PROBLEM STATEMENT:

Social startups in Germany need expert advice and input to achieve their goals and increase their impact.

TARGET GROUP:

Startups in the topics of climate, education and health without access to entrepreneurial networks.

PROPOSED SOLUTION:

We propose a startup mentoring program, matich ambitious social entrepreneurs and early stage startups with industry experts and successful founders. The program is divided into 2 batches a year and leverages the strong GS network.

HUB ACTIVITIES:

Firstly, we ran a pilot between June-September 2020 to acquire some best practices of startup mentoring, matching and fine-tune our outreach. This led us to our second batch and opening up an application for both startups and for mentors in December 2021. We reached out over all channels and targeted the underrepresented and less privileged groups in Munich.

We additionally reached out to high profile and strong mentors and most agreed to join. 

Each startup is matched with one or more mentors, and is offered 3-4 sessions over a 3 month period.

After organizing a kick-off for the second batch, we have built a community on slack where all startups and mentors can share their best practices, resources and ask questions. Additionally, we are organizing meetups (online) for mentors and startups to get to know each other, get feedback after each mentoring session and will have a closing session in April. 

SHORT-TERM GOALS /RESULTS:

We received 24 startup applications, 8 of which were from outside of Germany. Some of the applicants were not a fit for the program but we could support by offering contacts to others in their region or for their needs. 12 mentors also applied and 10 of them were matched with the startups.
In total we matched 16 startups with 20 mentors, where most have already had their first mentoring session.

LONG-TERM GOALS /RESULTS:

We have already received feedback that the conversations/mentoring sessions are valuable not only for the startups but also for the mentors. The measurable impact will be determined after the batch 2 is finished in April. 

Batch 3 to be launched in June/July 2021.

AVAILABLE METRICS:

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  16 startups, 30 founders, and 20 mentors participate

  
  


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  ~ 50 mentoring sessions

  
  


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  Additionally 5 startups received contact persons outside of the program

  
  


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  1 mentored startup won a 100k€ grant from the 10toGo challenge (by Volkswagen and Microsoft)

  
  

COLLABORATORS:

There has been interest from the Helsinki Hub and the San Francisco Hub to replicate the project in their respective countries.