MassChallenge, Inc.

The Founders Bootcamp is an in-person or virtual program that addresses and explores the most common challenges business owners face. The program also equips participants with the mindset and resources to attract investors and collaborators to their businesses. Previously run as a pilot program in April 2021, MassChallenge seeks to expand Founder Bootcamp to support women, BIPOC, and other marginalized entrepreneurs launching businesses in San Antonio, Texas, an emerging start up area. Ideally, and depending on funding received, MassChallenge would like to offer this bootcamp in two sessions annually, one in English and one in Spanish. The Bootcamp features speakers who are leaders in the local entrepreneurship community and covers the following skills:

• Design thinking
• Learn to canvas/competitive assessment
• Business formation
• Building a team
• Financial sustainability
• Funding and grant opportunities
• Marketing and digital advertising
• Growth and expansion

 After the conclusion of the Bootcamp, participants will demonstrate an increased expertise in and comfort with the skills listed above. Through our Houston pilot, we learned a stakeholder-driven approach provides the best outcome for the people we want to serve. The pilot group reported the most important skills for them were writing a business plan, gaining confidence in fundraising, and creating a marketing strategy. Our team surveys participants after the conclusion of the bootcamp to solicit feedback and integrate this feedback into future programming. This commitment to integrating feedback is one example of human-centered design. MassChallenge intends to invite a cohort of approximately 50 founders to participate per session.

Female business founders, founders of color, and founders from outside typical venture hubs lack the structures of support needed to run successful businesses. In order to ensure the business landscape continues to diversify and founders from diverse backgrounds are successful, MassChallenge offers free training especially designed for female and BIPOC female business founders.

Startups founded by underrepresented populations remain significantly overlooked by the VC industry, leading to a lack of diversity. Only 2% of available funding is directed to female entrepreneurs, according to the research firm Pitchbook. Less than 1% is awarded to Black founders and less than 2% is invested in Latine founders. This is a funding, not performance gap as female-led typically return twice as much in revenue as is invested and companies with diverse leadership typically return at least 30% on equity. Women are a powerful business force in San Antonio. With capital less available to female and diverse founders, they need extra support to launch successful business ventures.

MassChallenge and our supportive innovation ecosystems help to ensure entrepreneurs get access to the right resources at the right time. We all have a responsibility to help innovators change the world for the better. Our Bootcamp for Founders gives women starting businesses practical knowledge to fully understand the complex issues facing start-up organizations. MassChallenge intends to recruit 50 business owners to participate in the Bootcamp at no cost over the course of two sessions if this project is fully funded.

MassChallenge’s Founders Bootcamp will address two of the Challenge’s outlined objectives:

• Connecting small business owners and key stakeholders such as investors, local policymakers, and mentors with the relevant experience to improve coordination, collaboration, and knowledge bases within the small business ecosystem

and

• Offering focused guidance/professional development for building specific functional skills for internal staff such as strategic planning, human resources, process improvement, and research and testing products/services

Our Bootcamp provides a concise and action-oriented game plan for diverse business owners. Through our curriculum and expert presenters, we will fulfill the Challenge’s objective to offer focused guidance and professional development and help participants build skills.

 In tandem, MassChallenge intends to invest in the broader business ecosystem by making connections between small business owners and key stakeholders, addressing that aspect of the Challenge. By introducing founders to the venture capital and equity community, we can work to shift the percentages of funding awarded to diverse founders.

MassChallenge will expand its proven model of success to the San Antonio market. By identifying and training mentors, we help entrepreneurs attain skills and perspective from people who share their lived experience. MassChallenge is in the business of creating community and will replicate its successful model in San Antonio where there’s a distinct need for a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.  MassChallenge will eventually offer our business accelerator program in the area, a free, four-month program for businesses to receive intensive mentorship and links to venture funders, corporations looking to acquire new ventures, and a peer-network.

The San Antonio population in 2022 is estimated as 1.47 million with the largest Hispanic population in the United States, most of them identifying as Mexican America. The reality is that female founders, founders of color, and founders from outside typical venture hubs have worthwhile businesses yet don’t receive the support, attention, and funding they need for success. At the extreme, black female founders receive less than 1% of venture funding and yet are one of the fastest growing categories of entrepreneurs.  In April 2021, MassChallenge ran a pilot of the Female Founders Bootcamp and collected the following demographic information from the inaugural participants.

Race

• 14 identify as “Black or African American” (54%) 
• 9 identify as “Hispanic/Latina” (29%) 
• 1 identifies as “Asian” 
• 2 identify as “White or Caucasian”

Participants - Education background: 

• 5 with High School Diploma (21%) 
• 5 with Associate’s Degrees (21%) 
• 6 with Bachelor’s Degrees (25%) 
• 7 with Master’s Degrees (29%) 
• 1 with a Doctorate degree (4%) 

Participants - Age 

• 23 - 53 years old 
• Average age = 41 years old 

 Participants - Experience with entrepreneurship: 

• Many already had a background either operating a business themselves, supporting someone open a business, or working for a small business or startup. 
• 14 currently operate a business. 
• 6 participants had no experience working on/at a small business or startup. 

Through conversations as well as formal surveys before and after our Bootcamp, MassChallenge will solicit feedback to further refine our program and ensure it’s working to serve our target demographic. A stakeholder-driven approach provides the best outcome for the people we want to serve. There are many more underserved founders in the greater San Antonio region that can and should benefit from programs like this to not only grow their business but also serve as the region's economic and job creation engine.

MassChallenge ran a pilot version of the Founders Bootcamp in Dallas, TX in April 2021.

Yes. MassChallenge’s mission is to equip bold entrepreneurs to disrupt the status quo and to create meaningful change.

 MassChallenge’s theory of centered on the belief that entrepreneurs are at the heart of the creative innovation economy: they find and solve the world’s biggest problems using limited resources. Starting a business is extremely challenging and risky, and entrepreneurs can’t do it alone. At MassChallenge, we believe great ideas are everywhere, but opportunity is not. We envision a creative and inspired society in which everyone is empowered to turn their brilliant ideas into game-changing businesses.

MassChallenge has outlined both short-term and long-term goals for our Founders Bootcamp and the expansion of our work to San Antonio. In the short term, MassChallenge will train diverse business leaders through our Bootcamp program. In the long term, we aim to strengthen the emerging network of business leaders, funders, and nonprofits focused on supporting small businesses.

Our theory of change is based on data that shows that when diverse leaders receive training that is especially tailored to their needs from mentors who share their background or lived experience, they report more confidence in running their businesses and accessing resources. MassChallenge ran a pilot of this program in April 2021 and conducted baseline and endline surveys of the women who participated. We asked all participants how likely they are to recommend this bootcamp to another founder. Resoundingly, we received positive responses. Out of 22 responses, we received 17 perfect scores of 10 stars.

 In the surveys, we asked participants to rate their knowledge and expertise (from 1-5) on 15 different business themes. With 5 as a perfect score for knowledge and expertise, the participants rated themselves at 2.4 on average before the program began. This rating increased by 165%, with participants rating themselves at 4.0 on average after the program ended.

This quote from one of our participants reflects the sentiment of Bootcamp attendees:

“This should be an ongoing event. I gained a lot of knowledge that I can use towards my company and I am sure after this there will be many others wanting to join. I would like to give thanks for allowing me to be a part of this program.” 

MassChallenge’s inaugural Founder Bootcamp served 24 individuals who owned businesses. With additional support from the Truist Foundation, we aim to expand this program to serve even more businesses. Each run of the Bootcamp has the capacity to serve 50 individual businesses for $50,000 for a two-day intensive program. We are currently considering either running more Bootcamps with additional funding or expanding the breadth, depth, and length of the bootcamp to give a more intensive and informative experience. 

MassChallenge is considering running four, week-long bootcamp sessions for a total of approximately $400,000. With funding from the Truist Foundation and additional sources we could serve up to 200 business founders in 2023. In five years, we would aim to double our impact and refine our program to serve up to 400 business owners.

MassChallenge’s mission and model is designed to drive increased connectivity and density across all key innovation stakeholders: government (federal, state, and municipal), corporations, academia, media, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs. Connectivity between these entities attracts and supports startups who seek access to resources (talent, expertise, capital, customers) in order to learn and grow quickly. Connectivity and density also benefit industry who also need to be proximate to the teams and technologies that will drive future innovation. Input from all these stakeholders is collected through regular surveys, conversations, and by looking at data to further refine programming and organizational strategy. For our expansion into San Antonio we intend to hold a series of community events as we have in other areas to talk with local business leaders, entrepreneurs, and government officials to learn what solutions would best serve the area.

MassChallenge is in the business of creating community for entrepreneurs and the stakeholders that benefit from a rich culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. 

We work diligently to attract and curate the highest quality and caliber of mission aligned experts that make up the core of MassChallenge’s value creation. This network has the second order effect of creating access points to industry, capital markets, and other networks that are leveraged to build the ecosystem. By combining the startup development expertise of MassChallenge and the local industry knowledge of a region that we gain through the expert network, we create hyper-relevant programming that attracts knowledge, access, capital, and innovators from around the world to leverage the unique assets of the region. Relevancy is a core belief for us at MassChallenge and manifests in two ways: First, we work with our community partners (other startup development organizations) to grow and connect local ecosystems by attracting startups and experts from around the world to the innovation community. Second, we create industry relevancy by leveraging the local knowledge base to attract and develop startups with solutions that will have a significant impact on the innovation flows of regional industry clusters over the next 2 – 3 years.

Our presence in Texas began with our launch of Austin in 2018, then Houston in 2019 and now Dallas in early 2022. As of January 2021, the combined programs in Houston and Austin have attracted over 2,500 applications from across the world, accelerated 285 startups which have raised over $204M in funding, generated over $110M of revenues, and created over 10,500 jobs. We are currently launching an expansion in the San Antonio are leveraging success in other Texas locales. 2022 marks the first year of a three-year expansion plan where we intend to take the following steps to accelerate a culture of entrepreneurship in the region: 

• Hold or attend a minimum of 5 stakeholder meetings with corporate and civic leaders to assess the health and potential of the innovation economy.  
• Lead 2 Workshops (potentially co-hosted) designed to train mentors and startups on effective mentorship.  
• Source 10 startups from the region to apply to the 2022 MassChallenge U.S. Early-Stage Accelerator. 
• Accept up to 5 startups from the San Antonio region into the Early-Stage Accelerator. 
• Attract 25 BIPOC Experts from the San Antonio region to onboard into the MassChallenge global expert community. 
• Replicate our successful Founders Bootcamp for San Antonio’s female entrepreneurs. 

Thousands of founders that apply to MassChallenge programs every year from around the world report that the highest impact need they have is to connect to a network of mentors that can guide them through the early stages of business and product development. The relevancy of these mentors is directly correlated to the impact they make. In short, we know through 12+ years of experience and data that mentors who have life experiences that reflect those they are mentoring will be more successful.

For the pilot session of our Founders Bootcamp, we created a marketing, outreach, and application process that was aimed at reaching diverse, female business owners. We created an application (in both English and Spanish) for the Bootcamp to collect initial eligibility criteria, business details, and any recent progress to goals. We hosted the application form, the baseline and endline survey forms, and all applicant/participant data in Airtable. 

The application form was linked on the announcement shared on the MassChallenge website, and promoted on social media from MassChallenge, Impact Hub Houston, and Workforce Solutions, trusted community partners we engaged for the pilot program. Additionally, MassChallenge and Impact Hub Houston tapped into our local community partners to help spread the word and Workforce Solutions secured airtime on local television in both English and Spanish (Univision) speaking channels. 

As described in previous responses, MassChallenge is pursuing an expansion into the San Antonio market of Texas and planning to offer another iteration of our Founders Bootcamp and build a community surrounding entrepreneurs and startups. The following objectives will help create a differentiated economic impact for the region and a unique support system for founders:  

1.     Identify and leverage the key drivers of innovation that are unique to San Antonio and create sustainable programming that leverages these drivers to support founders from around the world; the initial cluster data suggests that Cybersecurity, Cloud Computing, and Defense Innovation are top priority areas.    

2.     Recruit BIPOC experts and founders from the region to support the unique need of BIPOC founders.   

3.     Attract a pipeline of startups, experts, and investment to the region that will support and grow the economy by leveraging the network and the validated tech and industry clusters.   

We will elevate the quality of life for all San Antonio residents by strengthening the economy and encouraging the creation of more well-paying jobs at startups by replicating our successful mentoring and business acceleration programming. 

We know through our work of supporting and accelerating ecosystems and over 3,000 startups all over the world, that founders face many challenges, entrepreneurship is hard, and it is exponentially harder if you are a BIPOC founder. However, a thriving startup community has the ability to catalyze an influx of jobs, opportunity, and investment that will drive the resiliency of the San Antonio and Texas economies.      

MassChallenge’s team has successfully run a Founder Bootcamp in the Houston area and now will replicate the success of this program for the San Antonio market. The following teams and individuals will execute this work: 

Community Management Team – This team is tasked with building and nurturing our community of experts, founders, and partners.

Jon Nordby – Head of Ecosystem and Community Based in Houston, Jon leads our Ecosystem and Community efforts focused on expanding our network of 5,000 experts and founders.

Programing Team – This team is tasked with scoping, delivering, and measuring our acceleration programs ranging from one-off special projects to our Early-Stage Accelerator and our Late-Stage Challenge programs.

Hope Hopkins – Head of Programs – Hope leads the Program team that designs and delivers all acceleration programs. She will also oversee the Founders Bootcamp.

Mentor Pool: One of the key frameworks of the MassChallenge program is the mentor-startup relationship. Each startup is teamed up with an industry expert in their respective field and meet regularly throughout the program to check in on progress or struggles in a specific area, developments in the external world, and how to problem solve.

MassChallenge also has plans to hire full time staff based in Houston to execute and guide program development in the Texas market and is working to write out this job description and responsibilities. 

MassChallenge's Mentor Pool is curated to reflect the racial, socioeconomic, and lived experience of the founders we seek to assist through the Bootcamp. 

As a startup accelerator with 13 years of experience nurturing small businesses, MassChallenge knows that a coordinated effort between governments, private industry, funders and founders to ensure our economies remain robust and resilient. The Truist Foundation Inspire Awards supports this by offering tailored support to founders, especially those who are often overlooked by investors.

For this reason, MassChallenge feels that our mission and model is well aligned with the Challenge and so we are applying for funding. If selected, we hope to take advantage of the opportunity to receive both monetary and in-kind support. We are especially interested in building out our evaluation and measurement tools and infrastructure.

MassChallenge would seek to enroll in the monitoring and evaluation track to support finalist teams in building their impact measurement practice. While MassChallenge does collect a good amount of demographic data, data on business success, and longer-term data on the health of business ecosystems, more consistency in data points across programs would help us to better understand the impact of our work both in the near and short term.

Lagging indicators of success in the San Antonio area will include startup creation, venture funding and job creation. All these metrics need a baseline to measure growth against. MIT and the Truist Foundation would be helpful partners in determining that baseline. We will also measure a host of internal metrics to ensure the Bootcamp is impactful and creating the desired impact including Founder and Expert NPS, conversion rates of the program and the ongoing success metrics of the founders.  

MassChallenge needs support to translate Bootcamp materials into Spanish and/or present the Bootcamp in Spanish.

MassChallenge works with our community partners (other startup development organizations) to grow and connect local ecosystems by attracting startups and experts from around the world to the innovation community. Second, we create industry relevancy by leveraging the local knowledge base to attract and develop startups with solutions that will have a significant impact on the innovation flows of regional industry clusters. We would look to the Truist Foundation, who has a presence in Texas, to link us to the very best organizations, corporations, and individuals to support our partnership goals in this area as we expand to San Antonio. By building community together, we can help the innovation economy expand and benefit the broader community. 

MassChallenge has identified the following partners in this effort: 

JP Morgan Chase: We are currently in negotiations with JP Morgan Chase to serve as an anchor funder for this effort.

UT San Antonio: As a major academic organization, we’re seeking to partner with UT San Antonio in entrepreneurship efforts

Port of San Antonio: Port San Antonio is the Alamo City’s large and dynamic technology and innovation campus—a place that provides connected solutions in an increasingly connected world.

80/20 Foundation: The 80|20 Foundation invests in San Antonio’s future by issuing grants to public charities that Attract, Grow, and Retain San Antonio’s future workforce and job-creating entrepreneurs.