Category Archives: Education

Customer Development, Education, mentoring, startup

Alumniportal Challenge Workshops & Mentoring

Recently I was honored and excited to be invited to teach and mentor the startups participating in the Alumniportal Challenge online. I first held an interactive online workshop on why most startups fail and what to do about it (customer development, lean startup, and all that), and then mentored the international teams over Zoom later in the month.

Alumniportal Deutschland is a non-profit online social network of “Germany Alumni” that is designed internationally for people who have studied, researched, worked or completed further training or a language course in Germany or at a German institution abroad.

The primary non-profit and non-governmental organizations responsible for creating, maintaining and promoting Alumniportal Deutschland are the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD – the world’s largest funding organisation for the international exchange of students and researchers), and the Goethe-Institut. Since 2019, the Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) is responsible for funding the portal.

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Education, pitching, startup

Pitching Masterclass @ C3 Competition by Gateway Excellence Startup Center, University of Cologne

Recently I had a blast prepping the startup finalist for the C3 pitching competition, back again at the Gateway Excellence Startup Center at the University of Cologne with my Pitching Masterclass, Startup Edition.

Image by Gateway

Interested in my Pitching Masterclass for your students, startups, or employees too? Get in touch!

It was initially created to serve the Rheinland Pitch back in 2013 to help educate our regional founders and prepare them for raising money – and has been constantly evolving and updated ever since, and today it contains accumulated knowledge and feedback from over 3.000 startups served – and counting.

The Pitching Masterclass Startup, Student, and Corporate Edition used to only be available to applicants to the Rheinland Pitch or people lucky enough to be in an educational institution, incubator, accelerator, or corporate innovation program who had booked me for my in-person, on-location Masterclass.

Some of my happy Pitching Masterclass customers…

Today, in addition to the on-premise editions, my Pitching Masterclass is available to anyone everywhere as on-demand eLearning, featuring +2 hours of video and all the hundreds of slides as a booklet download.

Also available in bundles, especially popular with companies and organisations, including prepaid online mentoring & support vouchers for employees, booked and managed by the teams themselves on demand.

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Education, entrepreneurship, speaking, startup

Keynote @ Deutscher Akademischer Austausch-dienst (DAAD)

Recently I had the honor and pleasure to be invited to hold a keynote speech for Alumniportal by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).

I spoke a bit about five things I wished that I had known before starting out as a startup founder.

Here they are – in no particular order.

ChatGPT’d screenshot from the online event

About the DAAD:

The DAAD is the world’s largest funding organisation for the international exchange of students and researchers.

Since it was founded in 1925, around 3 million scholars in Germany and abroad have received DAAD funding. It is a registered association and its members are German institutions of higher education and student bodies. Its activities go far beyond simply awarding grants and scholarships. The DAAD supports the internationalisation of German universities, promotes German studies and the German language abroad, supports countries in the Global South in building and improving their higher education systems and advises decision makers on education, foreign science and development policy.

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Education, Events, mentoring, startup

Mentoring 3DS @ WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar

Recently I was invited by students at the prestigious (often ranked as #1 for business degree universities in Germany) private university of WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany to mentor at their 3Day- Startup (sorf of a Startup Weekend clone) event.

And the winner was… Team Care
Screenshot

I’ve also been working with WHU in Düsseldorf for some years now, mentoring at their accelerator program, but I had not been to WHU Vallendar since I was invited to Idealab in 2013, so it was nice to be back again.

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Education, pitching

Pitching Masterclass @ Gateway Exzellenz Start-up Center University of Cologne

Recently I was invited to the Gateway Exzellenz Start-up Center at the University of Cologne, Germany to prepare the finalists of their “Startup Your Idea Contest” to pitch at their final event.

My Pitching Masterclass was initially created to serve the Rheinland Pitch back in 2013 to help educate our regional founders and prepare them for raising money – and has been constantly evolving ever since, and today it contains accumulated knowledge and feedback from over 3.000 startups served – and counting.

Until now, the Pitching Masterclass Startup Edition and Corporate Edition was only available to applicants to the Rheinland Pitch or startups lucky enough to be in an incubator or accelerator or corporate innovation program who decided to book me for my in-person, on-location Masterclass.

Happy Pitching Masterclass customers…

Today, the Pitching Masterclass is also additionally available, both the Startup and Corporate Edition, to all startups, students, and corporate innovators everywhere as on-demand eLearning at https://pitchingmasterclass.com, featuring +2 hours of video and all the hundreds of slides as a booklet download – also bookable in packages which additionally includes online mentoring & support vouchers for your teams.

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