NEXEA Accelerator & Venture Capitalist: August 2020

Monday, August 17, 2020

Mentorship Programs for Tech Entrepreneurs

This post first appeared on Mentorship Programs for Tech Entrepreneurs
For Startup Investments check out https://www.nexea.co

There could be thousands of reasons why a person chooses to start their own business, but no matter what their incentive is, all entrepreneurs will require some help and support in order for them to have the best chance of succeeding. Some may revert to friends or family, but for others may require support in the form of a mentor.

Why mentorship programs you may ask?

Well, as an entrepreneur, you are bound to have countless strengths and one of them is being able to overcome the challenges along the road. Nevertheless, it is inevitable to have some gap of knowledge in certain business aspects – which is why having a mentor to provide you business advice and support can be a very important element to your business’ success through mentorship programs such as business mentoring programs or find business mentors for startups specifically.

“If you ask any successful person, they will always have had a great mentor at some point along the road.”
Sir Richard Branson

Business mentors

Why having a mentor is so important? Well, a business mentor is someone with many years of experience being in the industry of your business and they are the “been-there-done-that” type of people where they have gone through business hardships have succeeded in their fields. Thus, by having an industry expert as your mentor, he or she will be able to help you in realising your goals and provide you with the necessary guidelines on how to achieve them.

According to Sage, a leading provider of enterprise resource planning software who surveyed more than 11,000 small and medium-sized businesses across 17 countries, found that 93% of business owners recognise that having business mentors can help them to succeed.

There are three important elements that you can take advantage of when participating in a business mentorship program:

Experience: As much as you think you know everything there is, you just don’t know what you don’t know. By having someone who is experienced and able to relate with you the challenges that you are currently facing, may it be starting or growing a business, you are able to obtain priceless knowledge and guidance that is hard to come by.
Networking: Networking with the right people is also another important aspect of being an entrepreneur. Business mentors can help introduce you to the right people in your industry as well as identify the right ideas and opportunities for your business.
Encouragement: Having the grit and determination to pull through hard times is important for an entrepreneur, but even then, it is important for entrepreneurs to have someone who can cheer them on by their side at tough times, a background sounding board who motivates them to keep ongoing.

Some of the programs that are available are organised by organisations such as Growing Giants, LIT, Women In Payments and many more.

Leadership Mentorship Program

The leadership mentorship program is a mentoring scheme designed to develop CEOs and executives through one-on-one interactions with experienced mentors. The aim of this CEO mentorship program is to provide confidential, non-judgmental and constructive support towards mentees in order for them to develop and grow their leadership skills (both personal and institutional). Through executive mentoring, mentees would be exposed to new perspectives and way of thinking as well as insider tips in leadership.

Mentorship not only brings benefits to the mentees but also to the institution as a whole because, through leadership, it leads to higher job satisfaction, job retention as well as work engagement among staffs. This will also increase the level of work efficiency and productivity in the organisation.

Mentorship Programme for Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneur mentor program is a mentorship scheme that is catered to founders and entrepreneurs of startups. This program is usually executed by combining two elements:

Pairing with a senior startup mentor: Mentee will be paired up with successful and experienced CEOs as well as having exclusive one-on-one meetings.
Peer group mentoring: A group of founders who come together to support each other to achieve success in their personal and professional life.

Here at NEXEA, we organise Entrepreneurs programme that is catered for CEOs of high-growth startups (potential to grow more than 100 million in market size). The Entrepreneurs Programme advocates founders and entrepreneurs to have a peer-to-peer growth mindset as they believe it allows CEOs to learn and relearn the things that they know as well as openly discuss with their peers about the challenges and failures that they face.

NEXEA is known for its mentors who are successful ex-entrepreneurs, or C-levels who own and have sold (IPO, M&A) their businesses. The combination of experienced mentors, experts and partners prove potent as the 35+ startups invested by NEXEA have grown 3 to 16 times per year.

Conclusion of Mentorship Programs

Not every CEO has had the benefit of having a valuable mentor. But with many programs available for high calibre leaders, perhaps more of them should participate in one for the good of their organisations. With the right mentoring, not only will companies thrive, but everyone will also stand to gain.

Resources

For more, check out NEXEA
For Startup Investments check out https://www.nexea.co

source https://www.nexea.co/mentorship-programs-for-tech-entrepreneurs/

Business Advisors for Tech Entrepreneurs

This post first appeared on Business Advisors for Tech Entrepreneurs
For Startup Investments check out https://www.nexea.co

The life of start-ups or fast-growing companies can quickly become extremely stressful and chaotic. There are many different areas that you have to take care of as a leader, and that can be a challenge. Topics such as business planning, financial forecasting, employee management, and customer acquisition are the daily routine for small businesses. So it’s no wonder that people are seeking help!

Below is a bit more about business advisors and business coaches.

Why Businesses Need a Business Advisor?

As much as you like doing most of the things yourself, no one is really a master in everything they do and taking a do-it-yourself approach for your business can create some trouble. That is why entrepreneurs are recommended to seek advisors assistance in crucial aspects of a business, before making any decision. Here are some of the things that business advisors can offer:

Help you with business plans, marketing and planning. Through a business advisor, you don’t need many experts in your organisation because the advisor has the practical know-how in all the different areas of your business.
Unbiased opinion. Recruiting a business advisor also means that the advisor will observe your entire organisational structure with a pair of fresh eyes and would provide you with an honest and unbiased opinion on what he sees. This is very important for any founders or CEOs because the sooner they realise what they are doing wrong, the faster they can undo their mistakes and grow their company.
Time. A business advisor will take the time to understand the company well and explore the areas in which there is an opportunity for the business to venture into or even to improve on. This relieves the burden on yourself and gives you interesting insights from a different perspective.

Nevertheless hiring a business advisor is a big decision that can seem a bit discouraging for business owners. It is a great responsibility to share your business strategies with a completely impartial third party.

Advantages of Hiring a Business Startup Advisor

1. Expertise.

A business startup advisor can help you to fully exploit your potential and to look beyond one’s own horizons from time to time to discover new ideas. It can also help to remember ideas that work. Perhaps to achieve what seemed to be unattainable so far.

2. Good work-life balance.

With different roles in the private and working sphere, each with different requirements, it is easy as an entrepreneur to lose track of what is going on. Therefore by hiring a senior executive coach, he or she will be able to assist you to keep the overall view and focus of the company in check, so that you can fully perform your current role.

3. Confidence

As an owner of your own business, it is common to always have a lot of self-doubts. We tend to perceive ourselves as being completely different and often see weaknesses where our strengths lie. This usually leads to us not being able to see things clearly. Thus, with a senior executive coach with you, he or she will provide encouragement and valuable insights where we start to see ourselves in a better perspective. The road of a startup business is already tough as it is, so having someone by your side that can give you the confidence and motivation to succeed does help you make better decisions and in the end achieve better results.

4. Improve Communications Skills

Communication is a broad field with different challenges and levels of impact. It is important for you to have good communications with anyone that you meet or even work with because you will be able to engage with them in a more effective manner.

How do you communicate with employees, subordinates or customers? What is important in detail when communicating? How can it be made even clearer, more targeted or more effective?

All these questions can be answered through the guidance of a business advisor. A business coach will be able to coach you to optimise different scenarios with different tactics.

Entrepreneur Coaching Programme

An entrepreneur coaching program is a program that is designed for an entrepreneur to receive coaching from a senior executive on how to create a thriving and successful business. In Malaysia, there are numerous leadership entrepreneurship programs catered for entrepreneurs. However, there are still some entrepreneurs who will never consider being coached, either because they feel they know their business better than anyone else or because they think they should know everything about their business. It is understandable that it can be difficult to ask for help. Nevertheless, let me give you some key points on how valuable a senior business coach can be.

They focus on where the business currently stands, evaluates what works and what doesn’t, sets goals, and creates an action plan.
They can be a guide to the challenges facing business and life. These knowledge-building experts offer the entrepreneur added value. They can identify weaknesses, give objective advice from outside, and hold you accountable for your goals. These experts have seen companies grow in every phase and know the obstacles that come with every step.

We at NEXEA also offer an Entrepreneurs Programme for tech entrepreneurs in Malaysia. It is an exclusive private forum for top tech entrepreneurs to learn & grow together. Entrepreneurs are guided by some of the best Startup mentors & investors. NEXEA has the strongest mentor profile in the country with people that own listed companies (IPO), done M&A, are CEOs/CFOs, or are ex-entrepreneurs that have successfully grown their companies regionally.

It is a forum for you to solve your business problems with peer entrepreneurs who have probably experienced similar issues. NEXEA uses systematic methods to solve issues together.

NEXEA Academy focuses on value provided to members to ensure that learning & growth is constantly & increasingly provided to members.

Summary for Business Coaching

Some entrepreneurs or managers shy away from hiring a business coach – nevertheless, there is no better way to learn more about yourself and to understand how to make better decisions and invest in your career. It is not only about success and goals, but also about relationships and trust.

Sources