Thank you, Brad Feld
In the beginning of 2013, I was fresh on my entrepreneurial journey. At the time, I was reading anything and everything I could get my hands on. I often visited Brad Feld’s blog, Feld Thoughts. There I received some of the best entrepreneurial advice ever. “Give before you get.”
In his piece, Feld writes,
“Adopt a philosophy of helping others without an expectation of what you are going to get back. It’s not altruistic — you do expect to get things in return — but you don’t set up the relationship to be a transactional one.”
Kert Heinecke and I took this to heart. On top of building our startups, we started hacking a better community mentor structure. We noticed an inefficiency in the community caused by misaligned interests and resources. One big problem was that mentors didn’t have much to give founders and founders wanted too much from mentors.
We came up with the idea to create various paths, from beginner to intermediate, so everyone who needed help could get it. Experts were then assigned on those paths to enable support. The structure allowed for mentorship to be more modular and flexible. This also got more people involved in the community and reduced mentor burnout.
In two years, we built two flagship programs for Philly Startup Leaders: Startup Bootcamp and Accelerator. The bootcamp was for beginners and taught the main framework you needed to run a startup. Since the talks rotated speakers, the program also enabled individuals to build a network rapidly. In contrast, the accelerator was for companies who had products but needed help accelerating their growth, meeting peers for support, and getting dedicated mentorship.
We had no expectations to get anything back. Furthermore, we made that point a core value of the programs. We didn’t charge anything and we didn’t take equity. We just tried to provide value. And we made sure our mentors brought the same attitude.
Fast forwarding, the program has seen mentors like Gabriel Weinberg (DuckDuckGo), Justin Goldman (Zoomer), Lucinda Duncalfe (Monetate), Robert J. Moore (RJMetrics), Rick Nucci (Guru), and so many other amazing people. Kert and I have long since handed over the running of the programs and they still continue today!
I am very proud of what we built. I met so many great people along the way. And while I will mostly likely never receive anything from the majority of these individuals, I don’t care because I have already gotten so much. Thank you, Brad Feld.
