Hi everyone! I'd like to invite all of you to publicly set a weekly goal in the comments. This post serves as a small commitment to both yourself and our group! Here are the basic instructions: - If you accomplish your goal from the previous week, announce your win and set your next goal. - If you don’t achieve your goal, you’re encouraged to share not excuses, but your plan for accomplishing it this week. Accountability isn’t about blame; it's about progress. All reasons are valid, but a lack of progress is not. If it takes two weeks instead of one, that's fine - just make sure to get it done. Please be as specific as possible and ensure that your goal is entirely within your control. Action: Write your goal for the week in the comments

Hi all! Thanks for joining my community. This is designed to be an education and accountability-centric startup community hosted by (un)conventional ventures focused on moving you closer to your startup goals - step-by-step. You can engage as much or little as you like, but the more you engage the more resources you unlock including additional education and templates 😉 Initial ways to participate are below and do what makes sense for you and make sure you get some value. We're all all too busy for things that aren't helpful or fun! To kick things off, please comment below introducing yourself. Let us know: - Your Name - Where you're from - 1 sentence description of your startup/project - What you hope to get out of the community Key Areas to Check Out: - Step 1: Start Here - Resources List - software and websites that will help you in the early stages of your startup journey - Community Calendar - office hours, accountability meetings, and coworking sessions Thanks for listening - welcome to class 🙃

Hi everyone! I'd like to invite all of you to publicly set a weekly goal in the comments. This post serves as a small commitment to both yourself and our group! Here are the basic instructions: - If you accomplish your goal from the previous week, announce your win and set your next goal. - If you don’t achieve your goal, you’re encouraged to share not excuses, but your plan for accomplishing it this week. Accountability isn’t about blame; it's about progress. All reasons are valid, but a lack of progress is not. If it takes two weeks instead of one, that's fine - just make sure to get it done. Please be as specific as possible and ensure that your goal is entirely within your control. Action: Write your goal for the week in the comments P.S. Sorry for the delays recently, was traveling but am back plugged in!

Recently, I had a long phone meeting with a potential investor from NYC. During our conversation, she asked me about my team. I told her the story of how I found and teamed up with two dozen college students, how I trained them, and naturally, how we settled on the venture studio idea and started CompanyLX. She told me that I am one of the best technical mentors she has come across recently and that I have a natural talent for it. Honestly, I was not aware of it. So this conversation made me think, what is the importance of a mentor? Starting with the term itself... 📜 Mentorship itself is a deeply valued relationship that predates modern civilization. "Mentor", the term originates in Homer’s Odyssey with the advisor Mentor, who guides Odysseus’ son Telemachus while his father is off fighting in the Trojan War. But what is it for startups.... 📖 A startup mentor is an experienced individual who provides guidance, support, and advice to entrepreneurs, known as the mentee. These mentors typically have expertise in various areas such as business strategy, product development, marketing, finance, or specific industries. In function, they can be a teacher, a coach, a confidant, a role model, a consultant - even a friend. Cool, tell me more about their importance... ⭐ Gerard Roche wrote in a 1979 issue of the Harvard Business Review that nearly two-thirds of surveyed top executives had a mentor - and those who did reported earning more money and being happier with their careers. A study on the Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM found that mentorship plays an essential role not only in professional development of a startup but also as essential psychosocial support for the entrepreneurs. The key areas of mentorship support are: - Psychological and emotional support in overcoming challenges - Modeling important aspirational behaviors, values, and attitudes - Career guidance by questioning and critiquing goals, interests, and decisions - Skill development through education, training, and evaluation - Sponsorship by offering public support and advocating for the mentee

I came across an one-paragraph article on Wikipedia titled "Cockroach (startup)". Strangely, I was not looking for anything related to business/startups or bugs/cockroaches on Wikipedia when I came across this article. I had never heard the term "cockroach" in the business world. 📝 A cockroach startup is a business that grows steadily and cautiously, focusing on making profits and controlling costs from the very beginning. This type of startup is resilient and can survive tough economic times, making it a safer investment compared to faster-growing but riskier "unicorn" startups. ⏩ If you understand what it means, you can skip the rest of this post, since in the rest I will try to explain the same thing as 2 parts to an average Joe! 🪳 Think of a cockroach. It's small, tough, and can survive in many different situations. They can even survive a nuclear blast. Now imagine a business that starts small and grows slowly but surely, like a cockroach. This business is very careful with its money, making sure it earns more than it spends and keeps everything under control. Because it grows steadily and is good at managing its money, it's strong and can handle tough times better. Investors (people who put money into businesses) like cockroach businesses because they are less risky. ⚠️They don’t grow super fast, but they are reliable. 🦄 Now, let's think about a unicorn, a magical creature that's very rare and special. A "unicorn" business is one that grows really fast and becomes very valuable quickly, like finding a magical unicorn. While this can be exciting and can make a lot of money quickly, it’s also much riskier. ⚠️ If something goes wrong, the unicorn might not survive. Image credit : Dall-E 3 (Of course AI, I am not that talented!)