MAY 2020 | AWSThanks + SGWomen + Memberships
What a month it has been - we went from hosting 1 live Event in January in Wuhan, 2 in February to over 300 online Events in April across 40 countries. This would not have been possible without the hard work from you and your team to learn the ropes and work with us in creating incredible experiences for our communities. We’re inspired by your ability to adapt to the new ways to build community.
The AWS Month of April was a great success. A massive thank you to you all! We have some stats below.
We are super excited for the month of JUNE when we host Female Founders from around the world in our annual #SGWomen Month. This should be a year round practice in your Chapters, but once a year we go all out globally to showcase the great work being done by women.
We love this quote from Arlan Hamilton (who Derek just interviewed) - and I see our Directors hosting Events year after year - so this one is to you!
“Success is reached when you’ve done so much and you’ve reached a certain level that you don’t have to do it any longer but you choose to […]”
-Arlan Hamilton
To all the successful Directors (and newbies) out there - Here’s to you crushing your personal and professional goals!
DEREK TOWNHALL
On the 21st May 2020 - we'll be having a Townhall discussion with Derek regarding all things Startup Grind. The effect of COVID-19 on our organisation, our plans for the future, The Membership Program, the Startup Program etc.
Please do Join us - RSVP HERE
CHAPTER DIRECTOR OF THE MONTH
Startup Grind Settat (Morocco)
- Joined SG in Jan 2018
- Hosted over 30 Events
- 10 #SGVirtual events hosted in April!
- Has his own enterprise specializing in business intelligence and market research
Meet Hassan, Chapter Director of Startup Grind Settat (Morocco). Having hosted more than 10 #SGVirtual Events in April, he has been crushing it with his online Events, and working with other Chapters to bring high quality experiences to their communities.
"When you are a Chapter Director of Startup Grind, the first thing for you is to serve your community positively and expect nothing at the start. In addition, the positive impact is plural which is dependent on your team and your network. This is why you should work towards a single objective to make the community happy and interconnected" — Hassan Imad, Startup Grind Settat (Morocco)
#SGWOMEN MONTH
Next month we're celebrating #SGwomen (though let's be honest – the celebration is year-round). Get ready for a month featuring incredible women leaders from all over the world. This is presented with Google for Startups and SVB Bank.
Art Assets are available. You will see the templates in Google Drive.
Go to Google Drive - select “new” and click “Slides” then click the arrow and choose “templates” and it should take you to Startup Grind Templates. If not, log out of your email, and log into your Startup Grind email account.
Once there, scroll down the page till you see the SGWomen Art Assets - We have for social media, for the Event, for your Event/Chapter pages etc.
What’s happening thereafter? - See the FULL YEAR PLAN HERE!
SGVIRTUAL UPDATES
The Community Team spent 2 weeks researching all the possible online tools out there ( Here’s a list of them all!)
We eventually settled on Zoom as it allowed us to fully integrate with our systems, it works worldwide - including in China -
and it’s the most stable system out there.
Please go take a look at our newly launched Zoom Playbook to see - step by step - how to host the most amazing Zoom Event ever!
The magic of #SGVirtual is that we are breaking down borders and connecting communities worldwide.
Some cool things to note:
1.) How registration works
- Attendee registers on bevy, fills in form (if they are logged in, will use data from previous time! - so super quick to fill in form)
- Data is synced to zoom (If they register on zoom - data is synced to Bevy)
- If a person is logged into zoom.us with the SAME email as they bought a ticket with, and they click on the bevy link - they'll be taken directly into the zoom call without needing to do anything further!
- You can include this in the "instructions" below where you insert the zoom link in your "edit event" page on Bevy (Startup Grind Dashboard)
This is a new system we launched beginning last week - still a few changes and improvements coming, and still a few bugs in the system (small dev team with a lot going on - as we are doing it internally at SG Community Team).
2.) Bevy virtual software link is a dynamic link!
- What does this mean? - When you paste a Zoom link into your Event page, Bevy will generate a UNIQUE link for you. This link will ALWAYS point to the most up-to-date Zoom link in the Event page.
- If you change the Zoom link in the future, the UNIQUE link will stay the same, but will point to the new Zoom link
- When there is NO link, it’ll point to your Event page.
- Please ONLY ever share this link, or link to your Event page
3.) SG Virtual Playbook + Zoom
- Please ONLY use the Event type SGVirtual [RVSP] - as this allows for virtual Events (i.e. no location). If you are charging for Events, please use the non-rsvp Event type.
- When creating your Event, save it to draft and apply for a Zoom link via this form - this will give you a Zoom link that can host 500 people AND will fully sync with your dashboard (i.e. check people into Bevy for you!)
- Go here to see the FULL PLAYBOOK
- (We are constantly working on it and improving it, so please do check back from time to time)
MENTORSHIP MONTH PRESENTED WITH AWS
Massive thank you for making it a success, please see the stats and information below
- 325 Events in April with roughly 25% cross posted. We are loving seeing this collaboration between Chapters like Paris and Chengdu, Gibraltar and Amman. We would love to see this pace kept up with some Chapters hosting up to 2x per week.
- This is the best response we have seen from any community anywhere in the world so thank you! You are all the very best at what you do.
- Regional Breakdown
- Europe, Middle East & Africa - 119
- Americas - 88
- APAC - 118 (China - 77)
AWS AFRICA
The AWS Africa partnership will be coming into effect starting 1 June 2020.
The African Chapter Directors will be hosting AWS Sponsored Events until the end of 2020, and we’ll be reaching out to you with further details soon.
For African Startups, we have AWS Cloud Credit available - but it’s only available for those in Africa - as it uses the data centers in Africa - therefore giving you super high speed connectivity, and organised by our very own Chapter Director in Cape Town, South Africa, Sandras.
FRESHWORKS
We have a long standing Global partnership with Freshworks, and it’s come to our attention that their BD team has been reaching out to Chapter Directors directly asking them to host events for free.
If anyone from Freshworks reaches out to you directly, please notify your Community Manager. We want to ensure that Chapters receive something in exchange for hosting Events. Please do not host Events for Freshworks for Free!!
Any questions on the partnership please contact Alex at agf@startupgrind.com
STARTUP PROGRAM + MEMBERSHIP
The Startup Program has a few things going on. Below are the details
- Introductions to Investors
- Help startups in the program and local to your Chapter get showcased
- Topic moderation for our new online membership for startups
They have 2 things happening to help with this:
- If you have any questions about any of the above, or the direction of the startup program, we have an AMA (Ask Me Anything) call with Alex coming up. You can also get clarity on how you can help as a Director and also benefit from these programs. Details below.
- At the very bottom of this email, there’s an opportunity for Directors that the Startup Program have brokered to help you and your startups.
Introductions to VCs:
If you know of any investors that might be looking to diversify their portfolio, or invest in great startups, or be a mentor and can introduce us - please reach out to imogen on imogen@startupgrind.com
Helping your startups
Should a startup in our program wish to reach out to you, you need to firstly accept the invitation. We know you get bombarded with requests all the time, so we’d like to respect your time.
Startups will fill in this form: Intro to your local Chapter - and once you accept - we’ll do intro - if not, that’s totally fine. This is an opt-in situation. If you would like to connect with your local startups in your local area - please do reach out to Aayush on aayush@startupgrind.com
Launching online membership
We are launching an online membership. Take a look at this overview to get all the details Quick
Startup Program AMA with Alex Gordon-Furse
Alex, who leads the Startup Program, will be hosting THREE Ask Me Anything calls to help address and discuss all things Startup + STARTUP MEMBERSHIP + Future of Startup Program etc.
Americas: Wed 13 May 2020 @ 12:00 GMT-5 (RSVP Here)
EMEA: Thu 14 May 2020 @ 16:00 GMT+2 (RSVP Here)
APAC: Fri 15 May 2020 @ 18:00 GMT+08 (RSVP here)
This is your opportunity to have an input into the direction of the program. Please make use of this opportunity. We’d love to create an incredible experience for our Directors and our Startups - so your input and direction will be invaluable.
PARTNERSHIP: OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUR COMMUNITY
Hey Directors,
Phin here. As many of you know I transitioned into a new role last month on the Partnership Success team. As part of this role, each month in the Directors newsletter I want to share some opportunities and offers from our Partners that either you or your community may find useful. This month I have 3 partnership opportunities from AWS Activate, Google Ads and Established.
Separately, if you have any questions around any of our partnerships please feel free to reach out to me via email or Slack.
AWS Activate Credits (Global)
The AWS Activate Credit offer proved popular last month during our AWS Mentorship Month. We have been able to get this extended. You and your community can apply for up to $100K in credits.
Apply Here
Google Ad Words (Available in US only at this time)
Google Ads are offering the opportunity for you and members of your community to receive a free consultation on your business model and marketing goals.
As part of the consultation they will help you build Google Ads campaigns and improve your campaigns over time to get more of the results that matter to your business. Learn more about the opportunity here.
Established (US Only)
Established connects startups like yours to capital, investor networks, publicity, customers, and resources.
They are managing the US Air Forces AFWERX program which helps eligible startups access SBIR, America's largest seed fund, with opportunities for startups to land $50K contracts to do customer discovery with the Air Force.
Find out more about that partnership here, together with Art Assets and copy to promote to your community.
Slack Alternative for Directors
As mentioned earlier, the Startup Program managed to get a deal with one of our great Startups!
Swit, a tool that is like slack, but only more powerful, have offered that all the SG Chapters can use Swit for free if they want to!! - If you are interested in this, please apply here: https://airtable.com/shrJ1vwSaX0OD5Itx
LEVEL UP
This month in the “Level Up” section - we’ll be featuring Jens Wernborg, our Hong Kong Chapter Co-Director, who took it upon himself to create some explainer videos. They were so good that we will be featuring them in our help documentation. This month, he has created 2 great videos that we’d like to share with you. They will help you become better at hosting Events, but also great at social marketing.
Events & Emails
Please take a look at this new resource showing you what emails are being sent when from your Chapter help.startupgrind.com/article/535-what-automated-emails-are-being-sent-out
How to make our Chapter page fly
Great Chapter pages - lead to people liking what they see - and joining. The more that join - the better your community and your Events Here’s a - as Amal put it - laconic video on How To Level Up Your Chapter Page (must admit, we had to google that word - but it’s pretty fitting as the video is straight to the point, nice and short and delivers great value).
How to support our Hashtag
Here are some great tips on how to support our hashtag on LinkedIn - and it applies to other social media platforms
SURVEY TIME
Here are 2 surveys that we’d love for you to promote to your startups and online/offline community and help us get filled in, so that we can know what our startups need and how we can help them more:
- Internal HQ Survey to help our startup community: How can we help Startups
- Partnership Survey with Future Females: The Changing landscape of Entrepreneurship
#COMMUNITYTEAM
Derek, G, Bruce, Madeline, Daniel, Jessica, Jelte, Yasemin