Stressing Growth: How Understanding the Science of Stress Can Help You Lead

Join us for a Wellness and Development Session on Stressing Growth: How Understanding the Science of Stress Can Help You Lead with Marsha Prospere, Wellness and Development Coach at Embarc Collective and Founder of Adept Flow, on Wednesday, November 20 from 10:00-11:30AM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

Who this is for: Founder/CEOs at various growth stages, from bootstrapped to Series A and beyond.

Why It Matters: Let’s face it—whether you’re bootstrapped or fundraising, balancing accounts receivable with making payroll and scaling your startup can place acute stress on a founder. This session offers a supportive space for open sharing and peer connection that will equip you with practical tools to navigate the unique stressors of cash flow and raising capital during your startup journey. Marsha will share best practices for managing stress around scaling and resource constraints.

In this interactive workshop, you will:

• Reflect on your current cash flow position and identify unique stressors
• Explore common burnout phases, the impact of chronic stress, and ways these stressors influence daily operations
• Learn and discuss proven strategies to reduce burnout and manage energy through the intense fundraising and GTM phases

Visiting Expert Office Hours with The First Bank

We are hosting Daniel Caldwell, VP of Commercial Banking at The First Bank, for Visiting Expert Office Hours on Thursday, November 21 from 1-4PM via Zoom.

In addition to building a relationship with Daniel, here are a few ways you can leverage his expertise:

• How to assess the strength of your bank
• Understanding current banking regulations
• Exploring bank loans and how to become a strong bank loan candidate
• Accountant and bookkeeping service recommendations
• Cash flow, balance sheet, and income statement strategy
• And more!

More on The First Bank: Founded in 1996 near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, The First has grown rapidly through Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia, providing services competitive to those found at larger regional banks. The Company’s stock is traded on Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol FBMS. Information is available on the Company’s website, www.TheFirstBank.com.

December Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures

Join us for our December Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, happening on Thursday, December 5 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. We’ll also welcome the TampaBay.Ventures team, a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Visiting Expert Office Hours with Florida Funders

We are hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours with Chelsea Oppenheim, Director of Investments at Florida Funders, on Wednesday, December 11 from 1-3PM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

Meet with Chelsea one-on-one for an investor relationship-building opportunity, receive feedback on your business, and have your fundraising strategy questions answered. You do not need to be actively raising to meet with Chelsea.

Note: All Visiting Expert Office Hours meetings take place in person unless otherwise specified and confirmed with the EC team.

More on Florida Funders: Florida Funders is a venture capital firm and angel network that invests in Pre-Seed to Series A tech startups with an average check size of $500K to $1M. Companies must have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and/or a launched product with an established customer base. Florida Funders was named ‘Most Active Venture Capital Firm in Florida’ by CB Insights and has backed Embarc Collective member companies, including Chattr, ShyftOff, ProCredEx, Threshold360, Pocket, and Peerfit.

Embarc Collective Holiday Party

You and a guest are invited to Embarc Collective’s Annual Holiday Party on Thursday, December 12 from 5:30PM – 7:30PM in the ReliaQuest Auditorium at Embarc Collective, powered by Florida Funders.

Let’s celebrate the resiliency and achievements of the driven and focused entrepreneurs in the Embarc Collective community over festive beverages, light bites, and games. Because of your hard work, your businesses survived another year against your competitors—that’s worth celebrating!

Do you have the best cookie recipe? When you RSVP, you can enter our annual holiday cookie contest. Attendees will vote for their favorite cookie recipe, and the winners will be announced at the end of the night.

This event is open to all Embarc Collective members, Board Members, Corporate Advisory Council Members, and Young Professional Board Members.

Fundraising in a Shifting Market: Understanding Macroeconomic Trends and Data

Join us for a fundraising session, Fundraising in a Shifting Market: Understanding Macroeconomic Trends and Data, with Justin Krieger, Director of Technology, Media and Telecommunications at RSM Canada, on Thursday, November 14, from 3-4PM in the CDW Innovation Lab at Embarc Collective.

Who this is for: Founder/CEOs

Why it matters: In today’s evolving financial landscape, startup founders who are raising external capital are affected by macroeconomic trends impacting fundraising. This workshop explores the high-level economic forces shaping venture capital, with a focus on the implications for early-stage companies. Join this session to gain better context into the mindset of investors and their LPs before you fundraise.

We’ll dive into:

• Real-time macroeconomic data and its influence on the broader fundraising landscape
• The availability and impact of venture debt for startups fundraising
• Guidance on extending runway amidst tightening liquidity
• An up-to-date market data and analysis to help you make informed decisions in a rapidly changing environment

This session is not about tactical tips—it’s a research-driven look at the data and trends shaping today’s market. You’ll leave with the context needed to understand the state of the fundraising market before approaching investors.

Member Social

Join us for our November Member Social on Thursday, November 7 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Pitch Deck Throw Down

Join us for a special programming session; our Pitch Deck Throw Down with Allie Felix, Fundraising Strategist at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, November 7, from 12-1PM in the CDW Innovation Lab at Embarc Collective.

During this peer-led live critique session, founders currently preparing to raise can put their decks up on the big screen for fellow founders to walk through what resonates in their story and how to make the pitch tighter.

Why It Matters: This is your chance to get personalized advice on how to make your pitch deck more engaging and effective as you head into investor conversations.

You’ll Walk Away With: By the end of the session, you'll have a battery of ideas for your own deck and an entirely new perspective on how to fine-tune your pitch.

Pre-Work: Please send your pitch deck to gabby@embarccollective.com prior to the session.

RSVP here if you’d like to attend. Please note that we only have time for 2-3 pitches total; there is not enough time to get through everyone’s deck.

Visiting Expert Office Hours with TGH Ventures

Jason Swoboda, the Director of Innovation from TGH Ventures, will be hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours on Wednesday, November 6 from 12-2PM in the TGH Ventures Office at Embarc Collective.

This is a great opportunity to leverage Jason's extensive small business development and healthcare expertise to receive feedback on your product or business strategy, build a relationship with TGH, and access their network and industry insights.

We encourage you to use this meeting as a learning opportunity versus a selling opportunity*.

*This is a no hard-pitch zone. You can gather feedback from Jason on your pitch/deck, but no sales pitches, per TGH Venture’s request.

Blueprint for Growth: Frameworks for Annual Planning

Join us for an annual planning strategy session, Blueprint for Growth: Frameworks for Annual Planning, with Lakshmi Shenoy, Strategy Coach + CEO of Embarc Collective, on Thursday, October 24, from 1-2PM in the CDW Innovation Lab at Embarc Collective.

Why it matters: Setting the destination and the path to reach your goals is critical to the success of any team. Sharpen your strategy, align resources, and set actionable goals to drive sustainable growth and success in 2025.

Who this is for: Founders, CEOs, Leadership Teams

You’ll walk away with:

• Frameworks for building your 2025 plan
• Ideas for an annual planning session, either solo or with your team
• Strategies for keeping your plan top of mind throughout the year

October Member Social with Special Guest Tim Holcomb (Incoming EC CEO), powered by Deel

This is a member social you won’t want to miss!

Join us for our October Member Social, powered by Deel, happening on Thursday, October 10 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen with special guest Tim Holcomb, Embarc Collective’s incoming CEO.

Lakshmi and the Embarc Collective team could not be happier that Tim, with his 35+ years experience as an entrepreneur and educator, will be guiding our organization, starting January 1, as we head into the next chapter of serving the most driven and focused startup talent. Learn more about Tim here.

This is a great opportunity to get to know Tim and, better yet, for him to get to know YOU. Bring your team and warm welcomes as we enjoy light bites and bevis.

How to Master Social Media with a Team of 1

Join us for our special programming session, How to Master Social Media with a Team of 1 with James Flynn, Co-Founder and CEO of coso.ai, on Wednesday, September 18, from 10-11AM via Zoom.

Why it matters: Social media offers a cost-effective and highly visible platform to build brand awareness and credibility, engage with potential customers, and drive business growth.

Who this is for: Solo Founders/CEOs

What you’ll walk away understanding:

• How to establish and execute social media goals.
• Guidelines for content that provides value.
• Tools you can leverage to make social media management easier.
• How to optimize LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social platform profiles without a social media team.

Mastering Channel Partnerships: Referral, Reseller, Affiliates & More

Join us for the third installment of our Sales Series on Mastering Channel Partnerships: Referral, Reseller, Affiliates & More with Embarc Collective B2B Sales Strategist, Kristen Koenig from 10-11AM in the CDW Innovation Lab at Embarc Collective.

Why it matters: For a tech startup looking to scale and grow, channel partnerships can be a strategic way to expand efficiently. You can expand your reach, drive revenue, and build mutually beneficial relationships.

Who this is for: B2B Founders + Sales Leaders

What you’ll walk away understanding:

• The various Partner types and business models
• Partner type and profiles that are right for your business
• Key tips on how to prioritize and build a partner revenue engine

Whether you're looking to grow your business through partner networks or optimize existing collaborations, this session will provide you with actionable insights, best practices, and tools.

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More on Kristen: Kristen has driven strategic partnerships and GTM at two early-stage startups through to IPO and M&A. She led channel sales and partnerships at Hopin before being acquired by RingCentral, where she is now the RVP, Video (Meetings, Webinars, Events). Before joining RingCentral, Kristen served as Director of Global Digital Channel Sales & Partnerships at Freeman, leading partnership sales strategy, success & marketing, as well as a team of Sales Managers, BDRs/SDRs, and TSCs generating $20M+ ARR. Before that, she was the Director of Sales at World Travel, Inc., leading the meeting services sales and reselling of a SaaS partners' software, and in a multitude of enterprise sales roles from new business to global account management at Cvent. She quickly became Cvent’s Top Performer each year (managing $10M TCV).

Visiting Expert Office Hours with Florida Funders

We are hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours with Zach Brodsky, Senior Investment Associate at Florida Funders at Florida Funders, on Wednesday, September 11 from 1-3PM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

Meet with Zach one-on-one for an investor relationship-building opportunity, receive feedback on your business, and have your fundraising strategy questions answered. You do not need to be actively raising to meet with Zach.

• Office hours are first-come, first-served.
• Note: All Visiting Expert Office Hours meetings take place in person unless otherwise specified and confirmed with the EC team.

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More on Florida Funders: Florida Funders is a venture capital firm and angel network that invests in Pre-Seed to Series A tech startups with an average check size of $500K to $1M. Companies must have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and/or a launched product with an established customer base. Florida Funders was named ‘Most Active Venture Capital Firm in Florida’ by CB Insights and has backed Embarc Collective member companies, including Chattr, ShyftOff, ProCredEx, Threshold360, Pocket, and Peerfit.

September Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures

Join us for our September Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, happening on Thursday, September 5 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. We’ll also welcome the TampaBay.Ventures team, a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Pitch Deck Throw Down

Join us for a special programming session; our Pitch Deck Throw Down with Allie Felix, Fundraising Strategist at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, September 5, from 12-1PM in the CDW Innovation Lab at Embarc Collective.

During this peer-led live critique session, founders currently preparing to raise can put their decks up on the big screen for fellow founders to walk through what resonates in their story and how to make the pitch tighter.

Why It Matters: This is your chance to get personalized advice on how to make your pitch deck more engaging and effective as you head into investor conversations.

What You’ll Walk Away With: By the end of the session, you'll have a battery of ideas for your own deck and an entirely new perspective on how to fine-tune your pitch.

Pre-Work: Please send your pitch deck to gabby@embarccollective.com prior to the session.

Please note that we only have time for 3 pitches total; there is not enough time to get through everyone’s deck. Our next Pitch Deck Throw Down session will take place in November.

Member Town Hall: Organizational Changes at Embarc Collective

Join us for a special Member Town Hall on Wednesday, August 28 at 2:30PM-3:30PM in the CDW Innovation Lab or via Zoom. The Embarc Collective Board of Directors, including Brian Murphy, CEO/Founder of Reliaquest and Embarc Collective board chair, will be on-site as we share updates on future organizational changes.

Visiting Expert Office Hours with TGH Ventures

Jason Swoboda, the Director of Innovation from TGH Ventures, will be hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours on Thursday, August 22 from 12-2PM in the TGH Ventures Office at Embarc Collective.

This is a great opportunity to leverage Jason's extensive small business development and healthcare expertise to receive feedback on your product or business strategy, build a relationship with TGH, and access their network and industry insights.

We encourage you to use this meeting as a learning opportunity versus a selling opportunity*.

*This is a no hard-pitch zone. You can gather feedback from Jason on your pitch/deck, but no sales pitches, per TGH Venture’s request.

Sales Series - Part 2: Nailing Your Packaging and Pricing

Join us for Part 2 of our two-part Sales Series on Nailing Your Packaging and Pricing with Embarc Collective B2B Sales Strategist, Kristen Koenig on Thursday, August 8, from 2-3PM in the Small Classroom at Embarc Collective.

Part 2: Nailing Your Packaging and Pricing

Why it matters: Product packaging and pricing are crucial components that influence how a product is perceived, marketed, and sold. It plays a significant role in attracting the right customers, maximizing revenue, and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Who this is for: B2B Founders + Sales Leaders who joined us for Part 1 or have an existing clear ICP and customer segmentation in place.

What you’ll walk away with:

• Growth strategies aligned to your ICP (eg. Sales-Led Growth for mid-market and enterprise; Product-Led Growth for SMB)
• Product packaging strategies (eg. bundling, tiered plans, service levels, etc.)
• Kristen’s favorite tools and templates to help you execute

//

More on Kristen: Kristen has driven strategic partnerships and GTM at two early-stage startups through to IPO and M&A. She led channel sales and partnerships at Hopin before being acquired by RingCentral, where she is now the RVP, Video (Meetings, Webinars, Events). Before joining RingCentral, Kristen served as Director of Global Digital Channel Sales & Partnerships at Freeman, leading partnership sales strategy, success & marketing, as well as a team of Sales Managers, BDRs/SDRs, and TSCs generating $20M+ ARR. Before that, she was the Director of Sales at World Travel, Inc., leading the meeting services sales and reselling of a SaaS partners' software, and in a multitude of enterprise sales roles from new business to global account management at Cvent. She quickly became Cvent’s Top Performer each year (managing $10M TCV).

Visiting Expert Office Hours with Genna McKeel

We are hosting virtual Visiting Expert Office Hours with Genna McKeel, Executive Coach + Former Global Leader for Google for Startups, on Wednesday, August 7 from 1PM-4PM via Zoom.

Utilizing her 20+ years of experience working in both public and private sectors and over a decade at Google for Startups managing global teams, Genna provides coaching that focuses on how to lead, motivate, and grow teams.

Meet with Genna to leverage her expertise in leading high-performing teams:

• Fostering collaboration and cultivating a strong culture that drives results.
• Leading through change by leveraging feedback tools, creating annual plans/setting OKRs, and developing systems and processes that assist in prioritization and decision-making.
• Building self-awareness so you can identify team needs and the best ways to motivate.

Office hours are first-come, first-served.

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More on Genna: Genna is a leadership coach who helps founders lead authentically, motivate and grow teams. She has 20+ years of experience working in both public and private sectors. After being with Google for Startups for over almost a decade, she brings a unique perspective of Google’s way of getting things done combined with ecosystem partner and founder insights.

At Google for Startups, Genna managed global teams, mentoring and bringing the best of Google’s leadership, culture, and product expertise to founders across 6 continents. She created partnerships with leading startup organizations and helped launch and run physical spaces for startups in 7 cities around the world.

Before Google, while getting her MBA from London Business School, Genna supported entrepreneurs in emerging markets and worked with the London startup ecosystem, including SVc2UK and Atomico. Before business school, she spent five years in various positions in the U.S. Department of State, including advising the Presidential Special Envoy for Sudan and leading teams to manage Secretary Rice’s schedule and logistics during international visits. She also worked with IBM Public sector business consulting after graduating from Georgetown University.

August Member Social

Join us for our August Member Social, powered by Florida Funders, happening on Thursday, August 1 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. We’ll also welcome the Florida Funders team to help us celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Sales Series - Part 1: Nailing Your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)

Join us for Part 1 of our two-part Sales Series on Nailing Your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), Pricing, and Packaging with Embarc Collective B2B Sales Strategist, Kristen Koenig from 4-5PM in the Small Classroom at Embarc Collective.

Part 1: Nailing Your ICP

Why it matters: Your ICP informs your sales and marketing strategy, product roadmap, and core differentiation. Without it, you can’t build a go-to-market strategy that uniquely positions your product and closes sales.

Who this is for: B2B Founders + Sales Leaders who have a clear TAM (Total Addressable Market) and customer discovery under their belt. You might be going after more than one ICP or sales motion and want to get crystal clear on who and what to prioritize.

What you’ll walk away with:

• Market segmentation strategies
• Defined core customer characteristics
• Instrumental sales prioritization techniques

Date and invitation for Part 2: Nailing Your Packaging and Pricing to come.

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More on Kristen: Kristen has driven strategic partnerships and GTM at two early-stage startups through to IPO and M&A. She led channel sales and partnerships at Hopin before being acquired by RingCentral, where she is now the RVP, Video (Meetings, Webinars, Events). Before joining RingCentral, Kristen served as Director of Global Digital Channel Sales & Partnerships at Freeman, leading partnership sales strategy, success & marketing, as well as a team of Sales Managers, BDRs/SDRs, and TSCs generating $20M+ ARR. Before that, she was the Director of Sales at World Travel, Inc., leading the meeting services sales and reselling of a SaaS partners' software, and in a multitude of enterprise sales roles from new business to global account management at Cvent. She quickly became Cvent’s Top Performer each year (managing $10M TCV).

Visiting Expert Office Hours with Kene Anoliefo, HEARD by Elis

We are hosting virtual Visiting Expert Office Hours with Kene Anoliefo, Co-Founder of Elis, on Thursday, July 18 from 12PM-3:15PM via Zoom.

Kene has served as a Product leader at YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix, building tools for creators and working on machine learning and recommendation systems. She knows the strategies and tactics required to collect valuable customer insights to make research-informed business decisions. Now, Kene is helping startups scale their research through AI-powered customer interviews with HEARD by Elis.

Meet with Kene to leverage her customer and product expertise, including how to:

• Run great customer research and interviewing at different stages of growth & product development
• Build detailed customer personas that help you align strategy within your company
• Pair quantitative and qualitative research for rich customer insights
• Tie your insights together with Opportunity Mapping

Sign up here. Office hours are first-come, first-served.

CEO Peer Group 2, 2024 - Kickoff Dinner

USF Intern + Alumni Coffee Meetup

Join us for an USF Intern + Alumni Coffee Meetup on Tuesday, July 16 from 11AM-12PM at CUP, the onsite cafe at Embarc Collective.

This event is in partnership with the Genspiration Foundation and will be an awesome chance for interns and USF alumni to mingle. Plus, you’ll have an opportunity to connect with former USF President Judy Genshaft, who is ecstatic about meeting USF students and alumni.

Light bites and refreshments will be provided. This event is exclusively for interns of Embarc Collective member companies, their managers, and USF alumni.

July Member Social

Join us for our July Member Social, powered by The First Bank, happening on Thursday, July 11 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. We’ll also welcome The First Bank team to help us celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Pitch Deck Throw Down

Join us for a special programming session; our Pitch Deck Throw Down with Allie Felix, Fundraising Strategist at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, July 11, from 12-1PM in the CDW Innovation Lab at Embarc Collective.

During this peer-led live critique session, founders currently preparing to raise can put their decks up on the big screen for fellow founders to walk through what resonates in their story and how to make the pitch tighter.

Why It Matters: This is your chance to get personalized advice on how to make your pitch deck more engaging and effective as you head into investor conversations.

You’ll Walk Away With: By the end of the session, you'll have a battery of ideas for your own deck and an entirely new perspective on how to fine-tune your pitch.

RSVP if you’d like to attend.

Visiting Expert Office Hours with Julia Taxin, Grotech Ventures

We are hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours with Julia Taxin, General Partner at Grotech Ventures, next Wednesday, June 26 from 12:30PM-3:00PM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

Grotech Ventures invests in Cybersecurity Technologies, FinTech, Supply Chain/Logistics, and Application/Vertical Software companies. They target initial investments in early-stage technology companies, with initial investments ranging from $500,000 to $5 million.

Julia has 15+ years of experience investing, advising, and supporting high-growth technology companies across various sectors and stages, leveraging expertise in mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and corporate finance. Julia is a board member of Base Operations, FactoryFix, Optoro, and The Mom Project. She also serves as a board observer at Incentivio. Prior to joining Grotech, she spent time at Sandbox Industries.

Meet with Julia for an investor relationship-building opportunity, to receive feedback on your business, and have your fundraising strategy questions answered. You do not need to be actively raising to meet with Julia.

Sign up here. Office hours are first-come, first-served.

Scaling Success: The Delegation Mindset

Join us for a Wellness and Development Session on Scaling Success: The Delegation Mindset with Marsha Prospere, Wellness and Development Coach at Embarc Collective and Founder of Adept Flow on Wednesday, June 26 from 10:00-11:30AM in the EX3 Innovation Lab at Embarc Collective.

Why It Matters: As a founder, your primary role is to steer your business towards its vision. Delegating allows you to focus on strategic decisions and increase the productivity and efficiency of your team.

You’ll Walk Away Knowing How To:

• Identify your delegation superpowers and superstruggles
• Set the right expectations with your team
• Strengthen your delegation communication toolkit

Summer Party

Cheers to Your Progress at Embarc Collective's Summer Party!

Enjoy summer libations, BBQ, and activities to celebrate this year’s progress alongside fellow startup builders in Embarc Collective's growing community—plus, bring a family member, partner, little one, or your closest supporter to join us!

Are you bringing a +1? Enjoy the festivities with your supporters and peers, celebrating your journey together!

How about little ones? We'll have plenty of kid's activities to keep them entertained!

Visiting Expert Office Hours with Florida Funders

We are hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours with Chelsea Oppenheim, Director of Investments at Florida Funders, on Wednesday, June 12 from 1-3PM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

Meet with Chelsea one-on-one for an investor relationship-building opportunity, receive feedback on your business, and have your fundraising strategy questions answered. You do not need to be actively raising to meet with Chelsea.

More on Florida Funders: Florida Funders is a venture capital firm and angel network that invests in Pre-Seed to Series A tech startups with an average check size of $500K to $1M. Companies must have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and/or a launched product with an established customer base. Florida Funders was named ‘Most Active Venture Capital Firm in Florida’ by CB Insights and has backed Embarc Collective member companies, including Chattr, ShyftOff, ProCredEx, Threshold360, Pocket, and Peerfit.

Office hours are first-come, first-served.

All Visiting Expert Office Hours meetings take place in person unless otherwise specified and confirmed with the EC team.

Florida Polytechnic University Capstone Project Info Session

Join us for a 30-minute Capstone Project information session over Zoom on Tuesday, June 11 from 12:00-12:30PM with Matt Bohm, Director of Industry Engagement and Capstone Projects at Florida Polytechnic University. He'll discuss how you can leverage their STEM-focused students for a scoped project as part of their capstone course.

During this session, Matt will share more about the opportunity and answer any questions you may have. This is an incredible opportunity to leverage the skills and creativity of FL Poly students to help you complete a non-mission critical technical project within your company.

June Member Social

Join us for our June Member Social, in partnership with the Genspiration Foundation, happening on Thursday, June 6 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs.

Have a summer intern? Be sure to invite them to this month’s social, in support of our partnership with the Genspiration Foundation, for an excellent professional development and networking opportunity.

As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Creating Newsworthy Press Announcements

Join us for a PR Strategy workshop, Creating Newsworthy Press Announcements, with Kathy Osborne, Embarc Collective PR Strategist and Founder of Kamel PR, on Thursday, May 23 from 10:00-11:00AM via Zoom.

Kathy has extensive experience working with early-stage technology startups, venture capital investors, and founders who are making this world a better place than it started. She has supported hundreds of early-stage B2BC companies and has helped announce $1B+ in funding announcements.

Why It Matters: It is important to distinguish what announcements are newsworthy so you can capture journalists’ attention and land stories.

You’ll Walk Away Knowing How To:

• Align press efforts with your broader business strategy
• Create announcements that convert into story coverage
• Utilize alternative PR tactics when announcements lack newsworthiness

Visiting Expert Office Hours with Ian Brynjolfson, Product Management Expert

We are hosting virtual Visiting Expert Office Hours with Product Management Expert, Ian Brynjolfson, on Tuesday, May 21 from 10AM-1PM via Zoom.

Ian is a seasoned B2B Product Manager. He boasts extensive experience in building products in AI, SaaS, hardware, and semiconductors. He has led vision, strategy, roadmap, and execution of breakthrough technologies that leverage the latest AI capabilities to solve real-world problems. Most recently, Ian led Product at Claira, a venture-backed AI startup. He defined and delivered their product, and built their ML, Data Science, and Customer Success functions for scale. Ian is also experienced in leading multiple distributed teams up to 300+ members and expanding the product portfolio from $16M to $150M.

Ian is an excellent resource for Founders without a Head of Product hire, or Heads of Product who are looking for thought-partnership. Meet with Ian to discuss:

• Achieving product-market-price fit
• Aligning your product roadmap to customer feedback
• Implementing dynamic/agile workflows and technical problem-solving
• Building a scrappy Data Science, ML, and/or Customer Success function

Ian comes highly recommended by fellow Embarc Collective member, Azza Diasti at Pet Harmony.

Office hours are first-come, first-served.

Visiting Expert Office Hours with TGH Ventures

Jason Swoboda, the Director of Innovation from TGH Ventures, will be hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours on Wednesday, May 15 between 12-2PM in the TGH Ventures Office at Embarc Collective.

This is a great opportunity to leverage Jason's extensive healthcare expertise, strengthen your relationship with TGH, and receive feedback on your business strategy. TGH Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tampa General Hospital, is investing resources and funds into emerging companies and technology to improve the delivery of health care throughout the Tampa Bay region and beyond.

Office hours are first-come, first-served.

CEO Peer Group I - Session 2

May Member Social, Powered by TampaBay.Ventures

Join us for our May Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, happening on Thursday, May 2 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. We’ll also welcome the TampaBay.Ventures team, a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Outlast: Leadership Summit 2024

Startup building is an endurance sport. Let’s recognize what an accomplishment it is to continue to build day after day, month after month, year after year.

At Outlast: The Embarc Collective 2024 Leadership Summit, we’re diving deep into the drivers that help startups survive the long-term.

Customer Advisory Boards: Building a Product Your Customer Will Buy

Join us for a workshop on Customer Advisory Boards: Building a Product Your Customer Will Buy with Amanda Greenberg, Co-Founder & CEO and Noah Bornstein Co-Founder & CTO of Balloon, on Thursday, April 18, from 4-5PM via Zoom.

Who you are: Pre-revenue or early-revenue building a B2B product.

Why it matters: Having a Customer Advisory Board (CAB) allows you to bring customers close and turn them into champions of your brand. CABs supercharge your market and customer research efforts, accelerating your Go-to-Market with a product your customer will actually buy.

Why Amanda: Amanda has built a robust CAB to grow Balloon into a thriving startup that unlocks and organizes the most powerful data source—the ideas, feedback, and insights currently locked in employees’ minds. She has partnered with big names like Adam Grant, Daniel Pink, Arianna Huffington, Rob Dyrdek, and more, and has been featured in publications such as Fast Company, Forbes, Sports Business Journal, Bloomberg, Cheddar, Axios, and the San Francisco Business Times.

Walk away from this session knowing how to:

• Recruit and engage a kick-ass CAB
• Gather high-quality feedback to make smarter product decisions
• Turn customers into champions and create new expansion opportunities.

RSVP here if you are interested in attending.

Corporate Transparency Act

Join us for an express workshop covering the new Corporate Transparency Act that went into effect this year with Haley Ayure, Attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, on Wednesday, April 10 from 12:00-12:30PM via Zoom.

The Corporate Transparency Act went into effect on January 1, 2024, and will impact just about every company, requiring reporting to FinCen of beneficial ownership of private companies. Failure to properly abide by the act can result in fines and strict/criminal penalties.

Haley knows, lives, and breathes startup law. Her expertise straddles business transactions, startups, venture, as well as mergers and acquisitions. She is also an active member of our Young Professionals Board.

Haley will help you navigate this new law by covering:

• How the Corporate Transparency Act impacts your business
• Core reporting requirements and deadlines
• Edge case intricacies to be aware of

April Member Social

Join us for our April Member Social, powered by The First Bank, happening on Thursday, April 4 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us celebrate 5 years of Embarc Collective and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. We’ll also welcome The First Bank team. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Visiting Expert Office Hours with GTM expert, Kristen Koenig

We are hosting Visiting Expert Office Hours with GTM Expert, Kristen Koenig, RVP of Video Sales & Partnerships at RingCentral (NYSE: RNG), on Thursday, March 28 from 2PM-5PM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

Kristen has driven strategic partnerships and GTM throughout her career, including leading channel sales and partnerships at Hopin before being acquired by RingCentral, where she now leads GTM globally. Before joining RingCentral, Kristen served as Director of Global Digital Channel Sales & Partnerships at Freeman, leading partnership sales strategy, success & marketing, as well as a team of Sales Managers, BDRs/SDRs, and TSCs generating $20M+ ARR.

Leverage Kristen’s extensive expertise in:

• Sales leadership strategy
• Establishing and scaling strategic channel partnerships
• Implementing and measuring new GTM motions
• Scaling GTM motions through the startup lifecycle

The Art of Customer Feedback

Join us for a Product Strategy Session on The Art of Customer Feedback with Kene Anoliefo, Co-Founder of Elis, on Wednesday, March 27, from 12-1PM via Zoom.

Kene served as a Product leader at YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix, building tools for creators and working on machine learning and recommendation systems. She knows the strategies and tactics required to collect valuable customer insights to make research-informed business decisions. Now, Kene is helping startups scale their research through AI-powered customer interviews with HEARD by Elis.

Collecting customer feedback through interviewing is a valuable process at each stage of startup growth. This interactive session is designed to equip post-product companies with the tools to develop, run, and analyze effective customer interviews.

You’ll leave the workshop with insights on:

• Identifying, recruiting, and interviewing participants
• Translating raw data into powerful decisions and storytelling
• Selecting the right interviewing strategy based on your goals
• Useful tools and technology to use at each stage of the interviewing process

March Member Social

Join us for our March Member Social powered by TampaBay.Ventures, happening on Thursday, March 7 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. We’ll also welcome the TampaBay.Ventures team, a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Be sure to bring your team and RSVP here for a calendar invite.

Investor Fly-In

Meet a dozen national investors during Embarc Collective’s Investor Fly-In.

Connect with national investors for an exclusive program during Tampa Bay Innovation Week. We’ll do the heavy lifting to set up curated Office Hour meetings between you and relevant investors.

This event is held exclusively for Embarc Collective members.

February Member Social

Join us for our February Member Social, happening on Thursday, February 1 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen. Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective of driven and focused entrepreneurs. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Outbound Campaign Strategies

Join us for a Sales Strategy Session on Outbound Campaign Strategies with Matt Redler, Founder + CEO of Advocate, on Wednesday, January 31 from 10-11AM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

A programmatic outbound campaign is a targeted and automated approach to reaching out to potential customers. This strategy allows for personalized communication at scale, enabling you to efficiently engage with a large number of potential customers while tailoring messages to resonate with specific segments of your audience.

Matt is a serial entrepreneur (and former Embarc Collective member!) who has developed powerful outbound strategies for fast-growing B2B companies. He is now building Advocate, an outbound studio that wins pipeline for ambitious startups. In this session, Matt will teach you how to nail outbound, including his insights on:

• Email deliverability at scale
• Email personalization with AI
• Targeting companies that have the pain you solve

RSVP below if you are interested in attending.

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More on Matt: Matt's expertise is outbound strategies for fast-growing B2B companies. Leveraging a fusion of 50+ data sources, real-time scraping, and cutting-edge AI, Advocate crafts personalized, 1-1 campaigns that book more meetings and generate hundreds of millions in pipeline revenue. Prior to founding Advocate, Matt was a member of Embarc Collective and the Co-Founder and CEO of Panther, which streamlined global HR and contractor payments. As a serial entrepreneur, his journey in entrepreneurship traces back to Chefit, a pioneering marketplace for in-home personal chefs.

Fireside Chat with Brian Murphy

You are invited to a special Fireside Chat with Brian Murphy, Founder and CEO of ReliaQuest and Board Chairman of Embarc Collective, on Tuesday, January 9 from 3-4PM in the ReliaQuest Auditorium @ Embarc Collective.

In this fireside chat, Brian will weigh in on how you can activate your 2024 strategy to chart a decisive path for the upcoming quarter, build a talk track, and socialize your goals to create a culture of action across your team. This discussion will explore strategies to amplify growth amidst unpredictable landscapes and dive deep into how you can optimize your business for 2024.

Brian has grown ReliaQuest from a bootstrapped startup to a high-growth unicorn with a valuation of over $1 billion, over 1,200 global team members, and over $350 million dollars in growth equity with firms such as FTV Capital and KKR Growth, so you won't want to miss the opportunity to glean insights from a seasoned startup operator with proven success in scaling and managing teams.

RSVP here if you’d like to attend, and be sure to include a question for Brian when you register.

January Member Social, in Honor of Ganay Thompson

Join us for a community celebration in honor of our dear colleague and friend Ganay Thompson.

If you would like to support Ganay’s family with the medical costs and expense of funeral arrangements, we have set up a GoFundMe to help.

Book Talk with Kevin Maney

Join us for a very special Book Talk with Kevin Maney, the co-author of Play Bigger, on Tuesday, December 12 from 5-6PM in the ReliaQuest Auditorium at Embarc Collective—held exclusively for members of Embarc Collective.

Play Bigger is the quintessential book on category design and a must-read for every entrepreneur. Sequoia Capital’s Jim Goetz writes, “Play Bigger is the how-to guide for entrepreneurs who want to build legendary, enduring companies.”

Co-authored by best-selling author and category design pioneer Kevin Maney, Play Bigger introduces and defines category design—the business strategy that helps companies create and dominate new categories of products and services. Play Bigger explores how businesses can become a “category king”—think Facebook, Salesforce, Uber—and ultimately stand out, win over investors, lure the best talent, and change the way we live and work.

During this Book Talk, Kevin will share key frameworks from Play Bigger and answer your questions from the book. All registrants will receive a copy of the book to read in advance and to have signed after the event.

RSVP below to join us—details to claim your book will be provided after registration.

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More on Kevin:

Kevin Maney is an experienced and dynamic speaker. He’s appeared at major technology conferences, off-sites for Fortune 500 companies and investment groups, and top-tier business schools. He brings three decades of observations about technology from his nine books and his work as a contributor to media outlets, including USA Today, Newsweek, Fortune, Wired, NPR, and CNN.

His past three books were collaborations with Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst: Unscaled (about AI’s impact on major industry sectors), UnHealthcare (how technology can transform healthcare), and Intended Consequences (a playbook for responsible innovation). His biography of Thomas Watson Sr., who built IBM, was a critical favorite and the story of creating the data processing category in the early 20th century. Kevin has interviewed many of the icons of technology, including Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Andy Grove, Marc Andreessen, and Eric Schmidt, plus founders of many of the founders of the next generation of tech superstar companies.

December Member Social

Join us for our next Member Social on Thursday, December 7 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen, powered by TampaBay.Ventures.

Help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups and the TampaBay.Ventures team in our quickly growing collective. As always, we’ll celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements over a delicious slice of Eddie and Sam’s pizza.

Build Without Burnout Series: Becoming Invincible Through Purpose and Meaning

You are invited to join us for a Build Without Burnout Workshop on Becoming Invincible: Purpose and Meaning, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, December 7, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

Humans are capable of doing just about anything when we are aligned to purpose and meaning. Getting clear on your “why” is supportive of creating a burnout-proof mindset because, ultimately, burnout is not about working too many hours or being too stressed; rather, it’s a crisis of meaning and integration. We’ll pull together the year by reflecting on why we build in the first place.

Walk away with: Your personal mission statement, along with a sense of what working wholeheartedly means and why it makes you invincible to the mal-effects of burnout.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

Build Without Burnout Series: Getting Clear And Confident On Decision Making

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Getting Clear and Confident: Decision Making, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, November 16, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

Your burnout picture is ultimately tied to how you show up as a leader. When you are calm, cool, and fully integrated, others will feel secure, confident, and able around you. This is the magic of great leaders; that their mere presence enables others to be the full versions of themselves. Learn why bringing this presence into your decision-making can help you feel collected and clear so you can be confident in the decisions you make.

Walk away with: Nervous system tools to employ when making big decisions, plus your very own decision-making framework.

RSVP below if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

Friendsgiving

Interviewing for Impact

Join us for a Talent Strategy Session on Interviewing for Impact with our Talent Strategist, Kailah Matyas, and Engineering Strategist, Alex Callihan, on Tuesday, November 7 from 12-1PM in the CDW Innovation Lab.

Mitigating risk is top of mind when hiring new team members. In this workshop, Kailah and Alex will deep dive and lead an interactive discussion covering how to test for mindset, entrepreneurial frameworks, business acumen, technical skills, and more. Leave this session feeling more comfortable interviewing, knowing that you are hiring with a focus on long-term impact.

Join our discussion for expert insights on:

• Questions to ask whether you are interviewing for technical or non-technical roles
• Red flags to look out for during the interview process
• Testing the credibility of a candidate even if you have limited domain expertise in the area you are hiring for
• Thinking through success metrics for new hires during the interview process

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

November Member Social

Join us on Thursday, November 2 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for our November Member Social, powered by The First Bank, a relationship-driven, business-centric, and community-focused financial institution with uniquely tailored solutions for the communities they serve.

Come out and help us welcome our newest members and mingle with fellow startups and The First Bank team in our quickly growing collective. To accompany this sleepy October weather, we’re having Italian 🍝. We'll also have an opportunity to celebrate each other's wins and catch up on the latest community announcements.

Be sure to bring your team and RSVP below.

Build Without Burnout Series: Unpacking The Myth of Self-Care

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Unpacking the Myth of Self-Care: Co-Regulation and Executive Presence, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, October 26, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

The term “self-care” is oftentimes seen as an independent practice detached from community. What if instead, it was a practice that helps us self-regulate?

Walk away with: The experience of having co-regulated with a peer and an understanding of how your style of executive presence supports the well-being of others.

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

Kenny's Retirement Celebration

Our dearest facilities colleague Kenny is retiring at the end of October! Join us in giving Kenny a proper Embarc Collective send-off on Tuesday, October 24 from 12PM-1:30PM in the Member Kitchen.

Kenny has been a shining star in our community, supporting our members and the Embarc Collective team in any way he could. We will miss seeing him every day, but we are so excited for him to enjoy this new adventure.

October Member Social

Join us for our Chili Cook Off-themed Member Social on October 5 from 4-5PM, powered by Druid Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on digital asset infrastructure and interoperability!

Come celebrate community wins over our Chili (and BBQ sliders as backup 😋), meet the Druid Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community. Vegetarian + vegan options will also be available.

Details on the cook-off: Our friends at Druid Ventures will serve as our esteemed chili judges; the winner gets bragging rights for a year and a custom trophy! If you think that you have the best chili recipe and would like to join the competition, please leave a note in the comment box below or email Ganay@embarccollective.com.

Build Without Burnout Series: Tackling Implicit Bias pt. 2

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Tackling Implicit Bias Pt. 2: Intersectionality and Diversity, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, September 28, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

In part 2, we will review our intersectional identities with the group and learn more about how these various identities impact us all differently. Expect to have your empathy activated, and your vocabulary expanded. You will have space to unpack these concepts and experiences with your peers.

Walk away with: A tool to reflect on power and privilege with your teams, and a foundation for exploring how to build an equitable company culture. Missed part 1? No problem! You can get up to speed with our part 1 workshop recording here.

RSVP below if you’d like to join. // More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

September Member Social

Join us on Thursday, September 7 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for our September Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures—a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups.

Come out and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective as we celebrate community wins, hear upcoming announcements and meet our newest members. To help us get started, we will have light bites provided by Anguila Sandwich Shop accompanied by drinks 🥪.

Please RSVP below to help us prepare. We hope to see you there!

// More on TampaBay.Ventures TampaBay.Ventures writes the first professional seed check for promising startups led by great entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital, TampaBay.Ventures support the companies in their portfolio with strategic guidance and help them strengthen their relationships within the community.

Build Without Burnout Series: Tackling Implicit Bias

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Tackling Implicit Bias PT. 1: Intersectionality and Diversity, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, August 24, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

Understanding your own intersectional identity creates better business outcomes. Your lived experiences inform where you have privilege and where you have bias. For example, you may need to expend more energy in order to do the same thing as someone who holds more privilege than you. Inversely, your bias may create blind spots in your decision-making that impact your business and team. In part 1, learn about intersectional identity and start to see opportunities to address privilege and bias in your work.

Walk away with: A picture of your own intersectional identity, plus new language to initiate conversations about identity and well-being with your teams. RSVP below if you’d like to join.

// More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

August Member Social

Join us on Thursday, August 3 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for our August Member Social.

Take a quick moment to invest in your community relationships and connect with fellow driven and ambitious entrepreneurs with similar priorities as you in our quickly growing collective.

As always, we’ll make sure to celebrate community wins, share important membership updates, and give an overview of upcoming opportunities we have in the works alongside drinks and tacos from Mekenita Cantina.

Be sure to bring your team members and RSVP below.

Website Success for Startups: Strategies to Make Every Click Count

Join us for a Marketing Strategy Session on Website Success for Startups: Strategies to Make Every Click Count with Khadijah Khan, Digital Project Manager for Brave People, on Thursday, August 3 from 12-1PM in the Small Classroom at Embarc Collective.

Khadijah knows a thing or two about how to make a website land. She’s created hundreds of compelling website experiences for the likes of GE, Panasonic, Google, and StubHub. In this session, Khadijah will help you get the most out of your website strategy and design, including:

• Ensuring your website’s content, visual identity, and design create impact aligned with your brand
• Driving demand generation and streamlining lead generation, including optimizing forms, creating compelling calls-to-action, and offering valuable content
• Achieving a top-notch website with your available resources—from DIY hacks to scrappy engagements with contractors and agencies

Don't miss out on this fantastic opportunity to learn how to fine-tune and optimize your website.

RSVP here if you are interested in attending.

Build Without Burnout Series: Burnout Proof Your Company

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Burnout-Proofing Your Company, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, July 20, from 12-1PM over Zoom. Your company will ultimately reflect your psychology, so if you are prone to burnout and have narratives that support burnout culture, your employees will, too. If your team gets close to burn out, or even get close, then you aren’t getting the most from the people who matter most to your business. Walk away with: 1-2 action items to help burnout-proof your company so that you and your people can do more with less. RSVP below if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

SVB Member Town Hall

Join us for a Member Town Hall with Silicon Valley Bank on Tuesday, July 18 from 3-4PM in the Member Kitchen.

Following its collapse in early March 2023, SVB has resumed operations as a division of First Citizens Bank. The SVB team is now rebuilding relationships with the local Tampa startup community as they resume their mission of supporting the global innovation economy. During this Town Hall, the SVB team will answer your questions and provide open and honest details about the future of SVB, including their plans to earn the trust of the startup community.

Stop by to have your questions answered, or stay for the full hour — RSVP here to join us.

July Member Social, Powered by Florida Funders

Join us on Thursday, July 13 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for our July Member Social, powered by Florida Funders—a venture capital firm and angel network that invests in Pre-Seed to Series A tech startups.

As always, We’ll make sure to celebrate community wins, share important membership updates, and give an overview of upcoming opportunities we have in the works alongside drinks and light bites.

We’re also making it easier to invest in your community relationships at this month’s social by leveraging Krew Social, an Embarc Collective member company. Krew Social facilitates Hypercommunity- finding people with common interests at events, letting members create their own hangouts, and building your Embarc Collective Krew.

To download the Krew Social app ahead of July 13, follow the Quick Start Guide for download information, enter community code EMBARC when prompted, make a profile, and start creating and joining hangouts!

RSVP below and make sure to download the Krew Social app here.

// More on Florida Funders: Florida Funders is a venture capital firm and angel network that invests in Pre-Seed to Series A tech startups with an average check size of $500K to $1M. Companies must have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and/or a launched product with an established customer base. Florida Funders was named ‘Most Active Venture Capital Firm in Florida’ by CB Insights and has backed Embarc Collective member companies, including Chattr, ShyftOff, ProCredEx, Threshold360, Pocket, and Peerfit.

FL Poly Student Capstone Info Session

Don't miss out on the opportunity to leverage engineering students at Florida Polytechnic University for a scoped technical project as part of their capstone course.

We’re hosting a 30-minute information session over Zoom on Thursday, June 29 from 12:00-12:30PM with Matt Bohm, Director of Industry Engagement and Capstone Projects at Florida Poly.

During this session, Matt will share more about the opportunity and answer any questions you may have. This is an incredible opportunity to leverage the skills and creativity of FL Poly students to help you complete a technical project within your company.

RSVP here to get the Zoom details.

On the Record with TechCrunch

Join us for a Marketing Ask-Me-Anything: On the Record with TechCrunch with Mary Ann Azevedo, Senior Reporter at TechCrunch, on Wednesday, June 28 from 4-4:30PM over Zoom.

Mary Ann is a seasoned business reporter covering Fintech news at TechCrunch. Her extensive career includes reporting for impressive publications, including Crunchbase News, Forbes, several Business Journals, and more.

In this ask-me-anything style session moderated by Embarc Collective PR Strategist Kathy Osborne, you’ll get Mary Ann’s perspective on how early-stage startups can land a story in a top publication like TechCrunch. The conversation will be driven by your questions, but you can expect to learn:

• How TechCrunch journalists source stories - and what Mary Ann looks for in fintech startups to cover
• What drives an interesting fundraising story
• The most interesting stage of startups and news elements that get journalists to commit to coverage
• Typical dos and don'ts of pitching TechCrunch - and specifically to Mary Ann

RSVP here—and make sure to include your questions!

Build Without Burnout Series: Building Your Anti-Burnout Blueprint

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Building Your Anti-Burnout Blueprint, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Tuesday, June 20, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

Explore your own personal burnout story - real or imagined - and re-write the ending to get in touch with your best life. Lean on the others in the room to design your anti-burnout plan.

Walk away with: Your personalized list of burnout triggers and an understanding of the ways in which your burnout patterns might play themselves out in your company. Come to the next workshop to finish the work!

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

How to Maximize Your Daily Energy

Join us for a Wellness Strategy Session on How to Maximize Your Daily Energy with Ryan Schneider, Embarc Collective Executive Advisor and Founder of Thrive25, on Wednesday, June 7 from 12-1PM in the VFF Conference Room.

One trait makes leaders 4x more effective - positive energy. If you’re looking to show up better for your team, minimize brain fog, sharpen your focus, and meet your work with sustained energy, this session is for you.

Ryan will bring all the latest research from his health & longevity startup, Thrive25, so that we all will walk away with:

• The 9 things that crush our energy
• Actions you can take to be at the top of your game every day
• How to create a customized blueprint to optimize your health & longevity

RSVP below to join us—we hope to see you there!

June Member Social

Join us on Thursday, June 1 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for our June Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures.

Take a quick moment to invest in your community relationships and connect with fellow driven and ambitious entrepreneurs with similar priorities as you. Thanks to their extensive experience and broad backgrounds as founders, angel investors, and VCs, representatives from TampaBay.Ventures will also be available to answer your questions and connect you with relevant resources for raising capital.

We’ll make sure to celebrate community wins, share important membership updates, and give an overview of upcoming opportunities we have in the works alongside drinks and light bites.

To save the date and help us prepare, please RSVP.

// More on TampaBay.Ventures TampaBay.Ventures writes the first professional seed check for promising startups led by great entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital, TampaBay.Ventures support the companies in their portfolio with strategic guidance and help them strengthen their relationships within the community.

Build Without Burnout Series: Reclaiming Your Independence

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Reclaiming Your Independence: You Are Not Your Company, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Tuesday, May 23, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

Being a founder often feels like being on a rollercoaster, and as you ride through the ups and downs, your decision-making may become impaired, your mood is tested, and you are not always at your best. Learn how to diffuse and why you should consider creating a life outside of your company. 

Walk away with: A statement of independence and support practicing separating yourself from your company.

RSVP below if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

May Member Social

Join us on Thursday, May 4 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for our May Member Social, powered by The First Bank, a relationship-driven, business-centric, and community-focused financial institution with uniquely tailored solutions for the communities they serve.

Come out and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective as we celebrate community wins and meet the First Bank team. This month, we will have bites provided by Wah Asian Cuisine followed by drinks 🥡.

Please RSVP below to help us prepare. We hope to see you there!

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More on The First Bank

Founded in 1996 near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, The First has grown rapidly through Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Georgia providing services competitive to those found at larger regional banks. The Company’s stock is traded on Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol FBMS. Information is available on the Company’s website www.TheFirstBank.com.

Build Without Burnout Series: Activating Your Superpowers

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Activating Your Superpowers: Superpowers and Superstruggles, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, April 27, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

The founder's brain is unique. Learn how your brain might be different from those who aren’t entrepreneurial and pick up some ideas on how to leverage your superpowers while mitigating your super-struggles.

Walk away with: Your unique superpowers and super-struggles, and a trigger list to tell you when to use your new-found energy-saving and nervous system-tuning tools.

RSVP below if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

April Member Social

Join us on Thursday, April 6 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for our April Member Social, powered by Cultivation Capital—an early-stage VC firm focused on software, agriculture, geospatial, and health tech startups.

Come out and mingle with fellow startups in our quickly growing collective as we celebrate community wins and meet Kristina Barrett with Cultivation Capital. To help us get started, we will have light bites provided by 7th + Grove accompanied by drinks 🐓.

Please RSVP below to help us prepare. We hope to see you there!

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More on Cultivation Capital

Cultivation Capital invests in Seed through Series B stage startups across a variety of industries and stages. Their initial checks range from $100K-$3.5M; their healthcare fund writes $250K-$1M checks into post-revenue companies; their software fund invests in B2B enterprise SaaS and geospatial tech with revenues of >$1M ARR.

They have backed over 140 startups since the firm’s founding in 2012, becoming one of the most active seed investors in the country, according to Crunchbase News.

Build Without Burnout Series: Building Resilience

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Building Resilience: Nervous System Tuning, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, March 23, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

Learn the secret of all burnout-proof founders: a healthily-tuned nervous system. We will practice exercises to support you in building a strong nervous system and nerd out on the ways in which your nervous system impacts your well-being, your success, and your relationships.

Walk away with: A toolkit of nervous system tuners, as well as some fun science facts about your nervous system guaranteed to wow your friends and teams.

RSVP below if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

Creativity Stress Reliever

Let’s get crafty in the Member Kitchen for National Craft Month ✂️ Join us in creating St. Patrick’s Day-themed mugs and enjoy a special treat…green popcorn!

Fun Fact: Expressing creativity provides stress relief and can lower blood pressure much like meditation. Plus, there’s a natural positive reinforcement from learning a new skill.

* Embarc Collective offers regular member-only Build Better Events—centered around community and wellness to foster relationships, promote well-being, and enrich personal development.

DIY PR Workshop

Join us for a Marketing Strategy Session on DIY PR with Josh Inglis, Founder of Propllr, a B2B tech PR firm, on Monday, March 13, from 10-11AM in the VFF Conference Room.

Propllr is a B2B tech PR and content marketing firm that helps startups and technology companies gain visibility and credibility with key audiences. They have served both B2B and B2C start-ups across many industries, including cryptocurrency, personal finance, financial markets, SaaS, HR, education, healthcare, retail, banking, insurtech, manufacturing, IT hardware, cloud, payments, e-commerce, and UX/UI.

Josh has been named a Business Insider Top People in Tech PR. He is a regular mentor for individual startups at Techstars, SXSW, as well as other startup incubators, accelerators, and VC firms. Leverage Josh’s expertise as he shares his secrets of how to do PR yourself without paying an agency. During this session, you will learn how to:

• Find relevant media targets
• Build relationships with the right media targets
• Secure coverage

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

SVB Emergency Session

We are having a call with JPMorgan for members to understand the situation and advise them on how to navigate from here.

Minimum Viable Clarity Workshop

Join us for a Marketing Strategy Session on Minimum Viable Clarity with Stacey Harrison, Founder of Heart & Hustle Brands, on Wednesday, March 8, from 12-1PM in the VFF Conference Room.

We all know that a value proposition is critical to developing a powerful marketing message, yet startups aren’t often sure how to create one that is both compelling and authentic.

Stacey is a marketing and branding expert that is certified in startup support through our Freelance Talent Directory. This session will guide you through the framework of creating an effective value proposition for your startup’s unique style and approach. You’ll leave the workshop with:

• A refined value proposition aligned with your product and customer
• Clarity on your ideal customer profile
• Templates to evolve your value proposition alongside your product

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

March Member Social

Join us on Thursday, March 2 from 4-5PM on the patio for our March member social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures—a venture capital firm committed to the creation of a vibrant and internationally recognized startup ecosystem in the Tampa Bay region!

Come out and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community and meet the TampaBay.Ventures team while we celebrate community wins over drinks and hors d'oeuvres provided by Flan Factory.

Please RSVP below to help us prepare. We hope to see you there! //

More on TampaBay.Ventures

TampaBay.Ventures writes the first professional seed check for promising startups led by great entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital, TampaBay.Ventures support the companies in their portfolio with strategic guidance and help them strengthen their relationships within the community.

Build Without Burnout Series: Managing Your Energy

You are invited to join us for our next Build Without Burnout Workshop on Managing Your Energy: Energy Audit, with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, February 23, from 12-1PM over Zoom.

Where you spend your energy will impact how much of it gets spent and how much comes back to you. During this session, we’ll conduct an energy audit before creating goals around tasks and responsibilities that need to be delegated to other people or done differently to ensure your energy is being utilized in the best way possible.

Walk away with: A list of tasks to delegate or of adjusted approaches to support you in executing your role in a way that returns more energy than it takes.

RSVP below if you’d like to join.

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More on the Build Without Burnout Program The Build Without Burnout workshop series is a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader. This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

Advisory Boards

Join us for a Talent Strategy Session on Advisory Boards with Kailah Matyas, Talent Strategist at Embarc Collective, on Tuesday, February 21, from 12-1PM in the VFF Conference Room.

An Advisory Board offers early-stage startups valuable expertise, network, and credibility. Finding and leveraging the right advisors can help you achieve crucial early traction with customers and investors.

Join this session to learn how to:

• Define and identify the right advisor profiles for your startup
• Set the right expectations (and drive accountability) with your advisors
• Structure your advisor agreements, including compensation and timelines

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

Investor Fly In: Reception

Ask-Me-Anything with Steve Case

Join us for a very special Ask-Me-Anything with Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL and Founder of Revolution Ventures, on Tuesday, February 14 from 1-2PM in the ReliaQuest Auditorium @ Embarc Collective—held exclusively for our member companies.

Steve Case is one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs and a pioneer in making the Internet part of everyday life. AOL was the first Internet company to go public and one of the best-performing stocks of the 1990s. At its peak, nearly half of Internet users in the United States used AOL. In 2000, Steve negotiated the largest merger in business history, bringing together AOL and Time Warner.

Steve founded Revolution in 2005 to shine a spotlight on—and invest in—startups outside the traditional technology hubs. In 2019, Embarc Collective hosted Steve and his team on their Rise of the Rest tour, where they invested in alumni member Immertec.

Join us for a lunch break during Synapse Summit to get exclusive member-only access to Steve and his wealth of expertise on startup building, venture capital, and policy that impacts technology businesses.

RSVP here to join us, and be sure to submit your questions when you register. Lunch will be provided.

A Haiku For Your Heart

Roses are red, violets are blue 🌹 Stop by the Member Kitchen to write a haiku–a short poem inspired by the emotion of the moment. Join us for this cathartic practice and pen a note to a loved one or friend just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Trade Show Best Practices

Join us for a Marketing Strategy Session on Trade Show Best Practices on Wednesday, February 8, from 12-1PM over Zoom. This session is led by Kate Heath, Brand & Marketing Strategist at Embarc Collective, and Raechel Canipe, Director of Community Engagement at Synapse.

Exhibiting at trade shows and conferences requires a thoughtful strategy and smart tactics to ensure you maximize your time investment. In this session, Kate and Raechel will help you shine bright during your event, with content including:

• Understanding your event audience and prospecting accordingly
• Standing out in a sea of exhibitors and attracting people to your table
• Nailing your CTAs and follow-up engagements

PLEASE BRING: Your top 3 objectives for your upcoming exhibit (i.e. Meet 2 investors, collect 50 emails from potential customers, find a marketing partner, etc.)

RSVP here to join.

February Member Social

Join us for our next Member Social on Thursday, February 2, from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen. This month’s Member Social is powered by Druid Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on Web3 and comprised of strategic investors and community builders who are enthusiastic about the impact Web3 can have globally.

Celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites provided by LS Organics, meet the Druid Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community.

Please RSVP below to join us!

Build Without Burnout Session 1

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Build Without Burnout workshop series, a full-system reset to help you become a burnout-proof leader.

This toolbox has been built by Pilea, experts in wellness and leadership development coaching for venture-backed startup teams. Its nerdy neuroscience meets boots-on-the-ground founder sh*t. Come to all of the sessions to get the full integrative leadership training, or pick and choose the ones that feel most valuable to you right now—it’s your choice.

You are invited to join us for our first Build Without Burnout Workshop with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness and Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective, on Thursday, January 26, from 12-1PM over Zoom. This month, we’ll explore “Why burnout is the #1 existential threat to successful startups.”

What you’ll get from Build Without Burnout

• Get out in front of burnout: for you and your team
• Build and lead from a healthy place
• No more going at it alone, the #1 stated benefit of this work is building deep and trusting relationships with other founders

Thanks to the generous support of the Florida Blue Foundation, the Build Without Burnout Workshop Series is made available to you at no additional cost to membership.

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

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See the full Build Without Burnout program overview below:

• January: Why burnout is the #1 existential threat to successful startups
• February: Manage your energy: energy audit
• March: Build resilience: nervous system tuning
• April: Activate your superpowers: Superpowers and Superstruggles
• May: Reclaim your independence: you are not your company
• June: Why burnout is the #1 existential threat to successful startups pt. 2
• July: Build without burnout: burnout-proof your company
• August: Tackle implicit bias #1: Intersectionality and Diversity
• September: Tackle implicit bias #2: Intersectionality and Diversity
• October: Unpack the myth of self-care: Co-regulation and executive presence
• November: Get clear and confident: decision making
• December: Become invincible: Purpose and Meaning

Breathwork & Meditation Session

Lay your foundation for a healthier mind, body, and soul with a guided meditation and breathwork session in the ReliaQuest Auditorium @ Embarc Collective Thursday, January 19 from 9-9:30AM.

Led by Joanna, certified yoga instructor for the Bryan Glazer Family JCC, learn how to use your breath to improve mental health and physical wellness.

RSVP below to save your spot!

January Member Social

Join us on Thursday, January 5 from 4-5PM on the patio for our first Member Social of 2023! This is our chance to come together as a community and kick off a new year bound for success.

Super-health food store Rollin' Oats will help us keep our New Year's resolutions intact with an array of delicious bites and refreshments 😉.

Bring your team and RSVP below to join us–we hope to see you there!

Onsite All-Levels Yoga Class with Union Three

You asked; we listened! The pros at Union Three will be joining us onsite to lead a no-sweat, gentle yoga class on Thursday, December 15 at 8:30-9:30AM in the ReliaQuest Auditorium @ Embarc Collective.

Yoga is an ancient practice rooted in Indian philosophy that research suggests is behind several health benefits - stress management, promotion of healthy eating habits, and improvement of sleep and mental health. Want to keep up your yoga practice? Our neighbors at Union Three are just down the bock.

All levels are welcome; mats will be available for use. 

OKRs with Gwen Tormey

Snag your seat in the room for a CEO Strategy Session on OKRs with Gwen Tormey, COO of Corestream, on Thursday, December 8, from 12-1PM in the VFF Conference Room.

So you’ve built your 2023 strategic plan, now what? OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a great starting point for making your 2023 actionable and measurable. Utilizing the 4DX model (Four Disciplines of Execution), Gwen will help you learn how to:

• Set strong OKRs
• Digest leading and lagging indicators to measure (and automate) your progress
• Drive accountability across your team

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

Employee Benefits on a Startup Budget

During this session, our partners at Florida Blue will share creative solutions for startups to compete with top employers by providing benefits packages to their employees using “Small Groups” and individual plans, including how to:

• Qualify for group coverage
• Select the right group coverage solution
• Leverage the Affordable Care Act marketplace

Educators from our local Florida Blue health centers will also be available for personalized follow-up meetings to help determine the right fit for you. 

December Member Social

Join us Thursday, December 1 from 4-5PM on the patio for our December Member Social.

Swing by for a drink and a slice from Eddie & Sam’s NY Pizza, and help us celebrate community wins as we head into a new year.

Bring your team and RSVP here to join us– we hope to see you there!

Sales Learning Curve

According to serial entrepreneur and Stanford professor Mark Leslie, “The temptation in startups is to immediately ramp up sales force capacity to acquire customers as quickly as possible… Hiring a full sales force too fast just leads the company to burn through cash and fail to meet revenue expectations.”

In this session, Lewis will walk through the Sales Learning Curve, a framework developed by Mark Leslie, to optimize growth and resource consumption.

Join this session to learn which phase of the Sales Learning Curve your company is in, and how to build a roadmap that defines the:

• Timing, number, and type of hires to have on your sales force
• Tools to accelerate towards profitability
• Roles of Marketing, Engineering/Product, and General Management

This session is likely for you if your startup has a few early customers but has less than $2M ARR and/or fewer than 10 folks on your sales team.

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

State of the Fundraising Market

Join us on Wednesday, November 15, from 12PM-1PM for a special Fireside Chat on the State of the Fundraising Market with Tiffany Luck, Partner at GGV Capital, in the EX3 Labs Classroom at Embarc Collective.

Tiffany is a seasoned investor and startup enthusiast focused on enterprise SaaS, the API economy, and SMBTech. GGV Capital manages over $9B in investments and has backed impressive companies, including Affirm, Airbnb, Alibaba, Opendoor Technologies, Peloton, Poshmark, Slack, Square, Zendesk, and more.

In this Fireside Chat, Tiffany will give her VC perspective on the state of the market, including:

• How founders can best prepare to raise capital in 2023
• Current attitudes and outlooks in the venture world
• The impact on deals across industry and stage

Be sure to include your questions when you register.

Personal Goal Setting

Ready to set the foundation for a killer 2023? Join Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness & Burnout Prevention Coach, for a Personal Goal Setting Workshop on Tuesday, November 8, from 10-11AM at Embarc Collective in the VFF Conference Room. Kelby will be presenting virtually via Zoom due to illness, so feel free to join in person or virtually.

During this working session, put pen to paper with the help of Certified Professional Coach Kelby. He’ll help you get clear on your “personal OKRs” and ensure you have the tools to turn your ambition into achievable action.

With Kelby's guidance, you'll take a look back at 2022 and do an 80/20 analysis of the things that made this year great and what missed the mark. Then, we’ll focus on various aspects of your personal life and how you can make 2023 your best year yet. 

This topic was a top request in our mid-year Member Experience Survey.

November Member Social

Join us for our November Member Social on November 3 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen. This month’s social is powered by Beach Bank, a relationship-driven, business-centric, and community-focused financial institution with uniquely tailored solutions for the communities they serve.

We have a lot to celebrate this month, so bring your team and get ready to meet the new startups in our quickly growing community.

Please RSVP here to help us plan for adequate space, food, and beverage. We hope to see you there!

Organizational Design

Join us on Wednesday, November 2, from 12PM-1PM for a Talent Strategy Session on Organizational Design with Kailah Matyas, Talent Strategist at Embarc Collective, in the VFF Conference Room.

Org Design for an early-stage startup goes beyond a chart with titles and reporting structures. Thoughtful designing helps you think through today’s needs for your organization, the future growth of your business, and your plan to develop and retain your talent along the way.

Join this session to learn the best practices for designing your early-stage org design, including how to:

• Size and shape your org design to your growth goals
• Identify the right levels to hire for at each stage of growth
• Design career progression for each role

RSVP here if you’d like to join.

Engineering Continuity Planning

Join us on Thursday, October 27, from 12 PM-1 PM for a Product Strategy Session on Engineering Continuity Planning with Alex Callihan, SVP of Engineering, and Matt Duren, Director of Engineering, at KnowBe4 (NASDAQ:KNBE) in the VFF Conference Room.

So, you’ve launched your product; now what? For Founders and Heads of Product, knowing your tech and having continuity planning in place keeps your company agile, efficient, and prepared—building resiliency against inevitable developer attrition and slow velocity issues.

Expect to be asked semi-non-technical but direct questions about the tech behind your product and test how much you truly know (and should know) about how it all works. Join this session if you want to confidently:

• Speak about the tech that powers your product
• Make strategic technology decisions
• Ensure your product has been and continues to be built to your expectations

RSVP below if you’d like to join.

October Member Social

Join us for our Chili Cook Off-themed Member Social on October 6 from 4-5PM, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups!

Come celebrate community wins over our Chili (and BBQ sliders as backup 😉), meet the Tampa Bay Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community. Vegetarian + vegan options available.  

Details on the cook off: Our friends at Tampa Bay Ventures will serve as our esteemed chili judges; the winner gets bragging rights for a year and a custom trophy! If you think that you have the best chili recipe message Jen to sign up. 

Build Your 2023 Strategic Plan with Support from Accenture

Annual strategic planning is a critical process for founders to define their vision for the future, identify their organization's goals and objectives, and develop a plan for the year ahead. But how do you build a strategic plan that balances being bold with being realistic? How do you find ways to see your business from new perspective? And how do you think through the right resources required to achieve your goals? 

In this very special Embarc Collective programming event, the experts at Accenture—a Fortune Global 500 consulting company—will guide you through an annual strategic planning process on Thursday, October 6 from 12-2PM in the EX3 Labs Classroom.

Embarc Collective has worked closely with the Accenture team to design a workshop experience specialized for early-stage startups—expect tactical frameworks, examples, and real-time working sessions.

In addition to the strategic planning workshop, participating companies will complete mandatory pre-work ahead of our time together on October 6 to ensure you come to the table with the inputs necessary for a fruitful workshop experience. Our coaching team is available to support you through the pre-work process, which should take about two hours to complete.  

This experience is for you if you are looking to:  

• Supercharge your annual strategic planning process using the tested frameworks from Accenture
• Bring clarity and focus to your goals
• Think critically about your business, where you’re going, and how you’re going to get there

Level Up: Investor Office Hours

Level Up: Investor Happy hour

Level Up: 2022 Leadership + Strategy Summit

THEA Town Hall

Join Greg Slater (CEO) and Bob Frey (Director of Innovation) from Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) for a Town Hall at Embarc Collective to hear updates and share your feedback.

Anyone interested in putting their fingerprint on the urban design of downtown Tampa, understanding how the proposed changes to the Selmon Expressway might impact your commute, and leveraging connected vehicle data, this Town Hall is for you!

During this session, THEA will cover: 1. Learn about the plans for the Selmon Expressway turnoff on Whiting Street and public art and green spaces 2. Identify opportunities for collaboration with THEA’s connected vehicle infrastructure data and pilot

September Member Social

Join us for our September member social, powered by Druid Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on Web3 and comprised of operators and builders who are enthusiastic about the impact Web3 can have across the globe. Come celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites, meet the Druid Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community. Please RSVP here if you plan to attend to help us plan for adequate spacing – we hope to see you there!

Building Your Outbound Sales Engine

Sean Robinson is a San Francisco transplant and Regional VP of Enterprise and Commercial Sales at Automox, the leading cloud-based IT Operations platform backed by Insight Ventures and Blackstone.

During this session, Sean will share his playbook—dubbed “the Ted Talk of next-gen enterprise sales” by Blackstone’s Insights—including:

• Outbound Sales DNA: what it means, what to look for and how to hire top SaaS talent
• Leveraging a modern sales tech stack
• MMAs (Money Making Activities): KPI's to track for an efficient outbound funnel

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More About Sean: Sean Robinson is Regional Vice President of Enterprise and Commercial Sales at Automox, a cloud-native IT operations platform for modern organizations. Sean is a skilled enterprise sales leader scaling early-stage technology startups, having built the first outbound GTM sales motion for Lever, building and leading a team of 12 AE's covering Named Accounts Globally for Evident.io (Acquired by Palo Alto Networks in March 2018 for $300M), and serving as Regional Sales Director of Demisto (Acquired by Palo Alto Networks in March 2019 for $560M).

However, his proudest achievement is the differentiating culture and people that were built at each startup he has been a part of.T his past June, Sean completed his third Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon in San Francisco and loves Tampa for all of the outdoors it has to offer.

August Member Social, powered by Cherry Bekaert LLP + Dual Boot Partners

Join us on Thursday, August 4 at 4PM-5PM in the Member Kitchen for a special Member Social, powered by Evaristo Palmer of Cherry Bekaert LLP + Brock Campbell of Dual Boot Partners, two members of our Young Professionals Board.

Come celebrate community wins over light bites from Rollin’ Oats and connect with Cherry Bekaert, Dual Boot Partners, and fellow member startups in our growing community.

Please RSVP here to join us– we hope to see you there!

Lead Generation with Chris Kluis

Chris Kluis is an entrepreneurial software nerd with more than 15 years of experience in designing, building, & marketing software. Chris started his career in software by helping a B2B/B2E company transition to SaaS, build mobile apps, scale, & ultimately get acquired by a PE-firm. He then worked in B2C before transitioning to running a SaaS consultancy.

Combining your team’s skill sets is the key to building a marketing system that generates leads. During this session, Chris Kluis, B2B Product Marketing Expert, will share his lessons learned on how to:

• Hack new leads on a bootstrapped budget
• Leverage your team members for lead generation
• Bring leads through a marketing system that converts to customers

Free Breakfast from JCC

Join us in the Member Kitchen for breakfast provided by Bryan Glazer JCC and learn about Embarc Collective Member Week at JCC from August 1 - August 7.

In-house vs. Outsourced: Recruiting, HR, and Benefits

Handling recruiting, HR, and benefits are heavy lifts oftentimes led by the CEO in the early stages of startup building. Moreover, many incorrectly group the three as one category of responsibility, making it difficult to discern when and how to transition those responsibilities to a dedicated hire, outsourced recruiting partner or agency, or remain on your plate. During this session, Kailah Matyas, Talent Strategist at Embarc Collective, will share when and how to:

• Build your talent-related decision tree with criteria, budget, and growth projections
• Pursue in-house vs. outsourced recruiting
• Assemble internal HR resources vs. contract an agency (ie. PEO)

July Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures

Join us on Thurs, July 7 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for a special member social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups!

Come celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites from 7th & Grove, meet the TampaBay.Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community.

Please RSVP here if you plan to attend to help us plan for adequate spacing – we hope to see you there!

Demystifying Employee Benefits with Brad Jaeger of Sterling Seacrest Pritchard

Benefits are oftentimes shrouded with complex terminology, unclear costs, and sticky rules and regulations, making them a black-box experience for startup operators trying to make the right choices for their business and employees. Moreover, providing the right employee benefits has a direct impact on attracting and retaining talent.

Thanks to member Brock at Visitry, join Brad Jaeger of Sterling Seacrest Pritchard, the largest privately-held Risk Management company in the Southeast, for an educational session ideal for Founders or Heads of Talent hiring beyond the founding team. Brad will walk us through how to evaluate benefits for startups, including:

• The types of medical plans are right for your company’s size, traction, and growth goals
• The 4 pillars of health insurance policies
• Working with an insurance broker vs a PEO

June Member Social, powered by Druid Ventures

Join us on Thurs, June 9 from 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen for a special member social, powered by Druid Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on Web3 and comprised of operators and builders who are enthusiastic about the impact Web3 can have across the globe.

Come celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites, meet the Druid Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend to help us plan for adequate spacing – we hope to see you there!

Bitcoin Pizza Day!

Celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day Join us on Thursday, May 19 from 12p-1p in the Member Kitchen to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day! Bitcoin Pizza Day celebrates the anniversary of the first recorded purchase of a physical good using Bitcoin on May 22, 2010— PIZZA!

If you’re a lover of Web3 or are interested in learning more about Web3, we encourage you join us for pizza, bring your team, and meet fellow members at Embarc Collective who are building in Web3.

RSVP here to help us adequately plan.

Foundations - Fundraising Overview

Session Overview Once you've tested the components of your business model canvas, you can elaborate on them in your startup's pitch deck. The pitch deck can be used to align, organize, and succinctly describe all of the elements of your company—across problem, solution, business model, and more. During this session, you'll learn:

• Tips to identify what funding is right for you
• The outline to create a compelling pitch deck
• An overview of the materials needed to pursue outside capital

Pre-Work

• Pitch Deck Template by Founders Network
• The Art of the One Pager by Dreamit Ventures (video + slides)

Find additional resources here

Revenue-Based Financing with Lowery Thomas of Lighter Capital

You are invited to a CEO Strategy Session on Revenue-Based Financing with Lowery Thomas, Investment Director at Lighter Capital. This session will take place on Thursday, May 12 from 10AM-11AM ET via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Depending on the company, venture capital or equity-based funding might not be the most effective and impactful way for a company to raise. Revenue-Based Financing has become a popular alternative that enables founders with non-dilutive capital.

Revenue-based financing is a way that companies can raise capital by pledging a percentage of future ongoing revenues in exchange for money invested. A portion of revenues will be paid to investors at a pre-established percentage until a certain multiple of the original investment has been repaid.

During this session, Lowery will share the basics of Revenue-Based Financing, including how to

• Determine if it’s a viable (and smart) option for your company
• Evaluate the right loan value, terms, and provider
• Understand the advantages, tradeoffs, and best practices to follow

RSVP here to join us.

May - Member Social, hosted by the Young Professionals Board and powered by JP Morgan Private Bank

Join us for a special Member Social, powered by our Young Professionals Board and JP Morgan Private Bank.

Come celebrate community wins over light bites and connect with the Young Professionals Board and fellow member startups in our growing community.

Ask-Me-Anything: Authors of Exit Right

Join authors Mark Achler, Mert Iseri, and Emily Achler of the newly released book, Exit Right, for an exclusive Embarc Collective book chat, in partnership with UBS, on Thursday April 28 at 12-1PM over Zoom.

We always talk about how to build a successful startup, but the topic of how to achieve a good exit is often ignored until you’re preparing for your transaction. Exit Right is a playbook for how to ensure that you’re thinking about your exit the right way from the start.

Reading Exit Right: Embarc Collective can lend out copies of Exit Right to up to 20 members. The expectation is that you’ll read the book ahead of the session with Mark, Mert, and Emily to make the most of our time with them. Upon RSVPing, the first 20 registrants will receive instructions on how to pick up a copy of the book.

Be an Active Reader: This book is filled with insights you’re going to want to hold on to. To help, you’ll receive an invitation after registering to join a virtual book club page from startup Italic Type. You can use Italic Type to log your thoughts and share with others from Embarc Collective. The conversation on Italic Type will inform our session on 4/28.

Email Marketing with Dan Gallagher from HubSpot

You’re invited to join us for a session on Email Marketing with Dan Gallagher from HubSpot. Dan will share a step-by-step overview to building an email marketing list, including how to:

• Create a winning email marketing strategy
• Generate traffic to your website and convert traffic into leads
• Leverage automation to nurture leads
• Implement best practices and avoid common mistakes

RSVP here and make sure to include any questions you have for Dan.

Missed the last HubSpot session on Lead Generation? Watch the recording here.

Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures - April

Join us on Thurs., April 7 from 4-5PM on the Patio for a special member social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, a venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups! Come celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites, meet the TampaBay.Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community.

For this month’s social we will be ordering from Forbici Modern Italian, a customer of Brick Street Farms, a new member to Embarc Collective. Brick Street Farms is a woman-owned AgTech startup that provides Forbici with produce for its menu items.

Please RSVP here if you plan to attend to help us plan for adequate spacing – we hope to see you there!

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More on TampaBay.Ventures

TampaBay.Ventures writes the first professional seed check for promising startups led by great entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital, TampaBay.Ventures support the companies in their portfolio with strategic guidance and help them strengthen their relationships within the community.

Member Social, powered by Beach Bank - March

Join us for a special Member Social, powered by Beach Bank on Thursday, March 3 at 4-5PM on the Patio.

We have a lot to celebrate this month, so bring your team and get ready to meet the new startups in our quickly growing community over light refreshments.

Please RSVP here to help us plan for adequate space, food, and beverage. We hope to see you there!

// More on Beach Bank Beach Bank is a relationship driven, business centric, community focused financial institution with uniquely tailored solutions for specifically targeted in the communities they serve.

Wellness Session: Tai Chi + Qigong

Practicing wellness can help founders and their teams navigate the ups and downs of startup building. In addition to our Wellness + Burnout Prevention Coach Kelby, we’re excited to announce quarterly wellness-focused programming for our community.

For our first wellness session, we invite you to join us for Tai Chi and Qigong with Charlie Zayas from Lau Lei Martial Arts & Wellness. This session will take place on Monday, February 21 at 10-11AM in the Auditorium.

Tai Chi + Qigong are low-intensity, centuries-old, Chinese practices that involve gentle movements, mental focus, and relaxation. During this 1-hour session, Charlie will guide us through an introductory class to Tai Chi and Qigong, including:

• Background and a brief history on the two forms of martial arts.
• The benefits of practicing Tai Chi and Qigong on individual mental and physical wellness
• Form, posture, and breathing techniques
• and more!

Charlie has over 30 years of martial arts & teaching experience in which he emphasizes a holistic approach to wellness & healing. His teaching practice incorporates the 3 principles of learning; imitate (do as shown), assimilate (understanding the purpose behind the instruction), & innovate.

*Note: We suggest wearing loose-fitting clothing and comfortable shoes while you participate in the session.

RSVP here if you are interested in participating.

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More on Tai Chi + Qigong Qigong can be seen as simple individual movements that focus on energizing, opening, and relaxing targeted areas of the body. Tai Chi is a series of movements that help move the body’s energy (qi or chi). Both practices incorporate meditation and movement to help with circulation, balance and alignment.

Tai Chi + Qigong are based on two ideas:

• Energy (qi or chi) flowing the body along energy pathways
• Nature consists of opposing forces (yin and yang)

Trade Show Best Practices

Planning to exhibit at the upcoming Synapse Summit or another industry event? During this session, Marketing Coach Kate Heath will share trade show and exhibit best practices to help maximize your objectives. She’ll share the actions you can take before, during, and after the event to ensure it's a productive experience for everyone, including:

• Understanding the event audience and preparing accordingly
• How to stand out in a sea of exhibitors and attract people to your table
• Managing multiple table visitors at once
• Which CTAs are the most reasonable/effective in a show setting
• Planning your follow on interaction post-trade show

This session will be led by our Marketing and Branding coach, Kate Heath, who is a seasoned veteran of air and trade shows - both attending and exhibiting! She is excited to share her own lessons learned, plus those of her colleagues, from Boeing, IBM, and Walmart.

PLEASE BRING: Your top 3 objectives for your upcoming exhibit (i.e. Meet 2 investors, collect 50 emails from potential customers, find a marketing partner, etc.)

Lead Generation with HubSpot

The votes are in! You are invited to a Marketing Strategy Session on Lead Generation with HubSpot. This session will take place on Monday, February 7 at 12-1PM EST via EX3 Labs Classroom Zoom.

What this session will cover: Effective lead generation attracts prospects to your business by increasing their interest through nurturing and eventually converting them into customers. During this session, HubSpot will share insight on:

• How to use SEO, Ads, and Social Media
• Refining your buyer persona and lead magnets
• How the shifting marketing landscape affects the buyer’s journey

RSVP to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP.

Member Social - February

Join us for our monthly Member Social on February 3 at 4-5PM on the Patio! We’ll celebrate community wins over light refreshments and great company! Bring your team and meet the new startups in our quickly growing community.

Please RSVP to help us plan for adequate space, food, and beverage. We hope to see you there!

Carta Equity 101

One of the first steps in forming a startup should undoubtedly be creating your cap table. Sounds simple, but cap tables can get complicated quickly. And without a good one, it’s far too easy to make bad equity decisions when raising money and hiring.

Whether you’re new to this topic or need a refresher, it’s often best to learn from examples and the people that think about this every day. In the Equity 101 presentation, Carta will walk you through a number of good and not-so-great examples, the fundamentals and framework to building an impressive cap table. Carta’s experts will share how a well-managed cap table can help you determine, negotiate, and track ownership stakes as your company grows.

What you’ll learn:

• How to tell an investable startup story through your cap table
• What to include, and what’s best left out
• How to use your cap table to make smart fundraising and hiring decisions
• How founders should be thinking about cap tables in today’s climate
• The most common cap table mistakes, the effects, and how to avoid them

* This event is open to Embarc Collective members and semifinalist of Startup of the Year

Building a Modern Enterprise GTM - Pt. II

You are invited to Part II of our Sales Strategy Session on Building a Modern Enterprise Go-to-Market with Lewis Burnham, Sales Strategy Coach at Embarc Collective. This session will take place on Wednesday, February 2 at 10-11AM in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: In his last session, Lewis provided a high-level overview of the key components of a go-to-market strategy. During this session, Lewis will dig into how to build out the pieces of your GTM strategy, including how to:

• Define your market
• Develop your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
• Understand and leverage stakeholder behavior (ie. users and buyers)
• Choose a GTM strategy/strategies that aligns with your target market and ICP (ie. PLG, Direct Sales, Channel Partners)

* Note: You did not have to attend Part I in order to participate in this session. Check out the session recording of Part I here.

RSVP to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP.

Member Social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures - January

Join us on Thurs., Jan. 13 from 4-5PM on the Patio for a special member social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, a new venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups! Come celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites, meet the TampaBay.Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend to help us plan for adequate spacing – we hope to see you there!

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More on TampaBay.Ventures TampaBay.Ventures writes the first professional seed check for promising startups led by great entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital, TampaBay.Ventures support the companies in their portfolio with strategic guidance and help them strengthen their relationships within the community.

Fundraising Overview

Session Overview Once you've tested the components of your business model canvas, you can elaborate on them in your startup's pitch deck. The pitch deck can be used to align, organize, and succinctly describe all of the elements of your company—across problem, solution, business model, and more. During this session, you'll learn:

• Tips to identify what funding is right for you
• The outline to create a compelling pitch deck
• An overview of the materials needed to pursue outside capital

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

Team + Talent Roadmap

Session Overview Talent is a critical strategy to develop, even at the earliest stages of startup building. During this session, you'll learn how to:

• Leverage the right types of talent across team hires, freelancers, and advisors, including remote talent
• Develop your talent roadmap that reflects your future fundraising and/or growth objectives
• Build a talent pipeline

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

Member Social - December

Owning Your Financials

Session Overview Creating a financial model for your business that you understand and can update is essential to plan and fund your cash flow as a startup. During this session, you can expect to learn the fundamentals of your financials including:

• An understanding of the different components of a financial model and what they mean
• A list of the assumptions that will drive your revenue streams and expenses
• A list of inputs that will create your initial basic income statement

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

Planning (Painless) Performance Reviews

You are invited to a CEO Strategy Session on Planning (Painless) Performance Reviews with Rebecca Armacost on Monday, November 22 at 12-1PM in the EX3 Labs Classroom.

Rebecca is a seasoned People and Culture leader who has helped grow companies at all phases of lifecycle, including St. Pete-based The Penny Hoarder (acquired by Sykes for $102.5M), where Rebecca grew the team from 50 to 100 employees.

What this session will cover: Whether you have 2 or 20 employees, performance reviews are essential in building a well-run team. When done well, they improve retention, increase efficiency, and build culture. During this session, Rebecca will walk us through how to:

• Build an adaptive and ongoing performance review process tied to sprints
• Incorporate peer feedback in your reviews process
• Use simple and effective feedback frameworks

Join Rebecca in person at Embarc Collective. Zoom will be provided to those who are unable to attend in person.

Defining Your Go-to-Market Strategy

Session Overview Using your defined customer segment, your go-to-market (GTM) strategy is how your company brings your product to market. As you bring it to market, you need to empirically test and validate that your product actually delivers value to your customer. During this session, you'll learn the frameworks to:

• Test your value proposition hypothesis in the cheapest possible way
• Craft a value matrix to identify messaging for your target persona

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

AMA with Steve Parkis

You are invited to a CEO Ask-Me-Anything with Embarc Collective Executive Advisor Steve Parkis, on Thursday, November 11 at 12-1PM in the Large Event Space.

Steve is the CEO of Two Hat, an AI-powered content moderation platform that protects social media, kids' platforms, and video game users from online bullying, and was recently acquired by Microsoft.

Prior to Two Hat, Steve served as the SVP of Games at Zynga, where he launched their largest franchises (Cityville and Farmville), and as an SVP at Disney, where he founded Disney Online Studios.

During this session, you can ask Steve about his extensive track record of building wildly successful products, teams, and startups, including his recent acquisition experience with Microsoft.

We'll lead this session as an interactive AMA roundtable, so be sure to submit your questions when you RSVP.

Crafting Your Mission, Vision, Values

Session Overview The cornerstone of your company is the mission, vision, and values unique to your business. This session will help you:

• Bring clarity to the mission, vision, and values of your startup
• Make better business decisions rooted in your brand identity
• Understand why and how they are tied to your marketing and broader business-building work

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

Member Social - November

Join us for November's member social! We'll celebrate community wins over light refreshments and great company! Bring your team and meet the new startups in our quickly growing community.

Join us on November 4 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen.

Please RSVP to help us plan for adequate space, food, and beverage. We hope to see you there!

Conducting User Research

Session Overview Conducting effective user research is critical in achieving product/market fit. Not only can it spare you from costly mistakes in your product build and product roadmap, but user research also helps founders take a step back and learn how to be open to product feedback. During this session, you'll learn:

• What questions to ask that get you to the root of your customer's needs
• How to leverage user research to achieve product/market fit
• How to navigate user feedback that informs your product roadmap
• How to define your customer segment

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

Business Model Canvas + Personal Vision

Session Overview During this working session, you will create a business model canvas that will help you identify:

• Your personal vision of "success" for your startup
• Your business model in a straightforward, structured way
• Areas of your business model that can be prioritized for improvement

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

Setting Goals + OKRs

Session Overview During this session, you'll learn a framework to identify and track your company milestones and associated KPIs that will lead to startup success, including how to:

• Choose quarterly milestones to hold yourself accountable to
• Create a process to track weekly KPIs that lead to your quarterly milestone
• Identify what key metrics to track progress toward your business objectives

NOTE: This workshop is part of our Foundations program, which is designed for idea-to-MVP stage companies that are new to membership. Existing members are more than welcome to attend any or all of the workshops. Reach out to Elizabeth if you have any questions.

Membership Orientation

Membership Orientation

The Art of Giving & Receiving Feedback Part 2

You are invited to a Wellness Strategy Session on The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback Part 2 with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness & Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective.

This session will take place on Tuesday, October 12 at 3-4PM in the Ex3 Labs Classroom - and we are excited to host Kelby in-person at Embarc Collective for this session!

What this session will cover: Feedback is crucial for improving our self-awareness, wellbeing, and performance. But most of us want more feedback than we receive, and struggle to give it effectively! In Part Two of this Feedback Workshop, we will have "real-play" practice sessions for you to experiment with those tough conversations.

If you missed Part 1, we will do a brief overview to cover research-based best practices and tips and tricks. 

Member Social, Powered by TampaBay.Ventures

Join us for a special member social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, a new venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups! Come celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites, meet the TampaBay.Ventures team, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community.

Join us on October 7 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen. To help us plan for adequate spacing, please RSVP if you plan to attend – we hope to see you there!

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More on TampaBay.Ventures TampaBay.Ventures writes the first professional seed check for promising startups led by great entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital, TampaBay.Ventures support the companies in their portfolio with strategic guidance and help them strengthen their relationships within the community.

KPI Frameworks & Stakeholder Updates with Mike Preuss

You are invited to a CEO Strategy Session on KPI Frameworks & Stakeholder Updates with Mike Preuss, CEO/Co-Founder of Visible, a platform designed to provide better engagement between investors and their portfolio companies. This session will take place on Tuesday, October 5 at 4-5PM EST in the Junior Achievement Classroom and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Reporting on your startup progress to stakeholders involves clear KPIs and clear communication. During this session, Mike will share the lessons he has learned while supporting thousands of startups, including how to:

• Create a manageable metric tracking plan
• Incorporate cohort analysis in your KPIs
• Drive ROI on your stakeholder communication efforts

RSVP to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP. 

Influencer Marketing with Sinead Norenius-Raniere

You are invited to a Marketing Strategy Session on Influencer Marketing with Sinead Norenius-Raniere, VP of Product Management at Cision. This session will take place on Tuesday, September 28 at 4-5pm in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Sinead is a San Francisco transplant and award-winning product marketing expert with two exits under her belt, including influencer marketing company iFabbo. In this session, she'll help you understand the influencer landscape and how to leverage influencer marketing for your startup, whether you are building DTC or B2B, including how to:

• Develop an effective influencer marketing campaign tied to your KPIs
• Identify and secure influencer partners aligned to your brand
• Align influencer marketing to your broader marketing mix

RSVP to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP.

Embarc Collective Community Clap In/Clap Out at TGH

Join the Embarc Collective community in supporting our local healthcare workers as we gather at the entrance to Tampa General Hospital to cheer on team members as they change shift.

We'll be there from 6PM - 8PM - come for the whole time, stay for just a little bit, we would love to see you there!

Good to Know: This is a celebration! Wear your branded shirt, bring a sign, pom-poms, anything fun!

This event will be outdoors. Per TGH protocol, surgical masks are required at all times (no cloth masks permitted). Grab a mask at Embarc's front desk or one will be supplied by TGH if you need it.

Parking and meetup details to follow.

Building Your LinkedIn Brand

You are invited to a strategy session on Building Your LinkedIn Brand with Brendan Rogers, Co-Founder of Wag! (over $360MM raised) and Co-Founder and Partner at 2AM Ventures. This session will take place on Wednesday, September 22 at 12-1pm in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: With over 75,000 followers on LinkedIn, Brendan has mastered the art of personal brand building. During this session, he'll help you uncover tactical tips on how to leverage LinkedIn to:

• Establish credibility for your startup in your field
• Build your personal brand as an industry thought leader
• Tips for high engagement and visibility on your posts within your target audience

RSVP to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP.

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More on Brendan: Brendan Rogers is currently the Co-Founder of Founder 2am VC an early-stage India Fund.

Previously, Brendan Co-Founded Wag! the mobile dog walking app that disrupted the global pet service space. Wag! has raised over $360 million in venture capital, most recently $300 million from Softbank's Vision Fund.

Brendan is an active advisor and mentors many companies, accelerators, and universities in the LA/Silicon Valley/South Korea. He is a frequent contributor to Forbes, a speaker at national conferences, and has appeared on some of the top podcasts in the industry.

Before Wag!, Brendan co-founded a social discovery service to meet new people, which grew to over 50 million users in over 10 countries and was acquired by IAC in 2014.

Member Social - September 2021

Help us celebrate the last moments of summer by joining us for our September Member Social! Meet new faces and make more memories with fellow EC members over drinks and light bites!

Join us on September 2 at 4-5PM on the Patio.

Please RSVP to help us plan for adequate space, food, and beverage. We hope to see you there!

Dev Peer Group

You're invited to a Dev Peer Group session on Thursday, August 26 at 10AM in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom. Donuts will be provided 😋 Peer Groups are a new style of member session — they are casual, self-led get-togethers of members from functionally similar roles. While the specific format of each Peer Group is ultimately dictated by its participants, we have a suggested structure to get the conversations flowing.

To help you prepare for participation, here's our suggested format (informed by the input of fellow members) – share one project you:

• have been working on in the last month
• are working on now
• plan to work on in the future

RSVP here to join and include any topics you'd like to share with the group in advance for preparation.

Generating Demand for Your Talent Pipeline

You are invited to a Talent Strategy Session on How to Create Your Talent Pipeline with Kailah Matyas, Talent Strategist at Embarc Collective, on Tuesday, August 17 at 12-1PM in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom. What this session will cover: Sourcing great talent shouldn't begin once you're ready to make your first few hires - so what can you do to create a healthy pipeline of talent for your startup during its early stages? During this session, Kailah will share how you can:

• Build your career page to generate a pipeline
• Nail your employer branding to help you stand out
• Set timelines to properly plan out your hires This session is intended for idea to early-stage companies.

RSVP here to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP.

Building a Modern Enterprise GTM

You are invited to a Sales Strategy Session on Building a Modern Enterprise Go-to-Market with Lewis Burnham, Sales Strategy Coach at Embarc Collective. This session will take place on Thursday, August 12 at 10-11AM in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Understanding your user and buyer journey is critical when developing a modern Go-to-Market. During this session, Lewis will share current trends in enterprise sales and help you build core pieces of your GTM, including how to:

• Identify your early segments and collect insights
• Deliver value to users quickly, and then leverage them to engage with buyers
• Develop OKRs and success metrics that yield a repeatable sales motion

RSVP here to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP.

Member Social - August 2021

Join us for August's member social! We'll celebrate community wins over light refreshments and great company! Bring your team and meet the new startups in our quickly growing community.

Join us on August 5 at 4-5PM on the patio.

Please RSVP to help us plan for adequate space, food, and beverage. We hope to see you there!

The Art of Giving & Receiving Feedback

You are invited to a Wellness Strategy Session on The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback with Kelby Kupersmid, Wellness & Burnout Prevention Coach at Embarc Collective. This session will take place on Tuesday, August 3 at 4-5PM via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Giving and receiving feedback – both positive and constructive – is a difficult art to master. It's a critical skill in cultivating high-performing teams and developing yourself as a thoughtful and dynamic leader. During this session, Kelby will share how you can:

• Give feedback, including the language to use and how and when to deliver it
• Receive feedback from your team members, advisors, and other stakeholders
• Evaluate the right feedback to implement from others

How to Secure Grant Funding

You are invited to a session on Securing Grant Funding for Startups with David Conrad at USF's Technology Transfer Office and Elizabeth Nelson at Florida High Tech Corridor. This session will take place on Wednesday, July 28 at 12-1PM in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom. What this session will cover: There are multiple paths to raising capital for your startup outside of traditional venture capital. Grant funding is an excellent equity-free option, but can oftentimes be challenging to secure without the right approach. During this session, David and Elizabeth will share how startups can:

• Position their business to align with grant funding opportunities—and when is best to pursue it
• Secure grant funding, like SBIR and Corridor funding
• Leverage grants for product and innovation development

Marketing Peer Group

You're invited to a Marketing Peer Group session on Thursday, July 22 at 10-11AM in the EX3 Labs Classroom. Donuts will be provided 😋

Peer Groups are a new style of member session — they are casual, self-led get-togethers of members from functionally similar roles. While the specific format of each Peer Group is ultimately dictated by its participants, we have a suggested structure to get the conversations flowing.

To help you prepare for participation, here's our suggested format (informed by the input of fellow members) – share one project you:

• have been working on in the last month
• are working on now
• plan to work on in the future

We hope that you'll consider joining this inaugural Marketing Peer Group, and please give us your feedback afterward.

Member Social powered by TampaBay.Ventures

Join us for a special member social, powered by TampaBay.Ventures, a new venture capital firm backing Tampa Bay's most promising startups! Come celebrate community wins over drinks and light bites! Meet the TampaBay.Ventures team partners and their select portfolio founders, and connect with fellow startups in our quickly growing community. Join us on July 8 at 4-5PM in the Member Kitchen. To help us plan for adequate spacing, please RSVP to attend – we hope to see you there!

// More on TampaBay.Ventures TampaBay.Ventures writes the first professional seed check for promising startups led by great entrepreneurs. In addition to providing capital, TampaBay.Ventures support the companies in their portfolio with strategic guidance and help them strengthen their relationships within the community.

Family Office Best Practices for Startups

You are invited to a Fundraising Strategy Session on Family Offices with the team at UBS Financial Services, a global wealth management group with operations in Tampa Bay. This session will take place on Thursday, July 8 at 12-1PM in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Family offices are privately held companies that handle investment and wealth management for wealthy families. Oftentimes elusive to find, family offices are sources of strategic capital and offer valuable industry expertise and networks to early-stage startups. The team at UBS is entrenched in the Florida family office community, and during this session they will share their insights on:

• The overall landscape for early-stage startup funding from family offices
• Strategies for startups to identify target family office investors
• Attracting and aligning with family offices through your startup pitch

RSVP here to join us, and be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP.

Buyer Discovery

Join our Sales Strategy Session on Buyer Discovery with Brent Keltner, President at Winalytics, a management consulting firm that helps startups build go-to-market strategies.

This session will take place on Wednesday, June 30 at 10-11AM in the EX3 Labs Classroom and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Many sales calls do not draw on a well developed or well executed discovery process. More than half of buyers that join sales calls have no clear purchasing initiative, and just 10% of executives consider sales calls valuable. During this session, Brent will help you build your discovery playbook, including how to:

• Quickly qualify the right buyers
• Value map between goals and capabilities
• Build a decision roadmap to a purchase

Ask-Me-Anything with Serial Entrepreneur Waseem Daher

You are invited to a Founder Ask-Me-Anything with Waseem Daher, Founder & CEO of Pilot, a SF-based unicorn startup that has raised $161M in funding from Sequoia, Jeff Bezos, and Stripe, among others.

Waseem is a three-time entrepreneur with two successful exits working with the same founding team: his first company, Ksplice, was acquired by Oracle in 2011 and his second, Zulip, was acquired by Dropbox in 2014. During this session, you can ask Waseem questions around building a world-class team, Pilot's Series C pitch deck and process, or his experiences navigating founder burnout.

We'll lead this session as an interactive AMA roundtable, so be sure to submit your questions when you RSVP.

Dev + Product Peer Group

You're invited to a Dev Peer Group session in the Large Event Space and via Zoom. Donuts will be provided 😋

Peer Groups are a new style of member session — they are casual, self-led get-togethers of members from functionally similar roles. While the specific format of each Peer Group is ultimately dictated by its participants, we have a suggested structure to get the conversations flowing. We're thrilled to share that our first Peer Group is for dev and product-focused roles! Special thanks to Greg Rancourt, Founder at One Work Co. (formerly Principle Systems Engineer at Raytheon), for volunteering to help kick-off the session.

To help you prepare for participation, here's our suggested format (informed by the input of fellow members) – share one project you:

• have been working on in the last month
• are working on now
• plan to work on in the future

We hope that you'll consider joining this inaugural Peer Group, and please give us your feedback afterward.

Member Social

Join us for June's member social! We'll celebrate community wins over light refreshments.

Please RSVP to help us plan for adequate space, food and beverage. We hope to see you and your team there!

Cap Tables 101

You are invited to a Cap Tables 101 session with Patrick Traber, Partner at Johnson Pope, a full-service law firm in Tampa Bay and partner of Embarc Collective. This session will take place in the Large Event Space and via Zoom.

What this session will cover: Your company's capitalization table (cap table) is an essential record of your company's securities that have been issued (i.e. stock, warrants, and equity grants) as well as who owns them. During this session, Patrick will share:

• Fundamental terms and concepts to help you own your cap table today
• How to understand its impact on founder dilution, attracting great talent, and future funding rounds
• Tactical examples of what a cap table should look like at various funding stages

Developing Your Content Marketing Strategy

You are invited to a session on Developing Your Content Marketing Strategy with Colleen Koslosky, Content Marketing Manager at Drift, a Series C marketing automation startup with operations in Tampa. This session will take place in the Large Event Space and via Zoom.

What this will cover: Content marketing is a strategy that focuses on creating and distributing content that your target audience will consider as valuable and relevant. The end goal for any content marketing strategy is to propel your target audience to take some form of action.

During this session, Colleen will help you create your content marketing strategy, including how to:

• Create your content marketing persona
• Choose your content marketing framework
• Select your distribution channels
• Measure your strategy's impact

FL Poly Capstone Info Session x Embarc Collective

Learn how to leverage the Florida Polytechnic University Capstone Design Program at an Information Session with Dr. Matt Bohm on Tuesday, 5/18 from 12-12:45PM.

Capstone Programs bring teams of 4-6 (sometimes larger) students to tackle a semi-open-ended design project at your startup.

Quick details on the program:

• Timeframe: two-semester project (Fall 2021 – Spring 2022)
• Students: single or multidisciplinary teams coming from Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Data Science & Business Analytics, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering at the college.
• Your commitment: for the best chances of success it works great where the sponsor can devote 1-2 hours a week to responding to the team, giving them feedback, providing data, reviewing presentations, etc.
• Cost: no financial commitment! A great benefit as many Universities charge thousands of dollars for capstone sponsorship. You will be required to provide project materials.

Please RSVP to join us!

Member Social - May 2021

Join us for our May Member Social! We'll share exciting updates coming from Embarc Collective and celebrate community wins over light bites and drinks.

This event will not have a Zoom option. A recording of our announcements will be shared with membership after the event concludes.

Dev Roundtable: Scaling Your Tech Team

You are invited to a Dev Strategy Session on Scaling your Tech Team with Paul Santolla, Director of Engineering at MaestroQA, a venture-backed startup that offers quality assurance and coaching software for customer care teams.

What this will cover: Growing your engineering team is an exciting time in a startup's journey but comes with its fair share of growing pains. During this conversational roundtable, Paul will share his lessons learned building the engineering team from Software Engineer to Director of Engineering at MaestroQA and respond to your unique challenges, including how to:

• Determine tech debt vs innovation
• Build for the long term vs short term
• Find talent and compete on compensation
• Build and maintain culture

RSVP be sure to include any specific questions when you RSVP so Paul can thoughtfully prepare.

Thank you to our members for selecting this topic.

How to Nail Your Media Interview

You are invited to a Marketing Strategy Session on How to Nail your Media Interview with Josh Inglis, Founder and CEO of Chicago-based PR and content-marketing firm Propllr. Propllr supports high-growth startups and innovators in their PR strategy, including Embarc Collective.

What this will cover: For many startups, press is critical for building brand, product, and fundraising awareness; media interviews are an art and science that can be tricky to master. During this session, Josh will bring his expertise in coaching startup founders on how to:

• Give compelling storyline points that amplify your PR objectives
• Avoid interview etiquette faux pas
• Build rapport with reporters for future coverage
• Plus, an opportunity to ask a PR expert any and all of your press and pitching questions

The Renewal Starts at Hello - Sales to CS Handoff

You are invited to a Sales Strategy Session on how to build your renewal playbook with Emilia D'Anzica and Paul Reeves at Growth Molecules, a SF-based customer success consulting firm and top SaaStr speaker.

What this will cover: The sales renewal truly starts at 'hello', and requires a unified approach from your Sales and Customer Success leads. During this session, Emilia and Paul will share how you can fight churn, including:

• How to start renewal conversations early in the customer relationship
• Why the Sales to Customer Success handoff is part of the renewal strategy and how to implement a successful handoff
• What your renewal playbook should include

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More about our speakers: About Emilia D’Anzica Founder and CEO of Growth Molecules, a boutique customer success consulting firm, Emilia is focused on revenue growth through customer success. She has worked globally for companies like WalkMe, BrightEdge, Jobvite, and GN Netcom. She has served in every customer success role from Support Manager to Onboarding Director to Chief Customer Officer. About Paul Reeves Paul is a Senior Consultant at Growth Molecules. For both private and public companies, he has repeatedly built high performing customer success functions that have profoundly improved customer satisfaction as measured by renewal rates, NPS, and CSAT.

Warming Up Your Domain for Outbound Sales

Sending cold emails is still one of the most efficient ways to acquire customers in B2B—yet 21% of opt-in emails never end up in the person's inbox. During this session, Derek Rey, CEO of Demand Inc., will cover how to warm up your domain to increase outbound sales to help you:

• Maintain reputation management as you scale
• Improve deliverability of your emails
• Make sure that your open rates are good

More on Derek Rey: Derek has been described as "the guy startups really want for sales" by Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures. He helps top portfolio investments at KPCB and Y Combinator in the areas of demand-gen & sales. Five times, he's taken startups from $0 to $5M+ in revenue. Now he’s the Founder and CEO of Demand Inc., an 80+ person sales development team supporting dozens of leading startups.

Fireside Chat with Shellye Archambeau

Foundations | Fundraising Overview

Once you've tested the components of your business model canvas, you can elaborate on them in your startup's pitch deck. The pitch deck can be used to align, organize, and succinctly describe all of the elements of your company—across problem, solution, business model, and more. During this session, you'll learn:

• Tips to identify what funding is right for you
• The outline to create a compelling pitch deck
• An overview of the materials needed to pursue outside capital

Please Note: This session is a part of Embarc Collective’s Foundation Series to onboard new early-stage companies to membership. All members are welcome to participate in any relevant sessions. Please message your Account Manager for more information.

Mental Health for the Chief Everything Officer

You are invited to a Founder Wellness session with Dr. Kari Sulenes, Executive Director at Atlas, a coaching platform for venture-backed startups. This session will take place via Zoom.

What this will cover: Building a startup isn't easy—entrepreneurs are 50% more likely to have a mental health condition than “ordinary folk,” and twice as likely to suffer from depression. So how can builders cope with the stressors of startup life? Join us for this interactive wellness session where you'll learn how to:

• Better understand what entrepreneurs struggle with and why
• Create a wellness toolkit unique to you
• Engage with your peers to find deeper understanding of yourself

Come ready to get messy, vulnerable and get to know your peers in a new way.

R&D Tax Credit 101

You are invited to an R&D Tax Credit 101 Session with Ari Palmer, CEO of TaxTaker.

What this will cover: Tax season is here! Understanding business tax structure can save your startup some serious cash—even before you're profitable. During this session, our friends at TaxTaker will share:

• What the Research and Development (R&D) tax credit covers
• How to the R&D credit can offset payroll and income taxes
• Best practices to maximize and simplify your tax credit

Foundations | Owning Your Financials

Creating a financial model for your business that you understand and can update is essential to plan and fund your cash flow as a startup. During this session, you can expect to learn the fundamentals of your financials including:

• An understanding of the different components of a financial model and what they mean
• A list of the assumptions that will drive your revenue streams and expenses
• A list of inputs that will create your initial basic income statement

Please Note: This session is a part of Embarc Collective’s Foundation Series to onboard new early-stage companies to membership. All members are welcome to participate in any relevant sessions. Please message your Account Manager for more information.

POCs from the POV of the Corporate

Navigating the corporate environment, finding and engaging the right stakeholders, and demonstrating credibility as an early-stage startup are just some of the unique challenges that arise in enterprise sales.

In this session you'll hear from Sue Nicole Susenburger, Innovation Strategy Manager at Bosch North America and a veteran corporate that has spent much of her career as a startup advocate, on how to:

• Identify, engage, and get buy-in from the right stakeholders for your POC
• Leverage corporate innovation programs and entry gates
• Plus, example templates for use case definition, scoping, and pricing

Sue is available for office hours following her session. Email Dan if you're interested in 1:1 time with Sue.

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More on Sue: Sue Nicole Susenburger is an Innovation Strategy manager for the central unit IoT and Digital Innovation for Bosch in North America. Her mission is to connect Bosch through co-innovation with partners such as startups, corporations, universities and other organizations. As an entrepreneur and dedicated community builder, she has been part of Startup Weekend and has acted as mentor and Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) for Techstars.

Foundations | Team + Talent Roadmap

Talent is a critical strategy to develop, even at the earliest stages of startup building. During this session, you'll learn how to:

• Leverage the right types of talent across team hires, freelancers, and advisors, including remote talent
• Develop your talent roadmap that reflects your future fundraising and/or growth objectives - costs
• Build a talent pipeline

Foundations | Go-to-Market Strategy

Using your defined customer segment, your go-to-market (GTM) strategy is how your company brings your product to market. As you bring it to market, you need to empirically test and validate that your product actually delivers value to your customer. During this session, you'll learn the frameworks to:

• Test your value proposition hypothesis in the cheapest possible way
• Craft a value matrix to identify messaging for your target persona

Please Note: This session is a part of Embarc Collective’s Foundation Series to onboard new early-stage companies to membership. All members are welcome to participate in any relevant sessions. Please message your Account Manager for more information.

Guide for Socially-Minded Startups

Certified B Corporations are a new kind of business that balances purpose and profit, such as venture-backed startups like AltSchool, Allbirds, Lemonade, Coursera. B Corps are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.

This session will share tactics to incorporate B Corp practices into your startup's operations today, and how you can position your company for future certification.

Bonus: members who join us in-person will receive a $5 Endeavr voucher. 

Foundations | Conducting User Research

Conducting effective user research is critical in achieving product/market fit. Not only can it spare you from costly mistakes in your product build and product roadmap, but user research also helps founders take a step back and learn how to be open to product feedback. During this session, you'll learn:

• What questions to ask that get you to the root of your customer's needs
• How to leverage user research to achieve product/market fit
• How to navigate user feedback that informs your product roadmap
• How to define your customer segment

Please Note: This session is a part of Embarc Collective’s Foundation Series to onboard new early-stage companies to membership. All members are welcome to participate in any relevant sessions. Please message your Account Manager for more information.

Foundations | Mission, Vision, Values

The cornerstone of your company is the mission, vision, and values unique to your business. This session will help you:

• Bring clarity to the mission, vision, and values of your startup
• Make better business decisions rooted in your brand identity
• Understand why and how they are tied to your marketing and broader business-building work

Please Note: This session is a part of Embarc Collective’s Foundation Series to onboard new early-stage companies to membership. All members are welcome to participate in any relevant sessions. Please message your Account Manager for more information.

Fundraising Financials

You are invited to a Fundraising Financials Strategy Session with Mike Lingle, founder of Rocket Pro Forma.

What this will cover: Founders who know their numbers know their business. They also build better businesses more quickly. During this session, Mike will teach you how to be a better startup operator with your financial projections, including how to:

• Speak confidently to your growth potential rooted in your financials projections
• Transform your pitch deck into a compelling story backed by your numbers and key metrics
• Leverage valuation shortcuts and proven fundraising strategies

Slide templates will be provided for your pitch deck.

RSVP here to join us and share with any other relevant team members. Please include any specific questions when you RSVP.

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More on Mike: Mike Lingle, founder of Rocket Pro Forma, is a former software developer who has launched three presentation startups, raised venture capital, had an exit, and run several accelerator programs. He’s an entrepreneur in residence at Babson College and Founder Institute. He's obsessed with helping founders fund and grow their companies.

Foundations | Goal Setting + OKRs

During this session, you'll learn a framework to identify and track your company milestones and associated OKRs that will lead to startup success, including how to:

• Choose quarterly milestones to hold yourself accountable to
• Create a process to track weekly OKRs that lead to your quarterly milestone
• Identify what key metrics to track progress toward your business objectives

Please Note: This session is a part of Embarc Collective’s Foundation Series to onboard new early-stage companies to membership. All members are welcome to participate in any relevant sessions. Please message your Account Manager for more information.

Flipping the Script with Brian Murphy, CEO of ReliaQuest

You are invited to a "Flip the Script" Leadership Q&A Session with Brian Murphy, CEO of ReliaQuest and Board Chair of Embarc Collective—taking place in-person at Embarc Collective. There will be no Zoom option for this session.

As a leader, Brian Murphy is known for setting aspirational goals and having a maniacal focus. In fact, he's hired Derin McMains, a mindset coach who has worked with the San Francisco Giants and University of Notre Dame athletics to train his leadership team.

What this will cover: As CEOs/Founders, we often just need a sounding board to hear out our challenges and help us think through them. During this session, we're flipping the script with Brian and will have him weigh in on the challenges that are front and center for you.

To participate, you must include any specific questions or challenges for discussion in your RSVP. This is a closed-door session that will not be recorded. This session is focused on the attendees, so be prepared to participate.

Employee Onboarding

You are invited to a Talent Strategy Session on Employee Onboarding with Kailah Matyas, Talent Strategist at Embarc Collective.

What this will cover: An employee's onboarding experience sets the tone for their tenure with your company and is a key piece of retention and culture building. Internally, effective onboarding helps you use time and resources efficiently while reducing downtime for new team members. During this session, Kailah will share the frameworks that Founders should use to build a strong employee onboarding process, including how to:

• Assemble a best-in-class onboarding timeline, from offer to first month
• Incorporate your company's unique culture and DEI best practices into your onboarding
• Strategize onboarding pre- and post- hiring a Head of People
• Adjust onboarding for remote and hybrid work environments

Foundations | Business Model Canvas + Personal Vision

During this working session, you will create a business model canvas that will help you identify:

• Your personal vision of "success" for your startup
• Your business model in a straightforward, structured way
• Areas of your business model that can be prioritized for improvement

Please Note: This session is a part of Embarc Collective’s Foundation Series to onboard new early-stage companies to membership. All members are welcome to participate in any relevant sessions. Please message your Account Manager for more information.

Fireside Chat with Steven Galanis, CEO of Cameo

You are invited to a Fireside Chat with new Miami transplant Steven Galanis, CEO of Cameo, on Friday, February 5 at 10:00-11:00AM in-person and via Zoom.

Cameo is a personalized celebrity video marketplace that did $100M in customer transactions and about $25M in revenue in 2020 (4.5x gross bookings from the previous year). The company has raised over $65M in funding by investors including Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed and was last valued at over $300M.

What this will cover: Steven will be sharing how he started and scaled Cameo, diving into:

• The early days of building the Cameo marketplace with very little marketing spend
• How he's leveraged a startup community for support (in his case, 1871 in Chicago)
• Opportunities and challenges in building a remote team and why he's building in Florida

Getting Acquired

You are invited to a CEO Strategy Session on Getting Acquired with Julia Taxin, Partner at Grotech Ventures.

What this will cover: Julia will share her learnings on startup acquisitions from the other side of the table, given her expertise as a board member and observer across 10+ startups, including:

• How to identify and build relationships with potential future acquirers
• Tactics for positioning your company for acquisition
• The mechanics of acquisition and pitfalls to watch out for
• RSVP here to join us and share with any other relevant team members. Please include any specific questions when you RSVP.

// More on Julia: Julia Taxin is a Partner at Grotech Ventures. Julia brings over 10 years of experience in venture capital, finance, and consulting to Grotech Ventures. Prior to joining Grotech, she spent time at Sandbox Industries focused on evaluating new investment opportunities and working with portfolio companies and management teams on growth strategies. She began her career as a IT consultant at PwC in Chicago where she focused on Oracle implementations and supply chain optimization.

Julia currently serves on the board at Airside Mobile, Backbone PLM, ChurnZero and The Mom Project. She also holds board observer roles at Ceros, Cloud Elements, Contactually and Optoro among others. Julia is a member of the Venture Committee at Vinetta DC and previously served as an investment advisory board member of CIT GAP Funds from 2013-2016.

Sales Forecasting and Process Building

You are invited to a Sales Strategy Session with Mark Crofton, Global VP of Sales Coaching at SAP.

What this will cover: Mark leads SAP's sales coaching team and has coached hundreds of startups through his work with startup programs including SAP.io and 500 Startups. During this session, he'll share the coaching methodology and frameworks to attain your revenue goals, including how to:

• Accurately forecast your sales revenue
• Allocate the right resources to build your sales engine
• Implement processes to review and refine your sales operations

Fundraising AMA with First Round Capital & Unshackled VC

You are invited to a Fundraising AMA with Maria Salamanca at Unshackled VC and Alex Marshall at First Round Capital. This event will take place in the Large Event Space and via Zoom.

What this will cover: Maria and Alex are startup investors at top tier SF-based firms with deep expertise across venture capital, startup building and advocacy. During this ask-me-anything style session, they'll answer your fundraising questions, like:

• What are key metrics for startups to hit between Seed and Series A?
• What are the most negotiable terms from a VC perspective?
• What makes for compelling storytelling as a startup prepares to raise capital?

Please include any specific questions when you RSVP below.

Tips to Amp Up Your Personal Brand

Please join our session on Tips to Amp Up Your Personal Brand with our own Allie Felix. This session will take place in-person in the Large Event Space and virtually via Zoom.

What this will cover: New year, new you! During this session, Allie will best practices on cultivating an industry-relevant personal brand for both founders and startup team members alike, including hyper tactical tips to:

• Build and leverage virtual and IRL communities to grow your personal brand
• Identify your power communities and how to best serve them
• Craft your personal statement and speaker abstract for public speaking opportunities

Working Session: End of Year Investor & Advisor Update

We are nearing the end of 2020, which means it's time to put the finishing touches on your investor and advisor update newsletter!

Why do I need an investor and advisor update? Regular communication with investors, advisors and important stakeholders is key to your startup's success. Building a reporting cadence is a great way to promote transparency and build a relationship focused on trust and accountability. It also allows you to stay top of mind and tap into knowledge, resources, and capital networks that can help you grow your business.

What this will cover: We'll go over a quick outline of what should be in your update and who you should send it to before transitioning to a real-time working session to finalize your update.

How to Build Your TAM

Please join our session on How to Build Your TAM with Sarah Milewski, Director of Platform at NYC-based Dreamit Ventures. This session will take place in-person in the Large Event Space and virtually via Zoom.

Understanding your market size is a critical, yet sometimes elusive, factor in startup building—informing business viability and GTM strategy. It is also one of the headline figures investors evaluate during fundraising.

What this will cover: Sarah will share how to size your startup's market, including how to:

• Build a bottoms-up market size and calculate TAM/SAM/SOM
• Communicate a large market opportunity to investors
• Strategize initial GTM, while demonstrating future growth potential in other segments

Accessibility in Product Design

Please join our session Accessibility in Product Design with Ellie Bahrmasel, Partner at venture studio Further Faster. This session will take place in-person in the Large Event Space and virtually via Zoom.

Ellie has spent her career growing and transforming organizations, programs, and products through design. Her diversity of experience - from government to Fortune 100’s to venture backed startups - has given her insights that fuel her ability to help teams maneuver around and through their biggest growth challenges.

What this will cover: Ellie will share the foundations of accessibility by answering:

• What is accessibility? How is it different than usability?
• Why is it important?
• What are the benchmarks to measure against?
• When and how do we bake accessibility into product design?

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Get the juices flowing with our piece on Designing an ADA Compliant Website. 

More on Further Faster: Further Faster is a design strategy studio that uses workshops, prototypes, and rapid testing methods to help companies and impact driven organizations quickly solve big challenges. Further Faster works alongside bold leaders to design an MVP, develop a business model, set a roadmap for execution, fundraise, and prepare to scale.

Post-Seed Fundraising Preparation

Please join our session on Post-Seed Fundraising Preparation with Ryan Schneider, Executive Advisor at Embarc Collective. This session will take place in-person in the Large Event Space and virtually via Zoom.

What this will cover: Join Ryan as he takes a deep dive on how to prepare for post-seed funding, including:

• Cap table calculations
• Advanced terms
• Modeling adjustments

User Onboarding and Engagement

Please join our session on User Onboarding and Engagement with Justin Davis, Product Strategist at Embarc Collective. This session will take place in-person in the Large Event Space and virtually via Zoom.

Perhaps users or customers aren't engaging the way you want them to with your product—or worse yet, they're not sticking around at all. Before spending on marketing or product redevelopment, consider that the true issue might lie with your onboarding and engagement strategy.

What this will cover: Onboarding is more than slideshows, walkthroughs and introductions; successful onboarding is an intricate service design strategy. During this session, Justin will walk through the most critical components of user onboarding and engagement, including how to:

• Customize the onboarding process to your product and customer
• Evolve your engagement strategies over time
• Measure onboarding and engagement effectiveness

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More on Justin: Justin is the Director of User Experience at Tulli and Founder of Madera Labs. He is a serial founder and product leader who is experienced in helping startups achieve their product goals.

Breaking Down Brand

Please join our session on Breaking Down Brand with Kate Heath, Brand and Marketing Strategist at Embarc Collective. This session will take place in-person in the Large Event Space and virtually via Zoom.

Kate built her career with global organizations including Facebook, where she was the Head of Marketing Strategy and Operations at Instagram, Walmart, Boeing, and IBM, and has worked with several early-stage businesses in tech and retail through WORTH + WILL, which she launched earlier this year.

What this will cover: Brand is an essential component of startup building. It goes beyond establishing a logo—brand is the core identity behind your company that engages with customers, investors and stakeholders. Kate will break down the four pillars of brand: promise, voice, values and visual identity, and provide frameworks for developing each for your business. Kate will also address:

• When to start brand building
• How to align your broader marketing activities to brand
• How each component of brand evolves as your company grows

Fireside Chat with Brian Murphy of ReliaQuest

Join us for a small-group fireside chat with Brian Murphy, founder & CEO of ReliaQuest. 

Brian will share how he closed a $300M round, tactics for giving difficult news to your board and leadership approaches for maintaining team morale during challenging times.

This is an intentionally intimate setting, so please feel welcome to ask your specific questions. 

**Please note that this event is in-person only**

Planning a Bi-Annual Leadership Meeting

Please join our session on Planning a Bi-Annual Leadership Meeting with Celeste Grupman, Director of Operations at Dataquest (and an Embarc Collective member!). This session will take place in-person in the Large Event Space and virtually via Zoom.

Leadership meetings are an important practice as your startup grows beyond the founding team. They can serve as a powerful catalyst to align the team, introduce new strategies, and fuel collaboration across the organization.

What this will cover: During this session, Celeste will share her first-hand experience in planning and executing impactful meetings, including how to:

• Determine a planning strategy that works for you
• Define a clear set of objectives that maximizes ROI
• Ensure that commitments made are held post-meeting

Amplifying Your Product Launch through Product Hunt

Please join our session on Amplifying Your Product Launch With Product Hunt with Jordan Walker and Justin Mitchell, Founders at Yac. This session will take place in-person in the EX3 Labs Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

Product Hunt can be a great platform for companies that are looking to increase website traffic, build press coverage, generate valuable feedback and find potential users. With over 20,000 products launched each month, cutting through the noise requires extensive pre-planning and knowledge of the Product Hunt platform and community.

What this will cover: Justin and Jordan successfully launched Yac on Product Hunt and earned their spot as the #2 Product of the Day. During this session, they will share their experience in how to maximize your success on Product Hunt, including how to:

• Identify if launching on Product Hunt is right for you
• Generate excitement pre-launch
• Find the right Hunter for your product
• Leverage engagement tactics to maximize visibility

Working Session: Investor and Advisor Update

We are nearing the end of September and Q3, which means it's time to put the finishing touches on your investor and advisor update newsletter!

Why do I need an investor and advisor update? Regular communication with investors, advisors and important stakeholders is key to your startup's success. Building a reporting cadence is a great way to promote transparency and build a relationship focused on trust and accountability. It also allows you to stay top of mind and tap into knowledge, resources, and capital networks that can help you grow your business.

What this will cover: We'll go over a quick outline of what should be in your update and who you should send it to before transitioning to a real-time working session to finalize your update.

Compensating Employees with Equity

Please join our session on Employee Equity Compensation with Kailah Matyas, Talent Strategist at Embarc Collective. This session will take place in-person in the EX3 Labs Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

What this will cover: Whether your startup is bootstrapped or has raised early funding rounds, equity can be used as an important tool to attract top talent and compensate them appropriately.

During this session, Kailah will outline:

• Frameworks to assess if giving equity is appropriate for a given role
• How to structure your employee equity pool
• Ranges of equity compensation for early employees

RSVP here to join us and share with any other relevant team members. Please include any specific questions about equity compensation when you RSVP.

Building Strategic Relationships in a Virtual World

Please join our session on Networking Vs. Connecting: Building Virtual Relationships Amid COVID-19 with Mike MacCombie of NY-based venture firm ffvc. This session will take place in-person in the EX3 Labs Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

What this will cover: Despite COVID-19 halting travel plans on industry conferences and client or investor meetings, there are still opportunities to build meaningful connections with strategic audiences virtually. During this session, Mike will share his lessons learned from facilitating hundreds of connections by sharing:

• Tactics to reframe networking vs connecting to build more meaningful relationships
• Strategies to build relationships among different stakeholders to stay relevant and engaged, such as customers, investors, and industry peers
• Specific examples of how to facilitate virtual community building among your own networks

Dev Roundtable Session with Vijay Singh

Please join our dev peer group with Vijay Singh, Technical Advisor at Embarc Collective and CTO of Bravado Health, on Wednesday, September 2 at 12PM. This session will take place in-person in the EX3 Labs Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

This roundtable is an opportunity to help build the dev community here at Embarc Collective, so you have a strong network of peers to call on for feedback and support.

To help guide the conversation, Vijay will discuss strategies and tactics across the topics of:

• Automated testing
• Technical debt
• Go-live readiness

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More on Vijay: Vijay Singh built Yaro, a mobile-first HealthTech and FinTech SaaS platform for care navigation, from the ground up as CTO and then successfully exited via acquisition to Virgin Pulse in January 2020. Vijay previously was an early employee in R1 RCM, a publicly traded healthcare revenue cycle management company and built healthcare solutions that managed over $30B in annual patient revenue for some of the largest hospital systems. In the process, he grew the team to multiple globally distributed scrum teams totaling over 150 engineers. Vijay now serves as an Executive Advisor at Embarc Collective for startups on product & tech strategy in building, growing & scaling technology teams and companies.

Building Customer Relationships for Future Acquisition

Please join our session on Building Customer Relationships for Future Acquisition with Gary Hensley, CEO of Livingtree, on Wednesday, August 26 at 12PM. This session will take place in-person in the EX3 Labs Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

Gary is a serial ed-tech startup founder, having sold Intagrade to Pearson in 2009 and Edbacker to Livingtree in 2018, where he now serves as CEO.

What this will cover: As a B2B or enterprise tech startup, your prospective or current customer may very well become your future acquirer. But how and when do you foster a strong customer relationship as an early-stage venture, and what happens when your customer hints at acquisition interest? Gary will share his expertise, including:

• How to identify customers that can serve as potential future acquirers
• Tactics for positioning your company for acquisition
• The three keys to success - L.C.R.
• Strategies for public, venture capital and privately held companies
• Anatomy of a successful partnership

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More on Gary: Gary Hensley is currently the CEO and President of Livingtree. Livingtree acquired Edbacker in 2018, a company Gary founded in 2014 to address America’s educational funding gap, creating the first online platform designed to bring parents, corporations and districts together. A serial entrepreneur, Hensley sold his previous company, Intagrade - an early-warning dropout prevention algorithm - to Pearson in 2009, where Hensley also served as the Director of Product Management and Strategic Partnerships until 2013. Prior to his work in the technology space, Hensley worked as both a teacher and Assistant Principal for the Newport Mesa Unified School District in Southern California. Hensley was named DC’s Top Entrepreneur 40 under 40, and was on the cover of Washington Life Magazine’s Top 25 Tech Companies Making A Difference issue, where Edbacker was named Best New Product in the Tech and Learning space. A husband and dad of three, Hensley grew up within a military family and currently resides in Tampa, FL.

Marketing Roundtable with Kate Heath

Please join us for our second Marketing Peer Group with Kate Heath, Brand and Marketing Advisor at Embarc Collective, on Wednesday, August 19 at 12PM - 1PM. This session will take place in-person in the EX3 Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

Kate has built her career with global organizations including Facebook, where she was the Head of Marketing Strategy and Operations at Instagram, Walmart, Boeing, and IBM, and has worked with several early-stage businesses in tech and retail.

During this peer session, Kate will share more about her expertise, discuss a few of her favorite brand and marketing tactics and talk through the ways she can serve as a resource to your company's brand and marketing needs. This is a great opportunity to connect with the newest member of the Embarc Collective coaching team.

Generating Press for your Product Launch on a Bootstrapped Budget

Please join our session on Generating Press for your Product Launch on a Bootstrapped Budget with Beck Bamberger, Founder and CEO of BAM PR, on Thursday, August 13 from 2:30-3:30PM. This session will take place in-person in the Junior Achievement Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

BAM PR has worked with 120+ startups, unicorns, & public companies and was named one of Adweek's fastest-growing agencies. Prior to BAM, Beck worked in TV at NBC, hosted a show on the CW, and won an Emmy.

What this will cover: YOLO—you only launch once! During this session, Beck will share a page from the BAM Playbook on how to develop your product launch on a bootstrapped budget, covering how to:

• Identify strategic goals and ROI for your press efforts
• Identify the right media outlets to target
• Tailor a unique message that stands out in the current climate
• And best tactics for cold-emailing your pitch

Conducting User Research

Please join our session on Conducting User Research with Justin Davis, Product Expert at Embarc Collective. This session will take place in-person in the EX3 Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

Justin is also the Director of User Experience at Tulli and Founder of Madera Labs. He is a serial founder and product leader who is experienced in helping startups achieve their product goals.

Conducting effective user research is critical in achieving product/market fit. Not only can it spare you from costly mistakes in your product build and product roadmap, user research also helps founders take a step back and learn how to be open to product feedback.

What this will cover:

• What questions to ask that get you to the root of your customer's needs
• How to leverage user research to achieve product/market fit
• How to navigate user feedback that informs your product roadmap

The 5 P's of Scaling Sales

Please join our session on The 5 P's of Scaling Sales with Kevin Dorsey, VP of Inside Sales at LA-based Series B Startup PatientPop, on Tuesday, July 28th from 4-5PM. This session will take place in-person in the Junior Achievement Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

Why you should listen to Kevin: Kevin has scaled sales teams of 0-150+ reps and revenues from 0-$75M+ at fast-growing startups including SnackNation, ServiceTitan, and now PatientPop. His accolades include InsideSales Top 10 Sales Leader, Sales Exec of the Year, and Top 100 Sales Coach. Find his thought leadership here and here.

What this will cover: Early-stage startups typically focus on price and product, but often miss the mark on building a comprehensive sales strategy across the 5 core pillars. During this session, Kevin will share how to use the 5 P's of People, Prospect, Problem, Process, and Product to build a sales machine that will move the needle on your startup's revenue targets.

Calculate, Understand and Improve Your CAC

Please join our session on Calculating, Understanding, and Improving Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) with Jose Martins, HubSpot for Startups lead, on Tuesday, July 21st from 12-1PM. This session will take place in-person in the Junior Achievement Classroom and virtually via Zoom.

What this will cover: Will the customers you're acquiring contribute more revenue than they cost? Growth is good, but growth at any cost is not. Any startup selling digitally—DTC or B2B—should join us for this session to learn:

• Strategies for calculating and lowering CAC
• How to increase the Lifetime Value (LTV) of your customer
• Learning how to adjust your marketing mix accordingly

PS—watch these quick videos by Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund to get up to speed in advance of this session.

Marketing Peer Group Session

Join Tyana Daley, Embarc Collective Communications Manager, at our first-ever Marketing Peer Group on Thursday, July 16 at 12PM - 1PM.

During our time together, we'll ask the group to discuss and provide feedback on any marketing plans, challenges and questions that we're each working through. Our ultimate goal is for us to build our marketing community here at Embarc Collective, so we have a strong network of peers to call on for feedback and support as we are all at similar stages of startups.

To help us make time for feedback, please send Tyana your questions, topics or marketing plans and collateral in advance of our session. She can be reached at tyana@embarccollective.com or via Slack.

Building a People Strategy

Please join our session on Retaining Top Talent Through Your People Strategy with Kelly Keegan, VP of People at national tech job board and community Built-In, on Wednesday, July 8th from 12-1PM. This session will take place in-person in the Junior Achievement Classroom and virtual via Zoom.

Kelly is experienced in helping small startups scale quickly through her leadership from LA to Chicago as VP of people at fast-growing startups audience.ai, SnackNation, and now Built-In.

What this will cover: Your company is only as strong as the people who are building it. During this session, Kelly will share the steps you can take to establish your people strategy at an early stage, such as:

• When and why hire a Head of People
• Retaining top talent through a world-class employee experience
• Creating goal-based programs and initiatives to increase team productivity

Working Session: Investor and Advisor Update

We are nearing the end of June and Q2, which means it's time to put the finishing touches on your investor and advisor update newsletter! Join us for a group working session next Monday, June 29th from 4-5PM in-person and via zoom.

Why do I need an investor and advisor update? Regular communication with investors, advisors and important stakeholders is key to your startup's success. Building a reporting cadence is a great way to promote transparency and build a relationship focused on trust and accountability. It also allows you to stay top of mind and tap into knowledge, resources, and capital networks that can help you grow your business.

What this will cover: We'll go over a quick outline of what should be in your update and who you should send it to before transitioning to a real-time working session to finalize your update.

Member Social

Please join us for our first IRL member social since reopening. We'll celebrate our community wins over light food and drink. This is your opportunity to connect with your fellow startups involved in our Embarc Collective community. Please RSVP if you are able to join us!

Optimizing Your Working Capital

Please join our CEO Strategy Session on Optimizing Your Working Capital led by our friends Denisha Kuhlor and Blake English of digital startup bank Grasshopper on Wednesday, June 24th from 4-5PM on Zoom. (Thank you to Mark Engelen of RxLive for the topic request!)

What this will cover: Working capital represents the cash available for the day-to-day expenses of running your startup. During this session, Denisha and Blake will share how startups can:

• Partner with banks as an early-stage startup
• Effectively collateralize working capital loans as a tech startup
• Understand the value of big bank vs. small bank
• Balance working capital vs. raising venture capital

Product Strategy Session: Delegating to Automation

Not enough hours in the day to complete all of the tasks necessary to keep you and your startup running smoothly? Please join our Product Strategy Session on Delegating to Automation led by Fabio De Sousa on Wednesday, June 17th from 12-1PM on Zoom.

What this will cover: You asked, we listened! Delegating tasks to automation can improve productivity and give you back more time for value-add work. During this session, Fabio will review:

• when and why you should automate tasks within your startup
• some pitfalls to look out for as you begin to automate
• specific ways you can level up your usage of tools like Zapier
• a decision tree to help you decide what tasks to automate

Fundraising Ask Me Anything with Rebecca Danta, Miami Angels

You are invited to an Ask-Me-Anything Fundraising Session led by Rebecca Danta, Managing Director of Miami Angels, on Wednesday, June 3rd from 11:30AM-12:30PM on Zoom.

Miami Angels focuses on early-stage companies and is known for its streamlined investment process. They have invested in Embarc Collective member companies Grifin and Knack!

What this will cover: Rebecca will answer any of your fundraising questions, including topics like:

• Advice for non-technical founders when picking investors
• How to “nudge” an investor for next-steps
• What traction investors are really looking for
• How to think about valuation or deal terms (even in covid-19 times)

Talent Strategy Session: How to Thoughtfully Plan a Summer Intern Program

So You’ve Hired Summer Interns, Now What? Please join our How to Thoughtfully Plan a Summer Intern Program led by Kailah Matyas and Dan Holahan on Thursday, May 28 from 12-1PM on Zoom.

What this will cover: A thoughtfully planned internship is critical in creating successful experiences for both you and your intern. In this session, we'll share our best practices for maximizing the internship, including how to:

• Prepare for the internship before it begins
• Adapt and make the most out of a remote internship
• Onboard and set appropriate expectations that drive results
• Off-board and stay engaged with interns to make future full-time hires

Sales Strategy Session: Structuring Enterprise Pilots

Speaker: Adam Wisniewski, CEO of EX3 Labs

What this will cover: During this session, Adam will walk you through how to take your enterprise customers from raw lead to a POC (proof of concept) to an annual recurring contract. You'll learn how to structure enterprise pilots that set you and your customer up for success—aligning stakeholders, budgeting for full deployment, integrating into current workflows, and more.

Who might benefit from this: Founder/CEO, Business Development or Sales Lead

Dev Strategy Session: Crafting a Long Term Tech Strategy for Your Startup

We're excited to welcome Vijay Singh on board as an Executive Advisor at Embarc Collective that will help technical team leads navigate product builds, DevOps, and managing a team.

Speaker: Vijay Singh, Founding CTO of Yaro; acquired by Virgin Pulse

What this will cover: During this session, Vijay will share an outline for creating a long-term technical strategy, focused on what you can do today to set yourself up for scale. You'll learn the concrete examples and frameworks that that Vijay has used successfully to take his startup from founding CTO and technical lead to acquisition.

Who might benefit from this: CEO, CTO, Dev/Product Lead

Steve MacDonald: From Chief Everything Officer to Chief Executive Officer

We are excited to invite you to our upcoming CEO Roundtable: From Chief Everything Officer to Chief Executive Officer led by serial entrepreneur and investor Steve MacDonald on Wednesday, 5/6 from 1-2PM on Zoom. This CEO Roundtable will be held in a small-group moderated conversation format for founders that are members of Embarc Collective. We'll discuss how and when to evolve from wearing multiple hats in the early days to growing into your role as CEO, including:

• initiating changes in your org structures as your team and customer base grows
• balancing a manageable number of direct reports without creating too much unnecessary hierarchy; and discussing the challenges that come along with these changes

Steve MacDonald has started and scaled multiple companies to exit—he founded TechHealth (sold to One Call Management in 2014), Mamabear Family Safety app (sold to Grom Social in 2016) and myMatrixx (sold to Express Scripts in 2017, generating a 44x return for investors). His successful experiences as a Founder and CEO led Steve into angel investing and becoming a Partner and Board Member at Florida Funders. He also serves as a member of Embarc Collective's Board of Directors. Steve offers great perspectives on the Embarc Collective board and comes to the table as an experienced operator, so I hope you're able to join this session.

Pros and Cons to Sourcing National Talent During Lockdown

Please join our Talent Strategy Session on Pros and Cons to Sourcing National Talent During Lockdown led Kailah Matyas on Thursday, April 30 from 12-1PM on Zoom.

What this will cover: For some companies, there’s never been a better time to recruit from a vast talent pool unrestricted by geographic distance. In this session, we'll cover the pros and cons of making national remote hires to your locally headquartered startup, including:

• opportunistically hiring quality and diverse candidates
• understanding differences in payscale in other markets
• valuing the network that a candidate brings
• interviewing potential remote employees
• setting the right infrastructure to support remote talent

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More on Kailah: Kailah has been with Redwood since shortly after the company was founded and is responsible for global assignments. She specifically covers Redwood's European, US and Asia Pacific regions. Her years of experience working with international high-growth companies has made her an expert at interpreting business goals into human capital needs and realizing the best people to build successful businesses. She has successfully built global executive teams for companies within the mobile, internet and digital media sectors and has particular expertise with cross border searches. Kailah opened Redwood's London office and has been instrumental in developing the company'sglobal Executive Search practice. She has been with Redwood for over twenty years and was previously with a startup where she was responsible for building and launching their web/eCommerce strategy.

Office Hours: Women Building in the SE

The Art of Customer Feedback

You are invited to a Customer Success Strategy Session on The Art of Customer Feedback led by Andrew Ackerman, Managing Director at Dreamit, on Tuesday, April 21 from 5-6PM on Zoom.

What this will cover: During this session, Andrew will share the best methods to collect customer feedback to help improve your product. You will learn:

• How to narrow down the ideal customer to provide feedback
• What questions to ask that elicit valuable and honest feedback
• How to sustain this feedback model as you scale

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More on Andrew: Andrew is a recovering consultant turned serial entrepreneur, startup mentor and angel investor. He is the Managing Director at Dreamit, currently in charge of the UrbanTech accelerator program. Andrew has also written for Fortune, Forbes, Propmodo, CREtech, Builders Online, Architech Magazine, Multifamily Executive, AlleyWatch, Edsurge, The 74 Million, et. al. Andrew began his career at Booz & Co consulting on strategy and operations for Fortune 100 clients. He then joined Bunk1.com as COO, building it from scratch to the leading provider of web services to the summer camp industry until he was bought out in 2008. Andrew then incubated new ventures and managed over $50M of alternative (hedge, private equity, VC, angel) investments for a family office. Andrew was also the founding CEO of Layercake.com and has a keen appreciation for how hard it is to build a successful startup, even under the best of circumstances. Andrew received his MBA from Chicago Booth and a BA from Johns Hopkins University. He speaks Hebrew fluently as well as some Spanish, French & Japanese and is working on JavaScript.

Sales Strategy Session: Unlocking Growth & Traction Through Business Development

You are invited to a Sales Strategy Session led by Suhas Ghante (multi-time Y Combinator and 500 Startups-backed Founder) on Wednesday, April 15 from 12-1PM on Zoom.

What this will cover: Want to level up your business development tactics for lead prospecting, qualification, and generation? During this session, you'll learn:

• The toolbox of communication templates for B2B customers
• Frameworks to organize prospects and lead generation
• Software tools to stand out from the noise (and your competitors)

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More on Suhas: Suhas comes from a diverse background in software engineering, technology, analytics, and strategy consulting. He's led sales at multiple companies in both B2B and B2C startups backed by Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and more. Suhas received a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Funding Hacks for Your Future Raise

You are invited to a tactical workshop on Funding Hacks for Your Future Raise led by Nathan Beckord, CEO of Foundersuite, on Tuesday, April 7 from 12-1PM on Zoom.

What this will cover: In this session, SF-based serial "startup CEO wingman" Nathan Beckord will share guidance on funding hacks to shorten your timeline and maximize your connections for your next funding round based on his experience consulting with 150+ companies through this process.

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More on Nathan: Nathan Beckord is the founder and CEO of Foundersuite, a platform to streamline raising capital and investor relations so that founders can focus on product and customer acquisition. Previously, Nathan has served as a startup CFO and BD Lead at Venture Archetypes—working with 150+ companies including Clicker, Kickstarter, LaunchRock and many more.

Wellness Session: Be the Damn CEO of Your Well-Being

We welcome anyone in our member community to join us for our first wellness session, Be the Damn CEO of Your Well-being, led by by Laura Schneider of wellthier on Tuesday, March 31 at 12PM - 1PM.

What this will cover: Laura, a Functional Medicine and Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, has worked with startup leaders and entrepreneurs to help them achieve control over their well-being. She led Inc 500’s #24 fastest growing company as their sales executive and manager, moving into a sales coaching role solving for burnout, chronic stress + anxiety, and several other health conditions. During this session, Laura will cover:

• Staying Sane (and Mentally Tough) While Isolated
• Mental + Physical Well-being While WFH
• 5 Daily Rituals to Increase Productivity and Wellness
• Special Gift to all attendees

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More on Laura:

A Functional Medicine and Board Certified Health + Wellness Coach, Laura Schneider's purpose is to empower entrepreneurs + executives to be the CEO of their own well-being. By taking control of your health you're bringing your best self to the table so you can be, do, create, give + love more in this world. She's the founder of wellthier, a modern health + well-being solution offering private and group coaching and coming soon - an online course to truly become the CEO of your well-being.

Stay in the loop with wellthier wednesday where you'll enjoy one weekly health tip to optimize your business + personal life.

Founder Resiliency Open Q&A: Mark Jacobstein

You are invited to a Founder Resiliency Open Q&A led by Mark Jacobstein (formerly Guardant Health, Qualcomm, iSkoot) on Monday, March 30 from 12-1PM on Zoom. What this will cover: In this session, SF-based startup operator Mark Jacobstein will share guidance on identifying opportunities that can extend your startup's runway in times of crisis. Mark will share his experience with cash conservation, team layoffs and how to bridge fundraising before kicking-off the Q&A.

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More on Mark: Mark Jacobstein is a seasoned technology CEO with 25+ years of experience founding, building, and managing international high-growth consumer internet and consumer mobile companies. Early in his career, Mark founded the world’s first online fantasy sports company, Small World Sports, as well as the first web agency in New York City. Mark was co-founder and President of Digital Chocolate, and an EVP at loopt. Most recently, Mark was CEO of mobile VoIP pioneer iSkoot before its acquisition by Qualcomm, where Mark served as Vice President of Qualcomm iSkoot Technologies. He holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University.

Virtual Member Social

Please join us for our next Virtual Member Social to celebrate our community wins over BYO food and drinks on Thursday, 3/26 from 4-5PM on Zoom. All members of your team are welcome!

Open Q&A with Bob Moore - CEO with Tremendous Experience Surviving a Downturn

You are invited to a Founder Resiliency Open Q&A led by Bob Moore, CEO of Crossbeam, on Tuesday, March 24 from 10:30-11:30AM on Zoom.

Bob recently opened up in a tell-all interview with The First Round Capital Review and has agreed to help guide Embarc Collective founders through this uncertain time.

What this will cover: Bob Moore built startups when it wasn't that great a time to build a company, including in 2008. During this open Q&A conversation guided by your submitted questions, we'll hear how Bob was able to navigate building a startup during a downturn.

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More on Bob: Bob is a serial entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Crossbeam, a Series A backed startup from investors like First Mark and First Round Capital. Previously, he co-founded RJMetrics (acquired by Adobe via Magento Commerce in 2016) and Stitch Data (Acquired by Talend in 2018). Bob moonlights as Board President of Philly Startup Leaders, improv comedy performer at Philly Improv Theater, and Trustee of the Glassboro Education Foundation.

Marketing Roundtable: Communicating Crisis Management to Customers

What this will cover: How do you stay engaged with customers and stakeholders to communicate your company's response to a crisis? During this peer-led roundtable, we want to hear the challenges and successes our community is experiencing as we collectively navigate customer concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tyana will help guide the conversation in this open discussion session. Who might benefit from this: Founder/CEO, Marketing Lead

Fundraising Breakfast - Seed to Series A: Mark Achler, MATH Venture Partners

You are invited to an Ask-Me-Anything Fundraising Breakfast on Seed to Series A led by Mark Achler of Chicago-based MATH Venture Partners on Thursday, March 12th from 9-10:15AM in the VFF Conference Room. Mark will also be available for 1:1 office hours following the session.

What this will cover: Series A rounds have gotten bigger and are being done later on in a company’s lifecycle. This session will cover fundraising strategy from your Seed to Series A round. We’ll lead this as an AMA-style conversation guided by your submitted questions —from the necessary traction to proven unit economics to navigating early exit offers. Come prepared to ask any additional questions about the fundraising process or tactics.

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More on Mark: Mark Achler is Managing Director of MATH Venture Partners. Additionally, Mark teaches Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business. Prior to MATH, Mark was the Senior Vice President of New Business, Strategy and Innovation for Redbox. He is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four companies as well being a partner in an earlier venture fund called Kettle Partners. Mark has an undergraduate degree in Social Studies Education from Purdue University and is a frequent speaker, resource and ardent champion for the entrepreneurial community.

Member Social - March 2020

Please join us for our next member social to celebrate our community wins over light food and drink. This is your opportunity to connect with your fellow startups involved in our Embarc Collective community. Please RSVP if you are able to join us!

Marketing Strategy Session: Building Your Press Narrative

Having trouble sharing news about your startup? Need a game plan on when and what press releases to share about your company? In this session, Communication Manager Tyana Daley will explain how startups can build a press schedule and determine what story they should be telling about their startup.

Talent Strategy Session: Attracting Top Talent Through Your Career Page

Please join our Talent Strategy Session on Attracting Top Talent Through Your Career Page led Kailah Matyas on Tuesday, February 25th from 9:00-10:15AM in the VFF Conference Room at Embarc Collective.

What this will cover: To keep evolving as an organization, we need to source and attract the smartest people we can find to work with us. Building a company career page is the talent attraction tool you need to summarize your vision and mission, the everyday challenges you work tackle and the company culture you've built. In this session, Kailah will outline the necessary features of a careers page to help you attract top-level in-bound talent.

Who should join: Founder/CEO, Talent Lead, Marketing Lead, Operations Lead

CEO Strategy: Fundraising 101 Workshop

You are invited to a Fundraising 101 Workshop on Wednesday, February 19th from 12-1:15PM led by Ryan Schneider, Executive Advisor at Embarc Collective, in the JA ACE Classroom at Embarc Collective.

What this will cover: For any early-stage founders preparing to raise capital in the near-term future, please join us for a 101 overview on the following topics and more:

1. Fundraising terminology, term sheets and tactics 2. The metrics needed to raise a round 3. How to avoid common pitfalls 4. Setting up success for future fundraising

Are you a later stage founder? Stay tuned for subsequent 201 and 301 sessions in the months to come!

Fundraising Breakfast: Garage VC + V1 Ventures

CEO Strategy Session: IP Pitfalls to Avoid

Objectives and Key Results

In this session we'll go over the basics of Objectives and Key Results, a goal-setting framework founded at Intel and used to great success at many companies (most famously at Google). We'll cover how to set bold objectives and measurable key results, different strategies for scaling OKRs out to your team, and how you can tailor the framework to find success no matter the size of your startup or stage of your product. There will be time for questions and workshopping your own company's OKRs, so come prepared with your vision for the most important things that need to happen in 2020.

CEO Strategy Session: 2020 Strategy

How to HubSpot

Talent Strategy Session

Embarc Collective Friendsgiving

Marketing Strategy Session: User On-boarding

Customer Success Strategy Session

Dev Session: Homepage Throwdown

Talent Strategy Session: Adapting for Change

CEO Strategy Session: Finding and Leveraging Advisors

CPA Office Hours

Marketing Strategy Session: Communicating Company Culture

CS Strategy Session: Building vs. Outsourcing CS

Founder Summit

Developer Session: Dealing with Scale

CEO Strategy Session: Go-to-Market Strategy

Talent Strategy Session: Job Descriptions - Stop Hurting Your Hiring Pipeline

Embarc Collective Member Social

Marketing Strategy Session: Brand Identity

CEO Dinner with Deborah Ellinger

Sales Strategy Session: B2B Partnerships

CEO Strategy Session with Julia Taxin

Developer Session with Fabio De Sousa

Fundraising Peer Roundtable

Sales Strategy Session with Massoud Sedigh

Fundraising Lunch with Otter VC

Member Social

Talent Strategy Session: Best Practices for Interviewing

Sales Strategy Session with Chad Nuss

Fireside Chat with Aaron Fazulak of Designation

Building Inclusive Teams

Fundraising Breakfast with Travis Milks

Member Social

Customer Success Strategy Session with Alix Harris

AMA with Steve Parkis

CEO Strategy Session with Andrew Ackerman

Developer Session

CEO Strategy Session

Building a Story That Hooks: How to Write PR-Worthy Messages

Talent Planning: How to Prep for Fundraising

Katie Weiss Informal Roundtable

Securing Top Startup Press (Webinar)

International Women's Day Breakfast

Breakfast Workshop (Sales)

CEO Dinner—Synapse Summit