk to them – scruitiny helps you, borrow their perspective. Let it inspire new ideas.

Mistakes are the best opportunity for innovations, be pragmatic – use what you have. Even if it is your shoelaces to hold a sign together.

Keep going. That’s it. If you don’t know what to do. Just do something. Try doing it wrong first. You’ll find the world will gently nudge you in the right direction.

If you’ve made it this far – Have a Very Merry Christmas! You should definitely follow M-Cubed’s into 2025! It’s about to get a lot more exciting.