111 founders, 69 startups, 1 goal

We just started our 12-months accelerator program as part of the Start.in.RLP scholarship. We are proud to support the amazing group of 111 founders on their entrepreneurial journey to build a great business. In addition to funding by Start.in.RLP, the program includes:

• Education content and workshops on core startup skills.

• Practical examples and breakout sessions to apply the newly learned skills.

• Founder talks with startup CEOs who share their experiences, wins, and pain.

A Diverse Group of Founders

The kick-off was all about offering the founders a safe space to connect and collaborate. Our pre-event survey shows the various backgrounds of our founders, reflecting the full beauty of the startup community.

• 31% Female Founders: While still too low, a 31% share of female founders is encouraging, compared to the <20% from the last Startup Monitor.

• 77% are first-time founders and 17% are on their second startup.

• 36% already reached MVP, and about a quarter each even have first customers or repeat revenues, respectively.

Learning and sharing across stages ensures that no one has to walk that path alone. Throughout our accelerator program, founders will share their pains and gains, which is one of our prime goals.

Founder Talk with Tim Grossmann

We invited Tim Grossmann, founder of Explo, to talk about the ups and downs of his startup journey. He supports GenZs, in finding and sharing their travel inspiration using short videos. The app is already in the app stores, and his priority is to grow the creator base and get new users with appealing content and offline guerilla marketing tactics.

His key takeaways in promoting his product and building a company are:

• Don’t be afraid of making mistakes: Analysis paralysis is real. However, you can read all the books and articles and still make mistakes when implementing what you learned. Failing is part of the process.

• Delegate, delegate, delegate: As a founder, it is your job to grow the business and keep your team together (especially when you are all working remotely). Leave specific operational tasks to your experts.

• Your network is your net worth: Finding the right people for your business can be challenging. Tim found a team of developers and designers through friends and colleagues: Your network is one of your most important assets as a founder.

• The 5-minute rule: Finding investors is not easy and very time-consuming for both sides. Once they acquire a qualified lead, Tim and his team keep their pitches short and sweet to keep investors engaged. There is no need to push every piece of information onto the investors; if they are intrigued, they will ask questions about the business.

Tim already benefited from the experience of founding his own company. “I am all in because I know what’s there to gain. You're not just growing a business; you grow as a person”.

Preview: Collaboration with experienced founders

Working with Tim Grossmann and his experiences are a great example of our accelerator program and coaching; it’s not only about the growth of the business but also the growth of the person, our victories, our failures, and learnings. Throughout that journey, we’ll combine a mix of education, practical learning, and collaboration with experienced founders of the Moinland community.

Thanks to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate for supporting the startup community; we are grateful for the opportunity to accompany the Start.in.RLP founders on their entrepreneurial journey.

Do you need support for growing your startup?

Have you already started your company, are generating your first revenues, and are now ready to grow your business fast? Get in contact with us, and let’s find out if our coaching may also be helpful for you and your startup.

Network:innen zwischen den Welten

Die fabelhafte herCAREER hat mir gezeigt, wie toll es ist, endlich wieder in persönlichen Gesprächen Bekanntschaften zu pflegen und neue ergeben sich leicht via Small Talk beim Warten auf den Café. Wie habe ich das vermisst. Und wie viele inspirierende Frauen waren vor Ort!

Was mich nachdenklich gemacht hat, waren die Ausführungen von Katharina Mayer, Founder & CEO Kuchentratsch, die von ihren Erfahrungen berichtete, dass Netzwerken mit Männern schwieriger sei als mit Frauen “wegen dem Männer - Frauen-Ding”. Sie könne nicht so leicht mal eben auf einen Café gehen mit Männern im beruflichen Kontext.

Ich habe versucht, meine spontanen Café- Verabredungen nach Geschlecht aufzuschlüsseln und habe da kein Muster erkannt.

„Behind every woman is an army of women (and men) hyping her up!“

Ich erinnere mich aber an Panel- Diskussionen u.a. mit Franzi von Hardenberg zum Thema “Netzwerken”, dass sie wie ich der Meinung war, “frau” müsse neben dem Latte Macchiato zwischendurch, nach einem Konferenz- oder Messetag auch mit zum After Work, sprich `auf ein Bier gehen´ für ein effektives Socialising mit den mehrheitlich männlichen Ansprechpartnern in der Tech - Szene.

Also ist das so, dass wir in der Gründer:innen-Szene noch in den Stereotypen verhaftet sind? Dass man/frau sich nicht einfach auf einen Café treffen kann? Dass frau sich den Ritualen des “männlichen” Netzwerkens anpassen muss, wie in den 90ern, wo Managerinnen ganze Kerle sein mussten?

Für mich sind Frauennetzwerke perfekt zum Auftanken und Courage stärken. Es tut gut unter Gleichen zu sein und die Energie mit in den Alltag zu nehmen. Aber sie dürfen nicht zur Ausrede werden, denn mindestens genauso brauche ich den Austausch mit der Vielfalt aller, die mich und mein Netzwerk stärken. Also auch mit Euch liebe Männer. Der nächste Café geht auf mich.

Scaling the WHY - How to read your investors / customers minds

In the startup world we love our metrics 📈 . ARR, LTV, CAC, you name it. Many of them are growth related as a key element of the startup culture. Others are performance or margin oriented like EBITDA or the Rule of 40. They are a quantitative representation of our actions and the impact on the behavior of our prospects and customers.

What about the Why?

We know we should always start with the Why. Leaders need the ability to inspire (to close the big deals). But why doesn’t the investor send a term sheet? Why does the customer purchase the new IPA from the cool indie brewery? How do you know if you inspire somebody? Of course you can ask but the Why is still incredibly hard to scale.

Is there a way to measure the why, that emotional miracle that happens when your heart says: Yes, I love it! ❤️ I had the opportunity to dive deep on this with Scott and the amazing team at Immersion. They have built a neuroscience platform that allows you to measure how your target audience engages with an experience, e.g. your startup pitch 🚀 or your video ad. It’s an easy to use cloud based tool that can identify the moment the audience falls in love with your product or service.

The moment your audience falls in love

Imagine you can place a CTA right at that moment of highest engagement? Bam 💥 deal closed! As a marketer you can now test your messaging before you spend a single dollar on advertisement. In fact, you can predict the (emotional) success of your content with an 85% accuracy. How is that for startup metrics?

Talking about startups. SunRamp, an accelerator for healthtech, is using the platform to measure the performance of startup pitches. They are able to pin down the level of audience engagement for every slide of the pitch deck second by second. With that data, your next investor pitch could be like reading your investors’ minds.

Are you a founder and like to test your pitch? Are you a marketer and like to test your messaging? Sign up for a free trial or ping me and we’ll get you started.

Engagement at Investor Pitch