12 founders had a great peer to peer learning experience

In April we organized our first Learning Circle on 'How to find the right impact investor'. The idea of the Learning Circles is for founders to take a deep dive into a certain topic and learn a lot from both experts and fellow founders. In our first Learning Circle, we explored the topic of finding the right impact investor, which is a challenge for a lot of impact driven founders.

We kicked off with four Live Talks, led by Michelle Chakkalackal (Impact Business Consultant & Strategist). We had a very interesting line up of expert speakers: Martijn Blom (EVPA), Pavithra Ram and Ynzo van Zanten (Tony's Chocolonely), Marije Schasfoort (Stichting DOEN), James Mitchell (BuildX), Kamael Ann Sugrim (People First HC).

''Very insightful program with industry experts, must recommend for social enterprise'' Jahra Midas A. Roxas – E-waste social

What is your impact

After the four Live Talks we continued the learning process with eight very enthusiastic startup founders from around the globe that were all in a different phase of their impact journey. Alwin Veldboom (Innovation Architect, Outside Inc.) first talked about 'What is your impact?' in a deep dive session from 1,5 hour and identify what challenge the startups want to help solve and what drives them.

The day after a deep dive session, Hub Jongen (Startup Support Director WorldStartup Studio) led a peer to peer session where the startups would continue the conversation about the previous day and learn from each other how they are handling that topic now with their company. The second week Aditya Putta (Venture Sourcing Lead WorldStartup Capital) and Jan Verkooijen (Capital Director WorldStartup Capital) talked about the impact from an investor's point of view. Working in their own Miro Boards the startup companies learned about the spectrums of Investor's types and the eight criteria what an investment must need.

How to build your impact story

After knowing what the impact they are making, what kind of investors and investments you have, we started our third week with Marjan de Jong (Jong Marketing and Dutch Mentor Community). This week was all about how to build your impact story and to identify which risks that come along with your company and how often they occur. By pitching the impact stories they created in this session, the founders gave each other feedback and tips! On the 29th of April it was Martijn Blom's turn to conclude the deep dive sessions by hosting the last session in this program. Martijn learned the founders knew how to build a relationship with an investor, based on mutual trust. At the end of this session the founders worked on creating their impact hit list!

''The Learning Circle program is a good way to connect with other impact entrepreneurs and learn from peers and experts around impact investing. It helped me focus on the preparations to raise impact investments as input to further define our impact'' Lieke Beelen – Visual Contracts

Damn, that was fun. We should do this again. Really. In fact, we will! After this successful first Learning Circle program we will organize more Learning Circles in the future! Not only about the subject 'How to find the right impact-investor’ but also about topics like ‘How to build a great team”. The Learning circle is all about peer to peer learning. Let us know what you find interesting and send us an email which topic you would like to cover during our next program.

Through Learning Circle, we provide professional insight and strategic support to startup founders. After completing the program, founders will be able to attract money and investors through pitching skills. In addition, they are also able to handle challenges in product marketing with better strategies.

Keep an eye on our website, LinkedIn and/or Facebook because there you will find our upcoming skills training with the topic, date, local speakers, and how to apply.