START LEARNING

The Flywheel Mentor Deck is both a service to our members and a way for members to give back and support entrepreneurship in the regions we serve across North and South Carolina.

The program is administered by the Flywheel Foundation, an affiliated non-profit focused on supporting entrepreneurs and ecosystem development.

Whether you are a solopreneur or a startup team, a main street business, or a highly scalable enterprise, everyone needs trusted mentors who have the right skills and match your stage of development.

Flywheel’s entrepreneurship curriculum is offered through an online learning management system (https://flywheel.courses/) which can be taken self-directed or through facilitator-led classes. The Foundation has developed three flights of curriculum:

• Early- Stage – a multimodule course offering based on lean startup practices applied to ideation, starting a startup, lean marketing, legal protection and financing pathways.
• Growth-Stage – courses that address the journey funded companies take to build an organization, manage operations, get alignment on execution, and navigate venture deals and other forms of funding.
• Hosted Courses – Flywheel partners with a variety of organizations and ESOs to develop their own curriculum and create 24/7 and instructor-led courses on our learning management system.

Our original content is developed in house with the support of successful entrepreneurs and investors. Additional content draws on trusted courseware from Stanford, MIT and a variety of online, print and video lecture resources that have proven to be of value to our startups over the years. Certificates are provided at the end of the class for students that complete the curriculum.

We continually add and improve the content and adjust the learning online management system. Online self-directed curriculum is offered 24/7/365. The facilitator-led course cycle begins in September to coincide with the academic year and runs year-round in 4–6-week modules.

The Flywheel Foundation develops mentor networks in support of our investment programs as well as a general service to the ecosystems we serve. Dedicated program managers curate venture readiness and arrange mentor team assignment. We use Traction5 software to manage all meeting scheduling and preparation, track the progress of the ventures in the program, and measure the success of the venture-mentor relationship.

The Foundation holds the MIT license for Venture Mentor Services in our Concord location which is based on three pillars:

• Building a trusted environment between mentors and mentees
  • We vet, screen, formally interview, set clear expectations of ventures and mentors alike
  • Mentors are expected to be straightforward in feedback, not judgmental
  • We follow strict confidentiality and conflict of interest guidelines
  • Financial self-interest by mentors is not allowed
• Team Mentoring
  • Three-person mentor teams are assigned to the ventures
  • A mix of backgrounds and professional experience is critically important
  • Teams evolve based on the needs of the entrepreneur
• Nothing is ad hoc, the engagements are structured
  • Both mentors and founders go through an on-ramping and training process
  • We hold monthly mentor meetings and venture meetings
  • There is a lead mentor, responsible for the meeting structure and follow-up
  • The entrepreneur has to set the agenda in advance and arrive early for mentor meetings

These general principles apply to all of our mentoring activities.