Virtually attending SEWF22 & Mentoring for Catalysr

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So the Social Enterprise World Form is taking place here in Brisbane. I would like to say I am attending in person but I opted for a digital pass instead. I would use Kyco as an excuse but let’s face facts here, virtually attending was just me being averse to people!

I did want to join the after-party but the tickets were sold out. That’s what I get for being lax and only deciding last minute to attend somehow!

As I type this, I am listening to the “Doughnut Economics: going beyond GDP” and the timer says the event ends in a couple of hours. so I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

I enjoyed the talks I got to attend live. It was great to hear first nation voices and listen to the struggles of first nation business founders. I appreciated the conversations around funding with one of the comments that struck me is that funding is often allocated based on the funders’ values which may be too narrow.

As someone who has seen the struggle for funding in both startup-land and research-land, I can appreciate struggling to connect and communicate with capital allocators.

I also appreciated the discussions around procurement and how social procurement can become administratively difficult for both the procuring organisation and the vendor organisation. It’s a problem I am aware of but I feel a lot of activists ignore it when trying to push for change. So I appreciate the advice that “You have to provide solutions, not problems” to social enterprise practitioners.

Finally, I am glad that in the doughnut economics session they brought up the fact that environmental concerns are not necessarily always included when people develop solutions or have organisations dedicated to addressing social issues. Of course, it goes the other way too. The plastic straw issue, for example, became a wedge issue between disability advocates and environmentalists because plastic straws aren’t convinience items for some disable people, who also could not use plastic alternatives easily.

I think the environment vs social issue resonated with me the most becaue there was a web 3, ie. cryptocurrency, based social enterprise at the forums. I am not one of to dismiss any technology out of hand but given the worsening climate crisis, we really need to ask the question if we can afford to let blockchain and cryptocurrency enterprises continue to waste resources on a solution that are still largely trying to find a problem to solve.

Overall, I am glad I made the effort to attend the forum. Even if it was virtually. I look forward to staying connected with the social enterprise community going forward.

The other thing I am doing is making myself available as a mentor to this year’s cohort of Catalysr migrant and refugee entrepreneurs. My two activities collided yesterday and not just because I had to duck out of SEWF22 to meet with two startups for office hours. But also because Usman Iftikhar, the founder and CEO of Catalysr, was the host for the “social enterprise response to migration and its impacts”.

It was great to see him up on stage, and made me feel bad for not making the effort to be there in person. Because it would have been nice to meet him in real life!

As for the mentoring, I always feel like an imposter, and I don’t know how much value I provide those to take the time to meet with me. But hopefully, the two startups who requested office hours with me yesterday got some value. Now, time to return to the SEWF22!

September Update: Kyco, Mentoring for Catalysr and Josari

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By the time this post is published Kyco would have been at its new home in Plumridge House for over a week and what a week it has been! You can really tell that we are hurtling toward “Go Live” on the 1st of November.

I am glad we are no longer homeless vagabonds, borrowing boardrooms and spare offices from our partners. We have needed an office for some time now but we had some false starts and had to shift last minute. But having experienced Plumridge House before with Birnam Wood, I can honestly say that we are in good professional hands and can now settle in, put our head down and do work.

As I said, "Go Live” for Kyco is on the 1st of November. So watch this space for updates!

While I do my part for the Kyco “Go Live”, I am also volunteering as a mentor for Catalysr’s Accelerator. The first mentoring session was on the 15th of September. There were some familiar faces among the founders as some were graduates of the Catalysr Pre-Accelerator, including Kalvitree, which was in the cohort I was leading as 1 of 2 chapter leads. Also, since the pre-accelerator, I have joined the Kalvitree advisory panel. So here’s hoping Kalvitree has a successful accelerator journey.

Lastly, unfortunately, Josari’s paid marketing campaign has not had the traction that we wanted on Facebook and Paul has asked the marketing agency to switch focus to LinkedIn. I hope it performs better on LinkedIn. We have some great advisors ready to go, I think they can add some great value to small businesses and startups everywhere!

Catalysr Pre-Accelerator Concludes!

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Last Wednesday, the 23rd of June, the Catalysr Pre-Accelerator program came to an end, and with it, so did my time as one of the two Brisbane Chapter Leads!

I enjoyed the experience greatly and I hope I was able to add some value to the participants. Because of the nature of the program, there was a huge number of people during the first couple of sessions but the cohort self culled from those who were motivated enough to apply but did not have firm enough ideas or commitment to continue for 12 weeks. But those who stuck to the end have solid ideas that I believe they are committed to pursuing to the best of their abilities.

As we still live in the shadow of COVID, the program did not run as intended. Because originally, the community sessions were supposed to be in-person. But the Brisbane chapter moved to online and was combined with ACT because just as the program started, Brisbane was put into a snap lockdown. Overall, I was glad for the change as I was able to manage my time better with the sessions being on Zoom.

Of course, as the program went on, we had COVID lockdown refugees from Melbourne and while some people did wish that the sessions were in person, even more, were grateful it was online. Catalysr will have to resolve this issue for the next iteration of this program.

Other issues facing Catalysr is that too broad range of participants. I was hosting people who were already undertaking a pilot, while others were still identifying a market niche. The pre-accelerator felt like it was combining a full entrepreneurship education program with a Startup Weekend. So that was one of my feedback to the operations team. I suggested that they consider hosting a weekend-long program that focuses on transferrable skills around market research, niche identification and idea generation that can also be applied by migrants and refugees in other aspects of their life like job search, identification of areas of education and then those who come out of the process with ideas are better suited to spend a longer period of time exploring what it would take to turn the ideas into a business.

That said, I think many of the folks in my cohort had great business ideas and I can’t wait to see where they go with them. I have given them my contact details and hopefully, they will stay in touch! I will also do my best to stay involved with the Catalysr program and do what I can to add value.

Finally, Catalysr has launched its accelerator program for businesses that are a bit more mature. I have encouraged a few of the participants from the Brisbane-ACT cohort to apply and I hope they will make the cut!

4 weeks down, 6 weeks to go as the Catalysr Pre-Accelerator's Brisbane Chapter Lead

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Given how silent this blog has been, you would think that I had gone into a mini-lockdown! But the truth is that April was packed for me. Especially Wednesdays, as the Catalysr Pre-Accelerator program is in full swing.

So far, the program has covered:

  • The Entrepreneurial Mindset

  • Human-Centred Design

  • Prototyping & User Testing

  • Understanding Landscape & Competition

I have enjoyed facilitating the community sessions so far. The QLD-ACT cohort has some exciting startup ideas germinating. Hopefully, I’ll play some part in helping some of the ideas take hold. But I am also learning a fair bit, and developing my facilitation skills. I am looking forward to the rest of the program!

I am 1 of 2 chapter leads for Queensland for Catalysr: pre-accelerator

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Catalysr is an accelerator for early-stage startups. It is specifically aimed at first-generation migrants and refugees. “Migrapreneurs”, as Catalysr likes to call them, have unique challenges when trying to launch businesses. Catalysr aims to provide education, and the network Migrapreneurs need to have a higher chance of success with their business and ideas.

I am not an alumnus of this accelerator, but my MIT Bootcamp teammate, Pascal Seibold, went through the accelerator with his startup Jobspottr GmbH. However, it was another MIT Bootcamp alumnus, Muheeb Hoque, an alumnus of Catalysr with this startup, The Pluralist, who recommended me as a suitable person for the Chapter Lead position for Queensland in Catalysr’s new national pre-accelerator program.

Catalysr’s Head of Operations Marlowe Mackenzie on the pre-accelerator program

A pre-accelerator program helps individuals/small teams who have a startup idea to test and validate their idea for a high-growth tech startup.

I am incredibly grateful to be given this opportunity to give back to the startup community and the migrant community. We, first-generation migrants, have to stick together, and I look forward to meeting some great Migrapreneurs from Brisbane and beyond!