JUN 2020 | Diversity + #SGWomen Month + Startup Opportunity + ...

#BlackLivesMatter

Startup Grind, both the company and the people we represent -- our employees, startups, Chapter Directors, sponsors, speakers, attendees -- must hold themselves to the highest standards as members of the Startup Grind community.

We have a zero tolerance policy for racism, and perpetuating or endorsing racism are grounds for immediate dismissal. Anyone found not “standing up” against racism may also be found to be in violation of the Code of Conduct in certain circumstances. Stand up and speak up.

Derek, together with the DEI Committee, will be hosting a call on June 16th to talk about racism and its global impact within the Startup Grind community. Click here to join the internal conversation with fellow Directors. (This is only open to Directors and Co-Directors of Startup Grind, and not team members or external parties)

Please review our updated Code of Conduct here, as well as read this message from Derek.

#Townhall Survey

We had well over 100 Directors attend our Global Townhall call in May. We sent out a survey asking for your feedback on the future of Startup Grind, but sadly only 5 of you responded.  Please visit https://airtable.com/shrw2TwNe6LbOYocB and complete the survey.

#DirectoroftheMonth

Grace is a strong community builder who shows great optimism and passion in everything she does. She led the Shenzhen Chapter to organize 82 events in the past 5 years. In 2019, the Chapter hosted 16 offline events with more than 2,000 attendees. The Shenzhen Chapter is now being recognized as one of the top communities in the region.

#SGVirtual Updates

In the last two months we have seen incredible demand for use of our Zoom licenses, which we love! However, due to this we are asking that you please schedule your events AT LEAST 5 days BEFORE you plan to host it. This gives us enough time to generate the Zoom link (can take up to 24 hours - and often we cannot check over a weekend), and gives you enough time to properly market your event!

The last two weeks of the month for #SGWomen are filling up, so please get your event set up and requested soon!

#SGWomen

After a slight change in tradition, we moved #SGWomen to June this year, and have been blown away by the community's response. Only twelve days into the month we’ve already had over 70 events, with 190+ events live on Bevy. 

We’ve put together the Playbook for Hosting a Successful Virtual #SGWomen’s Month Event. We also have a short video clip introducing #SGWomen that we would like to have you play at the start of your events (kudo’s to Madeline for the awesome voiceover!). Check out the video here.

We know some cool events are coming up, and would love to see them posted in the #SGWomen slack group or send to our team via this form so that we can highlight them through the HQ social media channels. (Not all events will make it, but we’ll do our best)

If you have yet to book a female speaker for the month of June, please do so! You can check out the #speakers channel on slack or reach out to the community team if you are having trouble finding someone in your community. 

#COVID19Policy

After a tenuous few months, we are excited to see some Chapters slowly starting to return to in-person events! As local and international regulations begin to lift, we want to reiterate that your safety is our top priority. And, as such, for Chapters who are in regions that are allowing small in-person gatherings to occur, we have developed guidelines that we ask all Chapters to follow.

First and foremost, please adhere to the highest level of safety proposed by the World Health Organization and your local government. If you are able to return to in-person events, we expect that you will also adhere to the official Startup Grind COVID-19 Policy. As the trajectory and outlook across the globe shifts, we will update this documentation accordingly. Updates will always be available at https://help.startupgrind.com. 

#CrossPromote

With the new SGVirtual events it’s really great to cross-promote & cross-collaborate events. There are 3 options:

  1. Simple social media sharing of the event
  2. Re-create the event on your dashboard and fully cross-promote - but ensure to:
    1. Let us at ford@startupgrind.com know
    2. Link to the ORIGINAL event so that everyone can register on the SAME event, and we can track total incoming attendees, but that the diretor can plan accordingly as well.
  3. Do a cross-collaboration with a city where you help connect your community internationally. Chat to these Chapter Directors to find out how it’s helped them: Tbilisi, Paris, Beijing, Gibraltar, Grand Rapids.

London:
Marian has the founder of 23andMe, Anne Wojcicki, speaking at his event and working with Google for Startups. If you like, you can create an event on your page with the details (see details here & art assets here) and use this zoom link: startupgrind.com/j/cywjrmex8h6f3 - and this way, you get a “free” event up on your dashboard ensuring that you don’t miss a month - and your attendees get notification about a really great event.

Edinburgh:
Marta is a Polish-born serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder of international money transfer start-up Azimo, one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in the world. Which has raised over $70M from top VC firms and connected over 1 million customers. Since December 2018, Marta has been Head of Google for Startups in the UK, where she and her team are on a mission to identify and support the next generation of founders on their journeys. If you like, you can create an event on your page with the details (see details here & art assets here) and use this zoom link: startupgrind.com/j/dpbvr9dun88cc/ - and this way, you get a “free” event up on your dashboard ensuring that you don’t miss a month - and your attendees get notification about a really great event.

Cross Collaboration between Beijing and Tbilisi:
Startup Grind Beijing partners with Startup Grind Tbilisi to present Jamie Beaton - 25-year-old global CEO of a multi-million dollar company, Harvard, Stanford Graduate and Rhodes scholar at Oxford - to talk about how to turn an idea into a successful venture and what the future of education looks like post-COVID. For more information click here.

#StartupProgram Referral Links

On June 9 we shared information about the opportunity for Directors to share referral links and Golden Tickets with Startups in their ecosystems to invite them to join the #StartupProgram Membership.

Thanks to the success of our AMA (Ask Me Anything) calls with the Startup Team last month, we will now be making them a quarterly event. This will allow Directors to keep up to date with what's new in the Startup Program, ask any questions you may have, and help improve communication across the community. RSVP for the next AMA events in July here.

#PitchBattle + Year Plan Updates

2020 has been the year of fluid decisions, with a limited ability for some Chapters to host in-person events in the coming months, we know that traditional Summer/Mid Year parties may not be optimal. If you are still planning on doing a party virtually, please share that with us! We would love to see what you can put together for your community! We will not be creating official art assets for these this year. We will continue to share with you as we update the year plan, and you can always find the most up to date version of it here. 

However, one alternative we are rolling out for this season is the #PitchBattle. Some Chapters prototyped this last year and we are excited to be sharing with the entire community this year! #PitchBattles will be an opportunity for you to bring top startups in your community together to pitch for the chance at a free membership to the Startup Program. The winners of each chapter's Pitch Battle will also be selected for a Global Pitch Competition with startups from all around the world. More information regarding this opportunity will be coming out later this month, including a playbook with all of the details you will need to host a fantastic Pitch Battle in August. 

#MightyNetworks

Last week we shared information about adding everyone to Mighty Networks in our ‘NOT A NEWSLETTER’ email. If you haven’t taken the time to read it, please check it out here. 

We’ve received a few questions if the invitation to join Mighty Networks is spam as it comes from an outside sender. No fear, the invitation is direct from HQ and allows you access to the Chapter Director (+ Co-Director) group within Mighty Networks and to the open community page. 

If you were a part of the Fall 2019 Cohort, this will not be the same Mighty Networks group you used for the course. This new group will be all inclusive across all of Startup Grind, check out the following graphic for an overview!

Please ensure you sign up / log into Mighty Networks with your Startup Grind email address. We are ONLY accepting those with Startup Grind email addresses into the Chapter Director group.

#LetsGetSocial

We have heard from a lot of Directors who either want to stay up-to-date with everything HQ is doing on social media, or get HQ to post about their events on the official SG social media channels.

Because of this, we’ve created the #social_media_boost channel in Slack. Every time HQ posts to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Medium, a notification will be sent to this channel. Please join the channel, and like, comment or share.

Want SG HQ to highlight your upcoming event on the official SG social media platforms? If you have a phenomenal speaker lined up, or a cool collaboration between Chapters, we encourage you to share them with us! 

All events must be submitted at least 10 days before the scheduled date so we can properly manage the marketing to get the most exposure and engagement for your Chapter. Fill out this form to submit your event, and ask your CM if you have any questions!

#OfficeHours

We missed seeing you all at office hours last month, but were so excited to see so many of you at the Town Hall with Derek. We will be returning to our traditional monthly office hours calls at the end of June and would love to catch up with all of then!

Click here to RSVP for the upcoming Office Hours calls for June. Bookmark this page for future reference!

Made with ❤️ by the Community Team

Derek, G, Madeline, Bruce, Daniel, Jess, Jelte, Yasemin