Beating founder fears | Tech Week Round up - The Knowledge Shop

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Hello there,

Recovered from Tech Week now?

It took us a minute, so after a brief hiatus, we are back.

After what felt like months of planning, it came and went in the blink of an eye! And wow 400 events - that was a lot, and shows the strength of the tech scene in NYC (anyone else find it funny when newbies to the city discover we have one, and wonder why it hadn’t hit their radar before 🤣)

For those of you who attended, i hope you learnt a lot, and made some amazing new connections.

Coming up in this issue…

1. 🤦‍♀️ #FailFest recap

2. 💰#Growthfest recap

3. 💬 Community discussions

4. 📆 Upcoming Events (check out our fancy new event calendar💪)

5. 🙋‍♀️ Welcomes, Member Shout outs, asks and wins

6. 🛠️ Resources

See you guys soon,

Tori

ps - Love events? Check out our brand new events calendar. It curates what we think are the best founder activities across the city.

Kicked off Tech week with our first ever #FailFest - massive thank you to everyone who came, our hosts Primary Coworking (perfect when you want some focus / Zen time near Fidi) and a huge shout out to our amazing Executive Coaches…

• Leang Chung of Pelorastack

• Brandon Wetzstein, In8Create

…who so kindly donated their time to give everyone free coaching 1:1’s throughout the day, learn about their blockers and help them build their 🚀

Everything we shared was anonymous, (through the power of post it notes), allowing us all to share openly and honestly. This lead to a very collaborative and powerful discussion and a lot of powerful takeaways - especially around normalising our fear of failure, and how to reduce its impact.

Does fear of failure resonate, or hold you back?

👀 FAILURE FEARS & TROUBLESHOOTING NOTES 📖

We also got featured in the Tech Week round up email 😊 (massive thank you to Scott who took the photos in the park too)

#Growthfest - covered everything sales and marketing!

Another sell out day, and this time our thanks go to…

• Hosts - The Yard, a family-like coworking space, a stones throw from Central Park

• Sales - Dan Morris of Mindracer consulting (everything sales)

• PR - Scott Rosenblum, Level PR (clues in the name)

  • Who also put together this handy cribsheet to writing a press release (join our Slack group to download).

• Data to get headlines - Jacqui Barrett, The Bright Arc

  • All Slack members, can view her presentation here…

Dan and Scott had folks clamouring to get a 1:1 - spoiler, not enough time, sorry. But clearly a theme we need to revisit for future.

Want to join a future Sales & Marketing event? - let me know.

• Using PR for fundraising? Should you do a campaign, or hire a company?

  • Answer 1

    • NO! Especially not in pre-seed, seed. Focus on building, not hiring people to get your name out.

  • Answer 2

    • Remember PR people reaching out are also businesses! You are a lead, and they don’t necessarily care whether you need it, it’s just an opportunity for them to sell you a service.

  • Answer 3

    • You can secure PR without hiring a firm. I’ve done it for my startup, engage in public speaking, build journalist connections, and time your efforts strategically, such as when launching a disruptive MVP.

Slack / WhatsApp fan? Join here

☕️ 17th November. Coffee Huddles - Small group sessions focused on support, and building meaningful connections.

🍹 21st November. Happy Hour - Free drink for first 30 founders to arrive - thanks to HONEYCOMB SOFTWARE for sponsoring the drinks 🙏

🇬🇧 30th November. Brits Building Startups in NYC - Small group session with fellow founders from across the pond. Tea provided (coffee if you must 😮‍💨)

A big 👋 and hello to some of our newer members, including...

• Andrew Kirk, CEO of Optimize AI, which uses generative AI to provide business insights for small businesses. Want to connect with other Ai folks? Join AI NY for AI collaboration.

• Ilkar - founder of PONS, who are revolutionizing healthcare with extensive medical image collection and AI solutions, making ultrasound accessible.

• Shenal Harakh is an experienced developer, funded founder, and former PwC professional actively engaged in the startup ecosystem, mentoring with Techstars Australia and Blackbird VC. (she also just helped The Knowledge Shop on a project and was AMAZING!)

📈 Marketing

Beauty Brand?
Via Female Founder World - Reddit might just be the most underrated marketing channel, particularly for beauty brands. Laneige is tapping Reddit's promoted posts and video ads.

👀 Watch this Tik Tok for ideas / how to.

🛠️ Ideation / Building help

Got an idea for a startup and not sure where to start? HONEYCOMB SOFTWARE created a 2-minute survey to give you a personalized project plan to help kickstart your startup journey.

🏎️ Start that journey now…

🚀 Accelerators

ERA Accelerator 

Invest $150,000 on a post-money SAFE in return for 6%. , with the potential for follow-on funding. NYC’s largest network of expert mentors with a 1,000+ mentor network including 500+ alumni founders and 500+ experts

Apply now

Stedulabs

8 week accelerator program, we help you go from idea to reality in 8 weeks, for free

Apply now

Techstars

Industries of the future accelerator, supporting and advancing world-class startups focused on emerging technologies including AI, advanced manufacturing, quantum information science, 5G, biotech, and clean energy.

Especially looking for more female founders to apply.

Apply now

We’ve got a fancy new Event Calendar - the best of NYC’s founder events in one place! 💪

Want your event listed? Fill in this form

See you on Nov 21st

📨 Share your news, launch, expertise etc, to be featured 📨