A Global Celebration of
Entrepreneurial Spirit and Success
Global Entrepreneurship Week is a massive campaign to
celebrate and empower entrepreneurs in every country and community around the
world — especially those individuals who face structural barriers or may have
never considered the idea of launching a startup. Each November, 10 million
people take part in tens of thousands of activities, competitions and events
that inspire them to act and provide them with the knowledge, experience and
connections they need to succeed. Global Entrepreneurship Week reaches beyond
high-tech startup hubs like Silicon Valley, London and Shanghai. It envisions
one entrepreneurial ecosystem open to all, including smaller cities in emerging
economies and under-represented communities, whether systemically marginalized,
geographically hard-to-reach or otherwise pushed aside or left out. National
campaigns are driven by local event organizers who plan activities tailored to
their community’s needs. Activities can range from small, local gatherings to
massive international competitions — or anything in between. While GEW only
takes place one week each year, the connections made are long-lasting.
Key Organizations Supporting
Global Entrepreneurship Week
Center for Entrepreneurship has supported the Global
Entrepreneurship Week since
its first year. A diverse collection of national host organizations and 25,000
local event organizers contribute to the success of this initiative. These
organizations play a crucial role in celebrating and spotlighting
entrepreneurs, exposing people to the path of entrepreneurship, helping them
get started and facilitating access to capital and resources to grow. The Global Entrepreneurship Network operates programs like Global Entrepreneurship Week that make it
easier for anyone, anywhere to start and scale a company, further strengthening
entrepreneurial ecosystems worldwide.
It is easy to grow your startup with the
Center for Entrepreneurship Startup Club. Join more than 600 founders in the
program that helps you to grow. The Center for Entrepreneurship implemented
this program with participants from 18 industries since 2020. Startup Club, launched globally in 2020, is an international program dedicated to
supporting entrepreneurs from communities in 18 specific industries. It fosters
collaboration through bi-weekly sessions where two entrepreneurs present their
businesses, receiving valuable feedback and solutions from the community. Our
Industry Mentorship Programs match you with a sector expert during onboarding
to help integrate you into the community. You can deeply engage with your
chosen tech field, addressing unique challenges, networks, and opportunities.
This initiative empowers entrepreneurs with insights, expands networks, and
integrates them into the global entrepreneurial ecosystem. Develop company
strategy and savvy business skills. Learn valuable lessons from entrepreneurs,
investors, and experts about product, growth strategy, raising money, business
development, legal, marketing, and anything that might come up in the startup
world.
Why join the
program? Get startup questions answered fast. Receive mentorship from
successful startup founders. Grow your business network. Develop valuable
business skills through the regular process. The program has a regular schedule
of networking sessions where founders present their startups and get feedback.
Get new ideas, approaches, and business tools from a community of mentors.
It is easy to grow your startup with the
Center for Entrepreneurship Startup Club. Join more than 600 founders in the
program that helps you to grow. The Center for Entrepreneurship implemented
this program with participants from 18 industries since 2020. Startup Club, launched globally in 2020, is an international program dedicated to
supporting entrepreneurs from communities in 18 specific industries: Martech, AdTech, AgTech, AI/ML Software, AR/VR Software, CleanTech,
Consumer Internet, DevOps, eCommerce,
EdTech, Enterprise Software, FinTech,
Gaming Founders, Healthcare Founders, HR Tech, Marketplace, Media, Mobility,
Real Estate, Travel & Hospitality. It
fosters collaboration through bi-weekly sessions where two entrepreneurs
present their businesses, receiving valuable feedback and solutions from the
community. Our Industry Mentorship Programs match you with a sector expert
during onboarding to help integrate you into the community. You can deeply
engage with your chosen tech field, addressing unique challenges, networks, and
opportunities. This initiative empowers entrepreneurs with insights, expands
networks, and integrates them into the global entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Develop company strategy and savvy business skills. Learn valuable lessons from
entrepreneurs, investors, and experts about product, growth strategy, raising
money, business development, legal, marketing, and anything that might come up
in the startup world.
Why join the
program? Get startup questions answered fast. Receive mentorship from
successful startup founders. Grow your business network. Develop valuable
business skills through the regular process. The program has a regular schedule
of networking sessions where founders present their startups and get feedback.
Get new ideas, approaches, and business tools from a community of mentors.
Center for Entrepreneurship ScaleUp
acceleration program is not like other ones.It is
easy to grow your existing business with the Center for Entrepreneurship scaleups
Scaleups are on an
upward trajectory despite current economic conditions. After all, they’re known
for their agility and ability to pivot quickly in response to changing
circumstances. These businesses have transitioned from the uncertainty of the
start-up phase and are on their way to more stable, sustained growth. They have
cracked the formula for repeatable sales, have the right team, and are ready to
expand into new markets or channels. Scaleups not
only create jobs; they disrupt the market and their industry with innovations
and nontraditional business models.
However,
“scaling up” requires a different mindset – and skill set – than starting up.
Companies can lose some of the nimbleness of the start-up phase, while not yet
achieving the relative stability of a large enterprise.
In return, scaleups
encounter new challenges that must be sorted out to move forward – such as:
·
Constraints
on growth: Identifying
and removing internal business model constraints on growth involve a rigorous
approach that includes small-scale experimentation.
·
Freedom
versus standardization: While
no one wants to lose the magic of the startup, scaleup
must maintain a delicate balance between freedom and standardization to remain
viable. For example, rules on which platform is used to communicate are imposed,
while payroll activities are governed by a predefined, auditable workflow.
·
Skills
mismatch: Sometimes,
people who are instrumental during the startup phase don’t have the skills and
discipline needed for the scaleup phase. These exits
aren’t easy, but having the right people in place at the right time is
essential to success.
·
Lost
culture: Because the
workforce has changed and expanded rapidly – sometimes from 10 to 100 to 1,000
employees – disorganization, fuzzy goals, and a lack of workforce unity often
arise.
Scaleups are more than just glorified startups. And by
overcoming unique challenges and adopting the right strategies along the way, scaleups can achieve significant growth and drive job
creation and innovation in modern commerce.
Adopting the right program and skills at the right time is crucial for
successful scaling. Center invites to apply for 2025 Scaleup
program
Why
join the program? It can help businesses get the skills to scale up
their operations. ScaleUp accelerator has the
following components:
·
Mentorship: Access to
experienced mentors who can provide guidance and advice on how to grow and
scale the business.
·
Training: Training and
educational resources to help businesses learn new skills and improve operations.
·
Networking: Scaleup
program provides access to a network of industry professionals, business owners,
and other resources that can help grow and succeed.
Joint the 2025 cohort of accelerator
Why shipping startup Route was right to compress 18 months into four
April 18, 2024
Evan Walker was no
stranger to the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship. Even
though still in his 30s, he’d already built eight businesses. And yet,
none had fully prepared him for Route.
Born out of his frustration with
shipping a vintage trunk from Europe to the United States, Walker developed Route as an easier way for consumers
to protect and track e-commerce packages. He planned to fine-tune the product,
raise a seed round to find traction and then head into a Series A to accelerate
growth. Route would pick up both retailers and their customers along the way.
In
January 2019, Walker, who is Route’s founder and was the CEO at the time,
closed a $1.3 million seed round to carry the company through mid-2020.
Within
months of launch, demand for Route’s tracking platform went through the roof,
upending Walker’s well-laid plans. The money Route had in the bank was meant to
last 18 months, not to be spent immediately on a quick ramp-up of business
operations. Walker was caught between two venture funding maxims — spend wisely to extend your startup’s runway or spend quickly
to accelerate growth. In a strategic move (and out of necessity from growth),
Walker decided to grow fast and deploy Route’s capital in just four months, in
essence, taking on the profile of a Series A company just as it was coming off
a seed round.
“It
was a little bit riskier of a move, but going down to four months was very
calculated,” says Walker. “It was done deliberately knowing that the shortened
runway was going to create faster growth.”
To
keep the flywheel going, Walker raised additional capital through a quick
succession of convertible notes that played the role of a typical Series A funding round.
“My
advice to founders and entrepreneurs is to look at the competitive
landscape because there's so many businesses
starting up. If you don't raise money, your competition will."
The
gambit paid off: Route hit a $14.4 million annualized run rate in its first year.“This was my eighth business
and the first VC-funded company,” says Walker. “My advice to founders and
entrepreneurs is to look at the competitive landscape because there's so many businesses starting up. If you don't raise
money, your competition will and they're going to have a strategic advantage.”
In other words, moving fast is critical to your startup’s success.
Center for Entrepreneurship Scaleup
programs is a starting point for anyone who is considering taking the leap to
start a company. It provides mentorship, support from the community, and
networking opportunities.
Hiring when
Scaling
February 10,
2024
As business begin to scale, the importance of hiring the best
possible talent can’t be underestimated. While there are many aspects of growth
to consider, ensuring you secure the most effective team available will make
other goals much easier to realise. An A-grade team also attracts other benefits and helps to
build strong foundations for long-term growth in a self-reinforcing circle.
Over-hire,
don’t under-hire
Always hire
the best talent you can as these team members will be the highest performers.
Talent assets will also aid in attracting capital and further talent. Poor
hiring decisions end up costing in lost time, revenue and traction. Although it
is possible for an A-grade team to improve a B-grade product, it is worth
remembering that an A-grade product can be destroyed by a B-grade team.
Husayn Kassai, CEO and Co-Founder at Onfido,
gives this advice: “Any business is just the sum of its people, so if there’s
one rule we should all swear by, it’s to be very selective. You need to know
exactly what you want and be relentless in your drive to find the best possible
candidate to achieve that. A common mistake startups
make is not knowing what role they need to hire for and worse, settling for
someone who’s not best suited to it. When businesses are scaling, there’s often
a tension between urgently needing to fill a gap and finding someone who’s the
right fit for it – compromising on the latter is one of the biggest mistakes a business
can make.”
Utilise
all resources to secure the best people
Your
investors have already recognised your potential and
will likely have some prior knowledge of your sector. Asking them to utilise
their networks to support you with your hiring can provide a fast track to
highly suitable and experienced talent for your business. Investors are
unlikely to recommend anyone who would not perform well and there is nothing
more powerful than a VC/Angel eyeballing a potential candidate.
“Heroes don’t
scale”
By this
stage, you are already likely to possess a strong existing executive team. As you begin to scale, the CEO needs to
maintain a focus on the broader picture. The CEO should ensure that the other
executives in HR, Finance and Sales are performing their roles effectively,
allowing the principal to stay focused on the business strategy and path to
exit and not get distracted from the core business.
Center for Entrepreneurship Scaleup
programs is a starting point for anyone who is considering taking the leap to
start a company. It provides mentorship, support from the community, and
networking opportunities. The program
has also intensive human resource module that helps to implement people
strategy
March 8, 2024
Scaling a business is an adventure filled with potential rewards and
risks. Before embarking on this journey, it's crucial to evaluate the
sturdiness of your vessel – your startup's foundation. This evaluation is not
just about ensuring that the numbers add up; it's about taking a holistic view
of your business and asking the hard questions. Is your team ready to expand?
Do your processes have the capacity to handle increased demand? Is your product
truly market-ready, or does it need further refinement? These questions are
essential because scaling too soon can be just as detrimental as scaling too
late.
From the perspective of a venture
capitalist, the readiness to scale is often measured by a
startup's ability to demonstrate a repeatable and scalable business model. They look for evidence of a strong customer base, consistent revenue streams, and a clear path to
profitability. On the other hand, an entrepreneur might
focus on the product-market fit and
the agility of
the team to pivot and adapt as they scale.
Here are some in-depth considerations to determine if your startup is
ready to scale:
1. product-Market fit: Have you found a product that satisfies the market
needs? For example, Dropbox found success by solving a common
problem – file
sharing and storage – in a user-friendly way.
2. customer Acquisition cost (CAC) and Lifetime Value (LTV): Is the cost of acquiring a new customer significantly lower than the lifetime value of
that customer? For instance, Netflix's subscription model ensures a steady LTV
that exceeds the CAC.
3. Scalable Infrastructure:
Does your technology and team have the capacity to grow? Consider how amazon Web services (AWS) scales with its customers' needs without
compromising on performance.
4. Financial Health: Are your
financials robust enough to support growth? It's important to have a clear understanding of your burn rate and runway.
5. Operational Efficiency: Are
your operations streamlined and automated where possible? Automation tools like
Zapier can help reduce manual tasks and increase efficiency.
Scaling is not a one-size-fits-all
process. It requires a careful assessment of various aspects of your startup.
By thoroughly evaluating your foundation, you can ensure that when you do
decide to scale, your startup is not just ready but also resilient and equipped
for sustainable growth
Center for Entrepreneurship offers two pivotal programs for scaling up: the ScaleUp accelerator
and Startup Club. Both programs offer the critical connections. The ScaleUp Accelerator is 9 month program with individual mentor, The Startup club is organized in way that participants get access to industry mentors and experts