As Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel pointed out at this weekend's Startup Bootcamp, at some point in a startup's life cycle, entrepreneurs will have to overcome financial challenges. Whether you are hitting up family and friends or hoping to score some seed funding, you will need to understand how and what to pitch about your project when you enter the boardroom.
The Capital Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing entrepreneurs with financial education, will kick off a new Accelerated Education Program this September 17th, to help early-stage startups learn the language of funding in six months.
"The reality is is that there is a certain amount of financial literacy that is so helpful for entrepreneurs to have when they are out raising money because if they come to before they've gone through some sort of education, they don't have a grasp on what they are asking for or why they need it and it is so much better when they've come through a program like TCN," Sheryl Schultz of Golden Seed and Launchpad told BostInno.
Boston's budding businessmen and women will head to Bingham McCutchen on Tuesday at 6:00 P.M. to get sense of the pieces needed to build a fundable company from a handful of experts including, Kent Bennett of Bessemer Venture Partners, former cofounder and VP Marketing at Incentive Targeting Inc. (acquired by Google) Ben Sprecher and Christopher Mirabile of Launchpad Venture Group.
"In the last year or so, we pulled [the program] together so that it was offered in a consistent way not dependent on the people that were doing the presenting but more dependent on the core curriculum so that way it's accessible to generations of entrepreneurs so they can come here and expect to learn these things," explained Jerry King of Where.com and chair of The Capital Network.
The new program offers a more condensed version of The Capital Network's traditional curriculum, built around four main learning points: Calculate, Structure, Capitalize and Execute. Over the next six months, The Capital Network will hold "roundtable" meetups focused within one of the aforementioned themes with investors and prominent entrepreneurs within the community to help educate entrepreneurs and provide targeted feedback. Meetups are held around the city at hot spots like the Venture Cafe and at hours to cater to entrepreneurs' schedules.
"If you take someone... and say there are a variety of different...roundtables that you can go to help fill in some of the gaps that you're feeling uncomfortable about, it so much furthers their ability to articulate what they need and give you the things you need to make some of the decisions quicker," shared Schultz. "For a lot of folks this is a little alien, it helps them frame it for themselves as well as for the angels."
The Capital Network's Accelerated Education Program has the community at heart, bringing together investors and sponsor organizations to equip entrepreneurs with the necessary skills and knowledge. "[The program] helps float everybody," noted King.
it helps float everybody.
