A few months ago at Bridge for Billions we wrapped up a massive project that was rolled out in 10 phases over 12 months and our product team was faced with the major question of, “What’s next??” Of course, we had endless logs of ideas and requests for what could be next, clear company priorities for what should be next, and new client needs arising every day… but, really, what would actually be next?

After a full year of being almost singularly focused, we ended up in a totally different place than where we had started: our team had doubled in size, more than half of us hadn’t worked under any other system, and across all teams, we were so used to knowing the answer to “When can we tackle XXX?” was undoubtedly, “After August!!!”.

“We had a produced shiny new version of our platform, but we had lost some of our gumption and good practices of proposing our ideas and thinking about better solutions.”

We were following a clear process for such a long time that it was a huge shock to go from months and months of working like a well oiled machine, to staring into the great blank abyss of the future! We needed a plan, and fast.

At the time we were facing the end of Q3 and all of our ambitious goals for the end of the year. We knew we had to organize ourselves to get shit done, and more importantly, get it done in the right order.

Oh, and small detail, neither I, nor anyone else on the team, had ever created a Product Roadmap before. I’m not a product manager by training, and like every startup ever we’re always learning on the go over here.

So here’s what I wanted to accomplish with the roadmap:

A crystal clear, totally prioritized list of product projects that the entire team helped to create, that anyone could reference and understand, and that was aligned with our company OKRs*.

(*Objective Key Results, a system used by Google and tons of other companies to measure success — a post on our journey to adopting the system is coming soon).

Why these things, though?

• Clarity: at Bridge everyone (whether from sales, marketing, tech, or operations) depends on our product in some way or another to do their jobs. The roadmap needed to be totally clear and easily understandable so that anyone could see exactly what would be done before the end of the year.
• Prioritization: like at most startups, every day we face the challenge of balancing unlimited needs and limited resources. We’re constantly talking about priorities, considering importance vs. urgency, and seeing how our time is best spent. We live and breathe prioritization — out of necessity — but how do you apply that to a list of hundreds of requests? We needed the true priorities of each and every project (and sub-project!) compared to one another in order to act.
• Transparency and Collaboration: we use a TEAL management system that embraces transparency for the entire team and shared decision making power. We seek advice, avoid making unilateral decisions without input from others, and ensure buy-in before moving forward. I wanted the process to be collaborative because of this, but also so that everyone understood the needs of the entire company and not just their own teams.

Alright, great. Now how did I make it actually happen?

Here’s the full debrief in 7 steps.
(Buckle up, we’re gonna get into the nitty gritty here…)

Step 1: Choose the tool

Time and resources were tight so learning about, setting up, and paying for a fancy roadmap software wasn’t an option this time. I decided to rely on our good friend, Trello.

We use Trello for tons of things from onboarding, to weekly sprints, to project planning. Why not transform it into our product roadmap tool? Our team was used to it, it has labels, lists, and cards to deal with categories, and cards could be moved as they got done. And, added bonus, it could even be made public for our users to see, if we wanted to.

Step 2: Clean the backlog

I spent 2ish hours digging into the loooong backlog of requests, fixes, and ideas that we had accumulated over the year prior. This wasn’t glamorous work, but it was needed to get started and make sure we were covering our bases.

Here, I made some executive decisions about things that would be left out. For example:

And started to label what I saw into categories we could work with:

And grouped them under drafted priorities levels:

→ URGENT

→ REALLY NEEDED

→ NEEDED

→ NEEDED/WANTED

→ WANTED

→ NICE TO HAVE (actually, these cards were just eliminated)

Step 3: Sync-Up

Before digging in deep with each team, I used 20 minutes of one of our alignment meetings (a weekly meeting where one representative from each team attends) to agree at a high level about the “must have” projects and dividing them into priority levels. It’s key here that these were just 20–30 broad themes and not the detailed tasks and work that would come next.

Step 4: Choose and prep the format

This part didn’t have much science to it — I relied heavily on common sense and past experiences. I’m a fan of design thinking style workshops, but only so far as they actually contribute to the goal.

In this case, there were a few key factors that made me lean toward this style: I wanted the process to be fun, engaging, and collaborative; I had hundreds of requests to sort through and bring priority to; those requests had been proposed by the exact teams I was trying to involve, so they had an interest in their requests, but not much awareness of the others.

Organization
In the end I brought the whole process offline into interactive workshops per team — normally, we do almost all of our work online with ⅓ of our team working remotely.

(Aside: a strong argument could be made for doing the workshop together as one entire team, but I chose to divide into smaller groups for two reasons. First, because we were at a point where we actually needed basic alignment even within our teams let alone across teams. And second, because we needed to get into detailed discussions about the priorities and this would have been really difficult, if not impossible, with 10 people in the room and 6 online.)

Method
I converted the online lists into squares of paper, each one with a task written on it, color coded by the give categories mentioned above. (Again, a bit of a time commitment, but it was worth it!) Say we ended with 75 paper squares separated into the five categories. The cards from each category were laid out on tables. Then, per category, each person in the room would get a marker and responded (silently!) to the following:

❓ If we could only do five things before the end of the year, which ones would they be? Vote to keep a task by marking the paper with a dot.

❓Which two things do you not care at all if they don’t get done? Vote to eliminate a task by marking the paper with an X.

Then every paper would be separated into groups:
→ tasks with dots
→ tasks with Xs
→ tasks with nothing

From there the team would have to agree on and order every single task into a true priority list from 1–75.

Why this way?

• Forced prioritization: The point was never that we would follow the exact priority order that they determined (and this was stated at the top of each workshop). But I wanted to push decision making and discussion, get everyone to really see the full picture of everything that was “on the table” (figuratively, turned literally), and hear for myself the deeper perspectives of each person on why something seemed important or not.
• Voting for tasks without speaking: this is a typical design thinking strategy to make sure everyone has a voice and to visualize opinions. I like starting this way because it shows raw opinions, maps the ‘distance’ between the people in the room, and brings unpopular items to the conversation that might not have otherwise gotten attention.
• Marking tasks that aren’t important: this is key for eliminating things that shouldn’t be “on the table” and it actually brought some important discussion when a task had both a dot and an X.
• Sorting marked tasks into groups: it can be done however you want, I just broke it down like this to facilitate the prioritization and go by chunks. We didn’t follow this strictly, but it was helpful to discuss, say, “cards that have 3, 4, 5 dots on them” in one group and prioritize those and then move on to the next level.
  
  (Note: there were times when a card that only had one or two dots on it was bumped up to the top in the discussion round, so this shouldn’t be treated like a rule — it has to be considered in context.)

Step 5: Run the workshops!

Following the method above I did three workshops (~1 to 2 hours each, depending on the size of the team). We did one of them following the same format, but online with a digital whiteboard.

Each time, I started with an intro to what we were trying to do, the context, and explained how it would work. As we went, I had to do a few things to nudge the group forward. Things like getting clear agreement about priorities 1, 2 and 3, and then removing them from the table completely.

At some points I would separate a group of cards our and ask “Of these six, what’s the priority order? Why?” Then after it was answered, ask “Is there anything else on the table that is at a similar priority level as these?” This part was very free flow and depended a lot on context.

What I mean is, you have to do small things to force decisions, but should also allow for “breaking the rules”. It doesn’t always work out that a card that had the most votes is the most important, or that a card that had no votes is less important than one that had two.

Another key part was visibility of the cards so we needed a fair amount of space in order to see the order and keep challenging it. However, at some point, once we could see a clear break-off point of “these cards are more important than those ones” I would close the ones that were already prioritized to keep the focus and keep moving.

You have to do small things to force decisions, but should also allow for “breaking the rules”.

Another thing that happened is that a few new tasks were brought up that we hadn’t been considering. Anytime this happened, we made a new card and put it into the mix.

Step 6: Turn the results into an actual roadmap

So, again, a bit of work on my part, but after the workshops I had to take the learnings to our actual roadmap. If you remember, I already had all of the cards on the Trello board in a proposed order, but the learnings from the workshops really turned some things around. (Which was the point!)

For starters, I ended with new categories that were totally aligned with our company OKRs:
→ convert
→ engage
→ automate
→ reduce support
→ close paths
→ improve CX (customer experience)

Each card had to be labeled according to the OKR category it touched on. To come up with a newly prioritized roadmap I used the teams’ inputs, the OKR labels which themselves which gave priority levels, and some other more technical cost considerations to create this:

Step 7.0: Present, finalize, CELEBRATE, and start using it 🚀

All four parts of this actually matter: once the roadmap is ready, you’ll want to present it to the team for final adjustments. But the process doesn’t end here. After learning about the Dragon Dreaming methodology, our team recognized that we’re so busy doing, we don’t stop to celebrate enough.

So this time we made sure to acknowledge all the hard work even put into this roadmap, and celebrate with a round of applause during our weekly general meeting — And decided to write this post ;)

As for “start using it”… we consider our roadmap a living tool that can and should change. Even though it’s not static, having the basic structure set and all the teams engaged in its creation has been fundamental to how we do things.

When setting our weekly product and tech sprint work, we’re pulling directly from this list. A month and a half later, the board has a DONE and DOING column and the URGENT column is totally cleared. We’ve added about 5 cards since the initial meetings and we slightly readjust the priorities every week.

What do I think in retrospect?

Even though it was a time commitment across teams, it was totally worth the effort. I was experimenting with this concept of forced prioritization and now I’m a big believer in its value. It made us think critically from different perspectives, pushed us to discuss “importance” of tasks and the complex factors that play into this, and helped us achieve collaborative decision making.

After the workshops everyone better understood the company’s needs as a whole and not just their own. They were also able to see clearly why their requests or needs fell where they fell. One of the best things that came from building the roadmap this way is that we broke the wall between people blindly submitting requests and actually understanding the bigger puzzle of product work.

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One of the most challenging tasks you’ll have to grapple with as a first-time founder is the hiring process of your first team members. As Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall, famously said, “Great vision without great people is irrelevant”.

There’s definitely a lot of pressure to hire right in a startup — much more than in larger corporations. Whereas an average or even weak employee’s impact may go unnoticed in a company with over 200 employees, in a startup, every hire is crucial to the success of the team.

“Great vision without great people is irrelevant”

Your company needs employees who are a perfect mix of the right skills, great culture fit, are passionate about the vision of the company and have the tenacity to survive the ups and downs of the journey with you.

That being said, you shouldn’t be stuck in recruiting mode forever while waiting for the perfect candidate because there is no such person. So here are 4 key steps that will make recruiting your first few employees a breeze

1. Define the Jobs to be Done

Once you identify the need for additional hands to help with the company, it can get very tempting to want to recruit for all the positions you can think of and especially for the mundane tasks you want to handoff.

But before diving headlong into recruiting, take some time to outline the jobs to be done by the new employees you’re looking for.

• Take a few minutes to map out the structure of your organization as it is now and what it needs to be to achieve the goals you have set for yourself for the next few years;
• Based on that, define the most urgent roles that need to be filled. Eg. Having an HR manager might not be a top priority over having a Marketing Manager or a Tech Manager;
• Clearly define the roles and what their contribution will be to achieve the goals you have set for yourself. This will be helpful not only in identifying the best fit for each position but also in defining what the salary for each role should be.

2. Create your ideal employee profile

Now that you are armed with the roles you are recruiting for and the hard skills that are required, you need to go even more granular and create the profile for your ideal candidate.

Taking a few minutes to create these personas will save you a lot of headaches in the future, help you quickly identify the correct fits and make the onboarding for new employees all the more easier. So ask yourself questions like:

• What values and vision do I want to see?
• What soft skills and hard skills will they need to have to excel in the role?
• What experiences and educational background are important for the role?

Your ideal employee profile can be as simple as: Performance Marketer Role: Age ( 23–35), Hard Skills (Google Certification, Google Analytics, web Tracking, SEO etc), Extraverted, Willing to work long hours, Values (Resilience, Empathy).

3. Begin sourcing the (almost) perfect gem

Now, you can start connecting with talent and begin your interview process. For best visibility, publish your job ad on as many platforms as you can. On a startup budget, you are probably not looking to pay premium prices to post your ad or get a lot of applications from people looking for salary outside your budget so I recommend making the most of recruiting tools like AngelList.

Read More: 4 Mistakes You Will Make When Building Your Team — And How To Avoid Them

The talents there are already interested in working with startups and that will make your job much easier. You can also showcase your job offer on your Facebook company page if you have one (which you should!).

Don’t let geography limit your search and opportunity to hire top talents either. If you can put in the right processes, remote work can be a great option. Also, don’t underestimate the power of LinkedIn to help you identify, connect and eventually ‘win over’ the right employee.

4. Closing the deal on the right person

Don’t be afraid to be very thorough in your interview process. Remember, every new person you add to your startup team will have a huge impact on your overall productivity and even team culture. Take time to do the interviewing process right.

Ours includes a short first interview, a business case and a longer final interview with a personality & culture test. And it’s been working great for us! You can have a similar hiring process for your company to screen and shortlist candidates.

“Remember, every new person you add to your startup team will have a huge impact on your overall productivity and even team culture.”

On your part, do your best to be completely honest throughout the hiring process. Let the candidates know your expectations and the facts on the ground. If they will be required to work longer hours than usual or accept a lower salary, don’t be afraid to let them know upfront. Compensate this by emphasizing on the vision and other incentives of working with a startup to them eg. great working environment, flexible hours, unlimited vacations etc.

If you keep the above in mind, recruiting your first employees should be less scary and more rewarding. However, the challenges during the hiring process don’t stop after you’ve found the right employee; you’ll also need to work on keeping them.

Start with a good onboarding process and help new employees to settle into the company and get easy access to all the information they need for their work. Don’t stop motivating and incentivizing your employees. Remind them of the vision often and give them opportunity to innovate and be creative within their roles.

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Hiring your first employee: 4 easy steps to start growing your team was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Five years ago, I got my Master in International Business and, freshly graduated, set out to start a company. I received a huge slap in the face when I realized two things:

1. I didn’t learn anything about building a business in business school.
2. I knew how to act like I knew things, but really, I didn’t know much.

After 5 years of long and expensive studies, it was a hard pill to swallow. So I did what most entrepreneurs do: I learned by doing. And boy did I learn! In just the first few months, I probably had 1,000 times more “a-ha” moments than during all of my years of secondary studies.

It was a great time of personal growth, but I still had this bitter taste in my mouth that there was so much more I could have learned earlier on. So when I was presented with the opportunity to teach entrepreneurship myself to Master’s students at business schools in parallel to running Bridge for Billions, I took it as a personal challenge. I set out to work on the pain points I had suffered through as a student, and bring a bit of fresh air to the classroom.

I had the incredible luck to work alongside a Chair Director who pretty much gave me a free pass, as long as students would learn about ‘real-life’ entrepreneurship, and be empowered to run their ventures.

So I took the liberty to try out new things and to innovate in the classroom. I started by reflecting on my own experience at a business school. What did I wish I had learned there? I also gathered feedback from hundreds of students about what they wanted to learn.

I realized that in essence, business schools were failing to teach us the skills needed to navigate the 21st Century:

• How to think
• How to communicate
• How to collaborate
• How to test
• And how to find meaning

# How to think

One of the biggest shortcomings of business schools today is that they don’t teach you how to think for yourself, how to think critically. Every day, engineers are being taught how to think about projects. Designers and architects too. Business school students are not.

Think like an engineer

In the early days of Bridge for Billions, the 3 other people working alongside me were all engineers. And it was pretty shocking to realize how differently our brains worked. Before, my brain would pretty much visualize the destination and immediately start building the “one and only road” to reach it.

They taught me to focus first on the objective, not the journey; the problem, not the solution; the why, not the how. How many hours did I lose to my old thinking process?! Damn, I didn’t even understand what a “problem” was.

Working alongside engineers, I learned that any destination can be reached by an almost infinite number of roads and that when the destination is clear, an array of potential roads start to appear.

I learned to see the bigger picture before burying myself in planning mode.I completely attribute this huge shortcoming to business school thinking, a “powerpoint” culture that values the format over the substance. A culture where we can look good by just being present. I deeply believe that any successful business person thinks like an engineer, whether they realize it or not.

Business schools should train their students to be problem-centric and outcome-oriented thinkers. How? Through simple activities like creative problem solving, the 5 Why’s, etc. Another way that some pioneering business schools are already embracing this is to foster more collaborations and cross-pollination with engineering students.

Think like a designer

Another shocking realization was how much I was blocking almost half of my thoughts and opinions. I had somehow internalized that there were two categories of ideas: “good” ones that were worth mentioning out loud; and “bad” ones that I should keep to myself.

You see, if I ever said a “bad” idea out loud, I would risk being mocked, being perceived as “the stupid one”, not being smart enough.

So I was constantly filtering myself and only finding watered-down solutions. While this “ fear of being wrong“ stems from a bigger systemic problem that is extremely ingrained in Western European education (being French myself, I know what I’m talking about), it’s totally being fed by business schools, where the dominant thinking process is that we should be confident, we should be right all the time, and oh — never say something that sounds even slightly unconventional.

My mind was blown when I discovered the thinking processes that designers use, like divergent thinking, which taught me that the best ideas can come from the most eccentric ones. Design thinking is a big buzz word nowadays, but it’s as simple as generating a large quantity of ideas regardless of their quality (the divergent phase) and then narrowing down the choice to the best ones (the convergent phase).

I wish business school would have taught me to question the status quo. To not be afraid to say something “stupid”. To think differently (Apple knew it all along, why didn’t I pay attention to their tagline?).

I’m glad to see “early-adopter” business schools teaching this now, but why hasn’t it become mainstream yet? It’s so easy to test in the classroom by simply introducing the principle of “ no bad ideas “ and setting unconventional constraints that spark creativity, i.e. “How would you solve this problem if you were a millionaire? And if you were your grandmother? If you had 1,000 volunteers working for you?”. You’d be surprised how quickly we can unstick ourselves by just stepping out of the conventional thinking path.

Discipline, discipline, discipline

The last flaw that I see in mainstream business school thinking is what I’d call the “winging it” culture. Maybe this will sound familiar to you:

Discipline is not sexy, but it’s the first factor for success. If you run a startup you know that already. Persistence is sometimes worth much more than the most innovative ideas or business models. Discipline is not being taught at business schools. Actually I would argue that most people “un-learn” the little discipline they got from their previous education path while in business school.

Now don’t get me wrong, you’ll need to have a hacker’s mentality when you start a business.You need to cut corners, optimize quickly, and do what nobody is doing.

But hacking ≠ winging it. Even having a hacker’s mentality requires discipline.

I’ve seen first-hand business school students living contently with “But I did my best”. Well, this is not enough, not even close. The market doesn’t care that they did their best or not.

Starting a business requires consistent effort, and that’s probably the most underrated piece of advice entrepreneurs actually receive. Consistency beats talent every time. And those who have both go veeery far.

This one was harder to incorporate into my classes, but I tacked it by teaching entrepreneurship with our in-house Bridge for Billions methodology which has been inspired by Bill Aulet’s Disciplined Entrepreneurship framework.

Becoming an entrepreneur is really about covering and validating every critical aspect of starting a venture, from who your customers are, to what pricing strategy to apply, to how to create a 3-year financial plan. And that won’t happen on its own: you’ll have to get out there every day, be diligent about planning your actions, and bound back when faced with obstacles.

# How to Communicate

Did you have a “@schoolname.edu” email in business school? Those emails are the perfect illustration that business schools are stuck in the old world. They are a vestige of the pre-smartphone era and create huge inefficiencies in how we interact with one another. (Ever been cc’ed in an infinite chain of “reply to all”?)

Conciseness wins every time

If business schools were up to date with modern communication techniques, they would teach genuine & concise communication. But on the contrary, the tendency is to teach us to elaborate and embellish our points from thin air (over letters, anyone?).

When you receive a 10-paragraph email from a stranger, are you excited to read it? No, right? Synthesis is the new politeness. Taking the time to trim a message and edit out everything that doesn’t matter tells the receiver that we respect their precious time in this over-soliciting world.

Conciseness is also about authenticity. What do you really want to say? Are you offering help, asking for a favor, delegating work? Whether it’s for collaborating with groups, asking questions to a professor, contacting companies to get an internship, or anything else, in the real world quick & precise communication coming from a genuine place is key.

As an entrepreneur, this skill is invaluable to making connections, resonating with clients, and efficiently managing a team.

The power of stories

I have a confession to make. In the first year of running my business, I did the craziest things to try to get clients. From directly emailing people whose emails I had scraped, to messaging strangers in startup groups on Facebook. In my defense, this was a pre-GDPR world. The point is: after 5 years of business school, I didn’t know a thing about marketing.

Can you guess why? Bingo! I was taught Philip Kotler’s Mix Marketing Theory. Yup. The dot-com bubble was 25 years ago and most consumers carry a mini-computer in their pockets, but business schools still teach marketing theory from the 60s.

I wish I was taught about virality, about growth hacking, about branding, about storytelling. I wish I knew better than to go to potential customers and tell them “I made something! Want it?”

But the truth is that business schools today are struggling to do their own marketing, so how could they teach you how to do yours?

Yes, they train people to be part of a marketing department and collectively sell yogurt or shampoo bottles, but the whole strategic aspect of what a brand is, what your story is, or how to inspire, educate, spark action, is being completely overlooked. Business schools are not preparing their students to do their own strategic marketing.

# How to Collaborate

Now we’re getting to the core of the problem. Most business schools would argue that if there’s one thing they’re teaching well, it’s collaboration. After all, the majority of the curriculum consists of forming groups to collectively work on projects.

But here’s the thing: group projects at business schools reproduce the natural abilities of each team members instead of helping each of them grow where they need it the most. In a group of four, the role repartition is typically the following*:

• One leader who sets the general direction
• One delegator who assigns tasks to everyone and keeps the best piece of the pie to themselves
• One executor who does what they’re told without asking questions
• And one person who goes MIA until D-day and reads their slide in a soporific tone.

*or one person who takes all three of the active roles, and three people who go missing.

Sound familiar?

Emotional intelligence is just as important as knowledge…

…if not more. Anyone who aspires to be in a leadership role will have to consider the emotional element of working in teams. It’s what helps you successfully coach people, manage stress, deliver feedback, and collaborate with others.

I wish business schools taught students about emotional intelligence for collaboration, personality types, and capitalizing on strengths. Being able to pinpoint how we feel, having empathy for others, seeing them as human, and considering their reality when managing a project… this is a real entrepreneurial skill.

Vulnerability is still perceived as a weakness in the business world when it’s really a strength.

When you show vulnerability, you create a trust, you move away from the almighty-leader, “hero-preneur” paradigm. And this trust and wholeness are what create strong teams, allowing them to sail through the toughest storms together.

Concretely, in the classroom, I encourage business students to be self-aware of their personality type and the strengths they might have as entrepreneurs, using self-assessment tools such as Skillon or the Myers-Briggs test.

You can be your own kind of leader

Another lesson I had to internalize through trial and error, after months and months of suffering through impostor’s syndrome, is that leadership is not one-size-fits-all.

Management has evolved so much in recent years, with fascinating models emerging such as Teal management, Holacracy, Sociocracy, the U Theory … Yet business schools still feed you with business cases where you are at the top of an organization chart and need to choose between firing half of your workforce or risking bankruptcy.

These models engender an unhealthy “natural selection” in which you’ll immediately push aside the idea of growing into a leader just because you don’t fit the mainstream image of what a leader should be.

Business schools should empower their students to believe that they can all grow into their own leadership style.

They should teach them that there’s no one way of coordinating a team and achieving incredible results. That team management doesn’t have to be political. That self-management can lead to spectacular business results. That culture eats strategy for lunch, to pick up on Curt Coffman and Kathie Sorensen’s famous sentence.

On that topic, I’m trying hard to lead by example by being my most authentic self with students, and telling them behind-the-curtains stories of teamwork at a small startup, so that they can see there are other ways of leading and interacting with one another.

# How to Test

In business school, were you ever encouraged to go out and talk to real people about their pains and the solutions you thought might work? Yeah, me neither. The biggest issue with current methods of teaching entrepreneurship in the classroom is that it’s totally stuck on the theoretical level.

Nobody wants to write a 20-page plain text business plan with a few excel-style charts, let alone read it. “ Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn “, said Benjamin Franklin. This has never been more true than for entrepreneurship.

What students need is practical, bold, real-life experience of what it means to talk to potential customers, to survey hundreds of them, to host focus groups, to build a prototype, to close their first sale, etc.

Only by doing all of that can they feel the thrill and passion of going from zero to one and confront their beliefs with reality.

In between classes, I always give my students an assignment to go out there and test the market. If you’re ingenious, there’s always something you can do that’ll help test the concept. Whether it’s calling a competitor pretending to be a client to ask a few questions, building a landing page to test how many people leave an email, or navigating Facebook groups and posting surveys to learn from your future users.

They’re not happy about it initially, it’s uncomfortable to “bother” people and there’s also a deeper fear of discovering that nobody would use your great solution. But they come back to the next class with a renewed energy and much higher quality market insights.

# How to Find Meaning

Last but not least, I wish business school had taught me to dream, reflect on my purpose, and put into words what would get me out of bed every morning. I believe that if everyone was aligned with their deepest aspirations and values, then the world would be a much better place.

On that topic, I’m always inspired by my friend Maxime de Beauchesne who has made those topics of purpose and values his specialty. Since he’s also teaching at various business schools, we often speak about how we innovate in the classroom and have exchanged ideas and activities.

One activity I took from him and enjoy doing every semester during the first class is about inviting students to look inwards to find what they want to do. They pair up with someone else, sit back to back, and each speak for 5 to 8 minutes about what they would do if they could dedicate their life to anything.

Dreaming is so important to start any project, yet so underrated in our system that values production above everything else. I invite them to learn more about Dragon Dreaming, a methodology that I always introduce, so they can reconnect with dreaming and celebrating, and not only planning and doing.

“How would the world look like if every business student had the chance to dream their perfect life, as well as the mindset tools to make that dream happen? ”

This is an invitation to every business school out there to embrace the 21st Century and become entrepreneurship schools. You can do better — by teaching students how to think, how to communicate, how to collaborate, and how to find meaning.

There are plenty of tools and methodologies available to start this transition, whether it’s about offering a learn by doing entrepreneurship program to your students or inviting more dreams into the classroom.

If you like what you’re reading, give me a few claps (it’s my first article ever so I need the crowd cheering 😛). For more stories like this, follow us.

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What I Wish I Learned in Business School was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you’re reading this article, I can bet you’re the fast-paced, a hundred ideas per second type. You have an endless list of dreams, and often put several of those in the “future projects” drawer by your bedside table.

Or, maybe you’re so certain of that old dream of yours and working so hard to achieve it that you often forget to stop and look back to what you have achieved so far or what went wrong and how that may be the clue for whatever comes next.

Our performance-obsessed world, tight schedules, external pressures, internal bias and fear of failure only result in frustration. We might know where we want to go, but we have no idea how to actually get there. And this alienating environment leaves us constantly hanging between a frustrating comfort zone or an overwhelming panic zone.

So how can we raise our level of consciousness, mitigate uncertainty and achieve a satisfying sense of fulfillment and collective belonging in project management?

Dragon Dreaming was initially developed by John Croft, based on inherited wisdom from the Western Australia Aborigines people. He thought of it as a system thinking tool, translated into a participative and holistic methodology to foster creativity, collaboration, and sustainability within any project.

Don’t you see how, for thousands and thousands of years, our ancestors would gather around a fire to share their dreams and tell stories, from which they would make decisions, plan activities, and then gather again around a new fire only to celebrate it all at the end of the day?

I didn’t realize this either. But the link is real — or so thought John Croft.

In the prologue of “Dragon Dreaming in Action, A guide to designing projects for personal growth, community building and service to the Earth”, John Croft underlines that 90% of projects fail to work according to plan — the same amount as the business startups who don’t make it to their 4th anniversary. To him, it means that only 1 person out of 1000 ends up seeing their dream come true. And that’s exactly what the methodology aims to change.

Dragon Dreaming as a process allows teams to build together a strong vision (dream), turn it into concrete objectives (plan) and actions (doing), and then acknowledge the whole process to move on (celebrate). No wonder it has become such a popular project management tool: by disrupting the traditional approach and creating new behavioral patterns, it unites teams around their tasks while promoting company engagement, ownership and joy through a feeling of success. Yes, all that.

Dragon Dreaming introduces a simple, playful and creative process as key to stimulate motivation, vision alignment, and engagement towards a certain task or project, working with wisdom, creativity, and a united front with each person’s strengths. So how can we engage all these different sides to work together? By considering them all part of the same creative process.

Dreaming

This one seems familiar. In fact, we all think this is our area of expertise: how could you not be good at dreaming? You do it every night without even thinking about it. But there’s more to it.

Dreaming is where all innovation is born: no disruptive process was ever found by a purely linear executed action plan. Dreaming unleashes and maintains creativity.

Did you know that an estimated 90% (yes, again) of ideas get blocked in the dreaming stage? Lack of courage, fear of failure, procrastination, lack of confidence, panic zone, insert your excuse… There are many reasons why.

But the first and most common mistake is not giving yourself or your team the time and space to dream… and dare! If you’re not aware of your daydreams, you’ll never share them. And if you don’t share your ideas, you won’t be able to get a team around it or ever start planning for it.

Planning

Sharing your dreams is the first step to making them reality. Together with your peers, you will come up with new ideas, define better strategies and get a plan. In consultancy, there is a common saying: “plans only exist to tell you where have you failed”.

To some extent, planning is what allows you to achieve the objective, learn what works and what doesn’t, and let yourself be surprised by everything else you’ll find along the way. In a nutshell, planning is what brings your ideas from dreams into reality.

Doing

Transformation is all about “walking the talk” rather than “talking the walk”. Most business ideas fail to last longer than 3 years, and usually due to lack of scalability possibilities, effective succession planning or… founders burnout. This is where Dragon Dreaming can help you break the system.

There’s no efficient doing without creative and accurate planning, and no effective planning without a self-incorporated routine of daydreaming.

While poor planning and lack of self-discipline eventually lead to frustration, apathy, and avoidance behavior patterns, building a strong bridge between dreaming and doing will keep you motivated, engaged and with a clear vision of why you’re doing all of this.

Celebrating (& evaluating)

As resilient and goal-oriented entrepreneurs, this is often the part where we struggle the most. When was the last time you paused to acknowledge everything you’ve done so far, and actually celebrate it? Have you really made peace with that failed strategy, while daring to start over?

But wait: 25% of your time allocated to celebration? Who has time for this? What about my never-ending to-do list? Who is going to actually get the work done?

But you see, that’s exactly the point of this methodology. If you’re always doing and going back to planning and doing and planning some more without taking the time to stop and reflect on what has been done, how will you have time to dream again and design better plans for the future?

Nowadays, stopping to breathe, being grateful and having fun is a privilege. We’re constantly thinking about that client we still need to reply to, or all the urgent and important tasks we’re already late on delivering.

But the joy you get out of actually celebrating is as important as the first three steps of Dragon Dreaming to allow real transformation insights.

“Reflect four different ways of thinking, four different ways of speaking, four different personality types.

If you are a “Doer” your biggest frustration will be to work with “Dreamers” all day long. And if you are a “Planner” you find the “Celebrators” are chaotic and disorganized whilst the “Celebrators” find the “Planners” are just boring.

But to make your dream come true, you need all four kinds of people in your project Dream Team.” Dragon Dreaming International

Are you ready to dream with dragons? We might have something for you.

Written by Alexandra Martins, Community Lead at Bridge for Billions.

Why Dragon Dreaming is the new project management tool was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The past few months have been full of transformation here at Bridge for Billions. We’ve thought long and hard about who we are, how we’ve gotten here, and who we aim to be. That’s why we decided it was time to reflect outwardly all of the changes we’ve gone through inside the company.

‍The journey from the bottom to basecamp

2013 — today

In 2013, as a Master’s student at Carnegie Mellon University, Bridge for Billions started as a naive goal that I set for myself. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but nothing important in life is. My goal was and still is to:

Democratize access to entrepreneurship training and mentoring in order to create business opportunities that solve problems for billions of people.

Once the goal was set, I packed my skills and all of my previous experiences and started my entrepreneurial journey. I was definitely not well equipped to hike on my own, which is why Jessica Kou joined me as a partner and little by little we gathered a small but strong team that allowed us to advance. In the beginning our team was spread across the world and, at times, we were working from 3 different continents and time zones. Despite the many adversities, we put all of our efforts into Bridge for Billions and, in 2016, reached our first checkpoint. What emerged was a minimally viable product (MVP) and 4 pilot projects with entrepreneurs from several countries. Soon after, we were getting recognition from companies, local authorities, institutions, and international organizations who saw Bridge for Billions as an ally to connect them to innovators.

Now in less than 3 years after officially launching, thanks to the support of our 500+ mentors, we have supported 400+ entrepreneurs from 40+ countries.

Bridge for Billions’ entrepreneurs are problem solvers that come from all sectors and fields of business. Each of their journeys through our program has helped us to evolve as a product, as a team, and as a company. Today’s brand change embodies all of the lessons from the past three years, walking from the very bottom to the basecamp. Now that we’ve reached solid ground at the basecamp, we’ve stopped to take stock of where we’ve come from and where we’re going before we continue our hike to the top. Over the past few months we’ve put our sweat (and maybe even some tears!) into creating the best brand for Bridge for Billions — one that is clear, recognizable, and aligned with our values.

A more ambitious goal requires a stronger brand

After three years of developing our industry validated digital incubation program, The Leap, Bridge for Billions’ renovated goal is to become a global digital ecosystem that connects people to impulse growth opportunities for all its stakeholders: entrepreneurs, mentors, companies, organizations, and governments. Bridge for Billions is the architect of entrepreneurship programs -or bridges- that unlock growth opportunities on both sides.

With this ambitious goal, Bridge for Billions will continue to spread our belief that innovation happens faster with collaboration. For innovators, access points to the current entrepreneurship ecosystem and high quality support are limited and costly. We believe everyone has a role to play in opening the ecosystem to extend more opportunities to the entrepreneurs of the world in order to help them solve the problems they see. Our role is to be the connector of our different stakeholders -entrepreneurs, mentors, and organizations- for the growth of all.

Our online incubation platform, business tools, and methodology keep evolving too. We continuously adapt our offerings to the needs of our growing community of entrepreneurs, mentors, and organizations. We strive to develop tools and co-create resources with a key motivation in mind: changing the world, one business at a time.

‍This may seem ambitious, but Bridge for Billions is built by a purpose-driven team, for purpose-driven entrepreneurs. For this journey, we have used our core values as a compass: Empathy, Initiative, and Growth. We invite any entrepreneur to share in these values with us to advance their purpose and dreams: their businesses.‍

‍The transformation

Bridge for Billions was founded by, with, and for entrepreneurs. The green B-shaped heart as our logo and our former identity was a good representation of our beginnings.‍

‍However, Bridge for Billions has evolved as a team by changing our management style, as a product by adding services to our incubation program, and as a company by placing ourselves as connectors in a vast entrepreneurship ecosystem. Our visual identity needed to transform in order to encapsulate all of these changes.‍‍

The concept

The starting point of our new identity focuses on the figure of a bridge and the idea of “connecting growth”, our tagline. We have chosen an image that clearly represents connecting one point to another, illustrating growth and the power of connecting.

Not only does this arch imagery allude to the bridges that we build every day, but represents the different points of connection. Via all of its programs, Bridge for Billions connects entrepreneurs to peers and mentors, companies and organizations to innovators, and all of its members to billions of opportunities. ‍

Our community

Bridge for Billions’ two main colors are now blue and teal, and the gradient that they form together. Blue is a color that typically expresses trust, reliability, and responsibility and we will use three tones of blue to represent our mentors. We have chosen green to express vitality, renewal, and growth, and we will use three tones of green to represent our entrepreneurs. Together these groups (and colors) come together to form a vibrant gradient.

Forward Growth

Bridge for Billions unlocks connections that previously seemed impossible and inaccessible to many. With this brand launch, we have adapted our approach and will be improving our incubation program by launching cohorts with a focus on each of our 12 areas of innovation. For this endeavor, we are seeking building partners that want to connect with entrepreneurs from these 12 sectors and grow the ecosystem.

Are you an ecosystem builder?

‍If you share our vision, come join us on www.bridgeforbillions.org and get in touch! If you want to find out about how to join our community of ecosystem builders, we will be launching online events soon where you can learn about our Leap Program for entrepreneurs or how to join as a mentor. If you are a corporate, foundation, or university interested in innovating, impacting, or inspiring with entrepreneurs, we are looking for you!

We are extremely thankful for all of our users and partners that have been with us since the beginning, and are excited to start this new phase together.

If you’re in Madrid, and want to join us to celebrate, get your ticket to our launch party here!

If you’re not, don’t worry we’ll have a lot of online events for you too soon :)

‍‍Pablo Santaeufemia and the whole team at Bridge for Billions

Originally published at https://blog.bridgeforbillions.org on December 20, 2018.

Today, Bridge for Billions Evolves was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The short of it is: we’re an online incubator that helps early-stage entrepreneurs from around the world develop their projects.

But we’re so much more than just an incubator! We offer a program based on three pillars: a top-notch methodology, the support of a personal mentor, and an international community of entrepreneurs with whom to share experiences. In fact, we’ve helped validate more projects than traditional incubators! So if you’re looking to develop your business idea in a meaningful way, you’ve come to the right place.

We believe that entrepreneurship is the most effective tool for solving some of the biggest issues we face, both globally and locally. That’s why we created Bridge for Billions: to guide and impulse those who want to change and improve the world. We strive to make entrepreneurship accessible to all who are motivated and passionate about business. We want to ensure that lack of opportunity or access to a traditional business program are no longer viewed as roadblocks to success.

For Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur, small business owner, innovator — or maybe you don’t go by any of those titles. The bottom line is Bridge for Billions is for you if:

• You have a developed idea but don’t have time to waste and want to ensure you are on the right path.
• You’ve started working on your project but are struggling to structure everything and need clarity to define the next steps.
• You’re a first-time entrepreneur and want access to resources and experts to guide you.

We host a new cohort every month! And while we accept applicants from within any industry, we sometimes host industry-specific incubation programs, so you can have the chance to learn from and collaborate with other innovators in your space.

The best part? Our 90-day incubation program, The Leap, is 100% online, so you can have access to your tools and resources from anywhere, at any time.

If you’re ready to take The Leap or just learn more,

For Mentors

But neither we nor our entrepreneurs can achieve success alone; we rely on a network of trusted and experienced mentors to help guide everyone that comes through our program to take their ideas and turn them into a fully formed business.

Our mentors provide a fresh and unbiased viewpoint which has proved to be invaluable to budding entrepreneurs. They serve as guides, coaches and offer up a vast pool of knowledge and resources — which is why we value them so much!

We’re always eager to develop relationships with existing and aspiring mentors, so if you have professional experience or insight into the business world and are interested in helping develop some of the most innovative startup projects from across the globe, please to get involved.

For Businesses & Organizations

We also work closely with corporates, foundations, universities, and governments from around the world to design the right program for their needs. We help them define challenges and provide the tools necessary to connect them to innovators inside and outside of their organizations. We work together to nurture ideas and collaborations that have a positive social impact while boosting brand awareness!

Our platform has been used by organizations such as Ashoka, Coca-Cola, Brown University, United Nations Industrial Development Organization and more, to develop programs that support employees, students and the international community at large.

To learn more about how your organization and community can benefit from partnering with Bridge for Billions, .

And if you’re still wondering just why you should come on board with us: last year alone we helped 325 entrepreneurs develop their idea into a fully-formed business plan, and we worked with 23 corporate, non-profit and educational organizations to help them tap into the hidden talent within their communities! For four years we’ve been living up to our belief that innovation cannot happen without collaboration and our plan is to continue helping innovators like you develop the business ideas of the future.

What is Bridge for Billions? was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we gear up for the exciting new year ahead, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what has been our most successful year to date. 2018 was a year of transformation for Bridge for Billions; we grew in more ways than we could’ve imagined!

This year we raised our first investment round, garnering $550k from business angels, family offices and impact investors. This has allowed us to add seven (7) new team members to our family, all of whom offer up a wealth of experience and international perspectives that continue to make our product and programs even better.

With the help of our trusted mentors, this year we were able to help 325 entrepreneurs develop their projects from a fledgling idea to a fully-formed and validated visual business plan. These entrepreneurs came to us from over 40 countries and from every continent. Our goal for 2019 is to continue growing so that we can reach even more entrepreneurs and provide access to opportunity.

But our biggest change to date has been: our new brand identity!

We’re also very excited to announce that we will be launching a new version of our product after reviewing feedback from over the past two (2) years…so stay tuned for more!

Bridge for Billions’ entrepreneurs are problem solvers that come from all sectors and fields of business. Each of their journeys through our program has helped us to evolve as a product, as a team, and as a company. After three years of developing our industry-validated digital incubation program, The Leap, Bridge for Billions’ renovated goal is to become a global digital ecosystem that connects people to impulse growth opportunities for all its stakeholders: entrepreneurs, mentors, companies, organizations, and governments. Bridge for Billions is the architect of entrepreneurship programs — or bridges — that unlock growth opportunities on both sides.

With this ambitious goal, Bridge for Billions will continue to spread our belief that innovation cannot happen without collaboration.

Join us as we continue to develop tools and co-create resources with a key motivation in mind: changing the world, one business at a time.

Originally published at https://blog.bridgeforbillions.org on December 28, 2018.

2018 Our Year In Review — Bridge for Billions was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For a lot of us as kids, life sometimes felt like it revolved around school…and not in a good way. From the time you’re able to speak, schooling is compulsory in most areas of the world. And as a young person, when going to school can feel like a chore — waking up early and doing homework day in and day out — it’s easy to take your education for granted. It’s not until a child gets older that they truly begin to understand that an education, or lack thereof, can serve as a predictor of access to future opportunities. And it’s that access to education that often makes a difference between the wealthiest and poorest nations in the world. In a developing country like Malawi, the discrepancy can become even more stark.

According to UNESCO, Malawi has over 4 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools; 57% of them will fail to complete primary school, while only 7% will go on to finish secondary school. And of those, only 1% of the student population of Malawi is expected to continue studying beyond the secondary level. This means that there will be fewer qualified teacher, nurses, scientists, lawyers, and engineers to drive the economy and move social development forward, thus ensuring that the epidemic of generational poverty persists.

Schools throughout the country are underfunded, lack resources, and are severely understaffed, so while there are children eager to learn and improve their condition, in many cases there is no way for them to get ahead. But there are some people dedicated to ensuring that the future of Malawian youth is full of more opportunities than that of their predecessors.

In 2015, two ambitious Malawians by the name of Emmanuel Mzembe and Ganizani Bikaosi founded the Bikema Academic Centre in Lilongwe. The initiative was started with the intention of giving a chance to students from low income families to have access to a quality education; since then, the seed that they planted with only 20 students, has since blossomed into a thriving ecosystem for over 200 students.

“In my village we had no mentors to look up to, but my father was a primary school master and he always encouraged us to work very hard in school” said Emmanuel. “So I really worked hard … then I was selected to go to the university of Malawi and pursued a Bachelor of Science in education”.

Emmanuel landed a job as a science teacher in the city of Blantyre when he noticed a disturbing pattern: many students were failing or needed to drop out of school because the tuition fees were too high. That’s when the idea to start Bikema Academic Centre came to him.

“This prompted my friend and I to establish an institution that would provide affordable education to students of low income families … we said that we need to empower these young people, so in addition to traditional subjects, we also teach them servant leadership, entrepreneurship and financial skills, because we want to produce productive citizens who will contribute to growing the Malawian economy”

Recognizing that even within the academy there exists a need for extra support for some populations, Bikema Academy Center launched the Bikema Girl Up Club — an United Nations Foundation registered club that provides activities and resources to empower the girls within the community.

But after all this progress Emmanuel reached an impasse. Early-stage entrepreneurs like Emmauel often find themselves unsure of which direction to go in next, especially when as with Emmanuel’s project, they run into serious roadblocks that limit their access to resources. So he turned to Bridge for Billions and was accepted into our incubation program in 2018, where he found the encouragement and motivation to keep pushing forward.

One thing that has stood out to our team and that fills us with confidence and pride is Emmanuel’s dedication. Our platform offers a comprehensive experience, but to truly make the most of incubation, we encourage our entrepreneurs to engage regularly with their mentors, access our resources and participate in our community — Emmanuel has done all of these things, and he’s on his way to overcoming the barriers that had previously left him stagnant. Even his mentor, Todd Embley, was so moved by his vision and dedication to social good that he launched a GoFundMe campaign to help alleviate some of the problems that the school is facing.

“My gratitude goes to Pablo and the Bridge for Billions team for giving me a scholarship and allowing me to access the platform. My commitment is to continue contributing as alumni on the Bridge for Billions platform” Emmanuel added.

Just as Emmanuel is determined to make a change in his community, we are determined to see him succeed. We urge you to donate to the campaign; with your help Bikema Academic Centre can do something to improve the dilapidated school buildings, pay to have running water, and continue to pay its staff of 8 teachers who are also dedicated to improving the lives of their students.

The Bikema Academic Centre is only the first of what Emmanuel hopes will be many schools throughout Malawi. Let’s help him and his students achieve their full potential.

“It’s only education that can help them move away from the jaws of poverty”

— EMMANUEL MZEMBE

Originally published at https://blog.bridgeforbillions.org on February 26, 2019.

Tackling the Education Crisis in Malawi — An Entrepreneur’s Story was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You have a great idea, one that you really believe could change the future of e-commerce, revolutionize education or even solve the challenges of access to healthcare in your country. But how do you take this incredible project from the idea stage to market — especially when you have limited support and resources?

This is where we come in. Because we believe that you can do great things with the right support, we’ve put together our own incubation program: The Leap. Designed for early-stage entrepreneurs (ie. stages between idea validation and minimum viable product), The Leap has already helped over 750 entrepreneurs from 57 countries launch their business.

Want to be next? Here are 4 benefits you get when taking The Leap.

One Of A Kind Digital Training Platform

We believe that your location should not be a barrier to accessing quality training and support for your business. That’s why we built a unique digital platform that offers entrepreneurs all the perks of a traditional incubation program — without the limitations.

Based on 8 highly interactive tools, it was built with our innovation-based methodology and designed to guide you step by step to articulate your ideas and plan your business — from developing your value proposition to drafting a 3-year growth plan, and more.

Personal Mentorship

Launching a business is hard; but you don’t have to do it alone. That’s why mentoring is at the core of The Leap. However, we don’t believe in the “one-size-fits-all” advice that founders often get. At Bridge for Billions, we see mentors more like individual guides: someone who can understand the ins and outs of your business, and helps you validate your strategy for each critical stage of your business. That’s exactly what you’ll get through one-on-one weekly check-ins.

The Benefit Of A Cohort Group

Being a founder can be tough, few people understand what you go through — no matter if you struggle alone or are responsible for hundreds of people. Bridge for Billions is there for you throughout your incubation and beyond. Working, not only alongside your mentor but with our team and the other founders of your cohort, is the foundation of our support system.

You will come to love your Cohort meetings (“Checkpoints”) where you get to take a deep dive into each of our tools — together with other entrepreneurs going through them at the same time, and led by our team. The checkpoints will be a dedicated time for you to get feedback on your progress and strategies, and they’re a big part of our methodology.

Lifelong Membership In Our Exclusive Community

Because support for entrepreneurs is key, it shouldn’t stop after 3 months. So when you take The Leap, you’ll be in good company even after completing the program, thanks to our Community. The Bridge for Billions Community is an exclusive ecosystem of alumni, current entrepreneurs, and all of our mentors from all over the world.

Here you will connect with entrepreneurs transforming their world in all areas of innovation from Finance to Fashion, be notified about the latest investment and funding opportunities, and get exclusive access to perks (like discounts for Amazon Cloud, Hubspot, GSuite…) as well as various masterclasses and workshops led by industry experts.

What are the benefits of Bridge for Billions’ incubation program? was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For our parents, it was more than common to work at the same company for several years — or even decades. Nowadays, professionals jump from opportunity to opportunity, gathering an immense amount of transferable skills and knowledge in different fields. You might not realize it just yet, but your expertise could be extremely useful to aspiring entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Now, why should you give up your valuable time to volunteer and mentor entrepreneurs? There are many reasons why being a mentor can make a difference in your life, both professionally and personally. Here are 4 of them!

You Get To Help Entrepreneurs — For Real

Oftentimes, mentors join our online ecosystem Bridge for Billions because of their desire to help others. To them, being a mentor is a direct and efficient way to make a difference. Most of our mentors have had their own struggles as entrepreneurs or in business, and they wish to help others to avoid the same mistakes.

Through our incubation programs, you’re given the opportunity to help others accomplish their dreams, which is a very rewarding experience in itself. As our mentor Christian Korwan put it:

“I’ve spent my entire life having to get ahead on my own merits. I’ve had a few, but very good people by my side to help and motivate me [through my failures]. Now it’s time for me to give back by providing that same help that was given to me.”

You Dig Into Your Passion For Start-Ups And Social Entrepreneurship

Have you heard about social entrepreneurship? It’s an approach by start-up companies and entrepreneurs in which they develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. Popularized in the mid-2000s by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunuscan with his book “Creating a World Without Poverty”, social entrepreneurship helps you leverage your skills in a meaningful way.

“Social entrepreneurs trying to make a better world in a sustainable way deserve support.” — Juan Fernandez, Mentor at Bridge for Billions

While it’s in no way a requirement, many of those who join Bridge as a mentor share a passion for the world of social entrepreneurship. No matter their field of expertise, all of them believe in the power of social businesses to solve some of the world’s most dire social issues.

Often, it’s this same passion that has led them to mentor entrepreneurs. Mentors strive to assist those who need help in building the businesses that tackle key issues such as education, food scarcity, and global warming.

Many of our mentors share an enthusiasm for the start-up world and find it really rewarding to be part of the ecosystem available to aspiring entrepreneurs. When you become a mentor, you’re able to provide them with support no matter their location, while getting the chance to become an active member of a growing and rich ecosystem.

You Believe That Talent Is Everywhere, But Opportunities Are Not

At Bridge we’re driven by a mission: to democratize entrepreneurship by guiding and impulsing those who want to improve the world. And our mentors believe in this just as much. They see the potential nestled in our entrepreneurs, and how to unlock it with the help of our innovative methodology.

This urge to make a difference, combined with our online platform, makes it possible for them to overcome the obstacles that generally get in the way of wanting to make a difference, such as time, location or the area of expertise.

“I truly believe in the power that Bridge for Billions has in terms of supporting businesses/entrepreneurs to further develop their potential by way of providing access to affordable, bespoke and high-quality services.”

— Ana de Miguel, Mentor at Bridge for Billions

You Wish To Keep On Learning

Another noteworthy reason people choose to mentor is that it’s a learning experience for them as well. We believe that pairing up individuals who possess complementary skills produces the optimal outcome: mutual learning, or “reverse mentoring.”

Apart from discovering a new business industry, mentors at Bridge for Billions develop skills that are highly valuable in today’s world like empathy, radical collaboration and problem-solving, while amplifying their network of contacts.

When joining Bridge as a mentor, you become part of a Community of experienced professionals around the world with whom to connect. The Community also gives you access to exclusive masterclasses and resources on a range of topics, from Marketing to Human Resources.

Finally, through mentoring, you can discover a top-notch methodology for business development that you can bring to other mentoring relationships or even your own personal and professional life.

Convinced? Here Are The Next Steps To Become A Mentor!

4 Reasons Why You Should Be a Mentor was originally published in Bridge for Billions on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.