On February 29, CCE welcomed our first cohort of the Kinetic Boot Camp for a full-day, action-packed Kick-Off event. CCE selected nine creatives with ideas for unique businesses, who then completed a four-week hands-on learning experience to turn their idea into a business. Kinetic helps creatives determine their business’ unique value proposition to get ready to launch.
Our cohort wasted no time getting to work during the Kick-Off workshop. Taking advantage of Leap Day, the Kinetic cohort, CCE staff, and guest faculty jumped right into the curriculum, covering the innovation process, talking to potential customers, developing a creative mindset, and the power to choose and recognize opportunities. Kinetic’s curriculum is sourced from CCE’s own entrepreneurial resources, the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program, and the expertise of our world-class guest faculty and mentors.
Following the 2/29 kick-off, the cohort, along with mentors and guest facilitators, kept the momentum going and met every Tuesday and Thursday evening in the month of March. The cohort learned how to:
- Validate their creative idea
- Deepen customer discovery and who their target customers are
- Focus and understand the benefit their business provides
- Begin developing a business model
- Understand how to build a budget and a 12-month forecast
- Design marketing tools
- Discuss legal structures and concepts
- Create mission, vision, and value statements
Like many of you, our business operations shifted to working from home given the restrictions introduced by COVID-19. The Kinetic cohort, mentors, and facilitators stopped meeting in person and began holding sessions via Zoom. Even though we had to quickly pivot to meeting online, the cohort remained engaged and eager to finish Kinetic strong. In-person breakout groups were replaced by Google Hangouts and Zoom breakout rooms, but the cohort’s enthusiasm to share their latest work with each other and the mentors did not wane.
On March 28, Kinetic ended with a full day of content and all cohort members giving a three-minute pitch to their peers and mentors. Awards were given to cohort members based on their three-minute presentations, and marketing collateral. Awards included consultations with Royalty Marketing, Sightsource, and Kilpatrick Townsend and business coaching with ActionCOACH – Team Hauser.
We could not have done this without our guest faculty and mentors:
Alyson Francisco
Michael Fulks
David Gilbert
Rick Leander
Judd Meinhart
Daryl Shaw
Liana Thompson
Dick Vann
Here are some things cohort members has to say about their experience:
“I can’t believe how much I learned in 4 short weeks! I intend to use a number of the mentors from Kinetic professionally as Aeswap moves forward”
“Kinetic was like dropping into the safety of a nest as a baby entrepreneur and having all these fabulous mentors bring me morsels of knowledge from many different perspectives. It was safe, fun, engaging, inspiring and empowering. I now have a more well-rounded understanding of how to run a business. I’m a fledgling!!!!!!”
“I can’t believe how much useful information, world-class mentorship, and concrete tasks were packed into four weeks. It has given me the framework for going ahead in my business and I am eternally grateful. I look forward to carrying through with the tools provided and sharing my successes.”
