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.
Recently I was invited to hold my “Sales & Marketing for Early-Stage Startups” workshop at the University of Applied Sciences Duesseldorf (HSD) for participants in their “Gründerzeit” program.
Spoiler alert: Sales & Marketing at the early stage of a startup isn’t what you think it is(if you are thinking it’s just like the kind of activities with the same types of goals that larger more established companies are doing, just with much less money and much less people).
If this sounds interesting to you for your educational institution or startup support program too, why not get in touch?
The Sales & Marketing Masterclass for Early-Stage Startups was created in 2017 and has been evolving ever since. It addresses the need for Early-Stage Startups, Students, and Startup Support Programs to better understand how and why sales and marketing for an early stage startup is radically different from the sales strategies and advertising methods of established companies – why what you learn in college or university do not readily apply to early stage startups.
This full day workshop consist of a theoretical part, a hands-on work & coaching part, and a presenting with feedback (peer review) part.
The Masterclass has been designed based on the fundamental practices from the startup world of today and has been evolving and maturing – constantly being updated with input and experience from participating startups.
The Sales & Marketing Masterclass for Early-Stage Startups goes into detail about how and why the things that work for established companies doesn’t work for the first years of a startup, why you’ll be hard pressed to become successful by copying what established companies do or by blindly implementing what you learned in school.
For both B2C and B2B startups, it describes an additional 18 channels for getting attention, customers, and traction – besides that of just paid advertising, and it provides a framework – a repeatable process – for continuously deciding, running and testing experiments to build and improve traction.
For B2B startups, the Masterclass also goes into detail about how to get your first pilot customers and how to treat the whole sales process fundamentally different from that of an established company and in ways that may at first sound counter-intuitive.
The primary goal for our customers of this Masterclass program is to make startups understand how to create traction for their startup, to prepare them with the knowledge and skills to control their fate with their own hands.
The secondary goal is to create awareness about what successful sales and marketing (aka getting traction) for early-stage startups actually looks like, to make first-time startup founders understand how it is different and why.
The thirdgoal is to help early-stage startups (if applicable) further refine and develop their plan and strategy on their actual sales & marketing, by getting critical expert feedback on their contents of the deck, their strategies, and their thinking behind them.
There’s a new place for people interested in doing their own thing in the state of NorthRhine-Westphalia: Gründungsfabrik Mönchengladbach – and recently I was invited as one of their first educational programs to host my Pitching Masterclass there!
My Pitching Masterclass was initially created to serve the needs of the Rheinland Pitch back in 2013 to help educate our regional founders – 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 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.
Join me at Constructor University as we launch migrant entrepreneurs with world-changing ideas. Deep tech, UNSDGs, Diversity – that is what “Synthesis” is about.
Here’s why to apply:
Become a future-proof entrepreneur: Learn from the best and thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Make a real difference: Tackle global challenges and contribute to a better tomorrow while getting a potential investment of up to €100K!
Join a vibrant community: Network with passionate individuals from around the globe.
Turn your idea into reality: Get expert support and mentorship to launch your startup and get mentorship from people like myself!
Applications close March 25th, here’s how to apply.
P.S. Know someone this program would be perfect for? Spread the word!
I’m back also this year mentoring startups at the (rebranded) Young Entrepreneurship Summit run entirely by students at Constructor University in Bremen, DE.
About YES
“The Young Entrepreneur Summit is the ideal springboard for you to project that unique idea!
Contest your idea, benefit from the expertise of successful entrepreneurs through our one-to-one mentorship process, and win thousands of euros to kick-start your venture!
Here at Young Entrepreneur Summit, we guide you from your first business idea towards your very own company—from vision to venture.
From the first application round, you will be provided with valuable advice from experienced founders and entrepreneurship professionals and get a chance to participate in webinars that introduce you to the most important aspects of founding your own business.
The best ten teams will be paired with a personal mentor to guide them through the last application round and prepare them for their pitch during the final event on the Constructor University campus.”
