MassRobotics hosts monthly CEO roundtable meetings enabling startup leadership to share common hurdles and provide experts and veterans a platform to discuss industry insights and support. This helps foster a sense of camaraderie within the resident community and offers a safe haven to exchange challenges, experiences, insights and strategies. It’s an opportunity to gain valuable advice from expert guests as well.
We invite subject matter expert guests in various focus areas who typically provide content followed by open Q&A and discussion. We’ve also held workshops for startups including: Preparing a Pitch, How to Raise Capital, and Building a Strong Team.
We kicked off the 2023 monthly round tables discussions with guest Danielle Duplin, President at FreeWind Productions. Danielle shared tips on building an effective one-minute elevator pitch incorporating storytelling and focusing on a theme. She provided many examples and worked one-on-one with CEOs offering ideas and suggestions.
In February we hosted a “Preparing the Pitch” workshop with the founder of Scroobious, Allison Byers. The Scroobious Pitch it Plan™ is a platform that helps startups get their compelling story into an investor-ready format. The platform provides an online education and personalized feedback through the lens of an investor mindset. In this workshop Allison offered tips on building a clear and compelling pitch deck which is crucial at any stage of the fundraising process. She stressed structuring the narrative and communicating the most important aspects of the business in a way that makes sense to investors. Residents learned a framework for structuring their narrative and received tangible advice on what information to include in each section of the pitch deck.
Also in February we hosted Greg Raiz who provided a workshop and tips on “How to Raise Capital”. He compared Angel Investment vs traditional VCs and discussed the differences between Pre-seed, seed and series A investments and expectations. He walked through a step-by-step approach to fundraising including prepping, pitching and closing and offered advice to the startups attending the session.
Parna Sarkar-Basu, CEO of Brand and Buzz Marketing, was our March guest and spoke about building market credibility, building a brand around the startup leadership, and what it takes to “stand out.” During this session Parna spoke about the branding mistakes most startups make and offered tips on building the founder’s brand – an important element of launching a successful business.
Drew Fortin, Founder & CEO of Lever Talent, ran our April workshop and focused on building a strong team and winning culture. Each attendee took a self-assessment to understand their individual assets which helped them explore what traits and talent that were then needed to complement their team so that they cover all necessary skills to succeed. We used a Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment tool to discover individual superpowers and then applied this to think about how to build teams and align to strategies. There was discussion around the use of mission, vision, and values to use to unlock the power of behavioral diversity in a company.
Our final session prior to our summer break was with Christie Bluhm from CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA), a MassRobotics Associated Network member. CLA is a professional services firm delivering integrated wealth advisory, digital, audit, tax, outsourcing, and consulting services. Christie Bluhm offered best practices in accounting and finance and spoke about forecasting and taxes.