It’s been a MAD week here at Akcela, in fact, somehow, through the past month, it’s been a bit of a MAD start to the year. Whilst it seems like yesterday we were updating on a fantastic close of the year, now we are updating on the end of the month. MAD.
We talk so much in person, at events, on the phone. Anywhere someone will listen really, about how important our community is. When all the chips are down, this is ultimately what’s really, important. If there is one thing I am sure we have right, it’s our approach to community. I can talk at length about that, but this isn’t the post.
At the beginning of the week, we were fortunate enough to be joined by MAD-HR (oh that’s why all of the MAD jokes). As a bit of background to the MAD-HR and Akcela partnership, it started right at the outset of incubator, and in fact, a little bit before. I sometimes forget the journey we have been on together, because of, well COVID and a whirlwind of an ever-growing community and business. Carole and the team have been there throughout and that deep understanding of what we want to achieve came through in the presentation.
MAD-HR stepped up as our first CPD talk for the community and my word… that’s a tough act to follow (sorry Luminous). The presentation essentially became a structured Q&A, if you want to know about a competence of someone, see if they can explain a complex area and make it easy to understand. The talk lasted around 20 minutes longer than planned, simply due to the conversations the community spun up. The MAD-HR team didn’t miss a beat and the feedback has been excellent. I have said it before and I say it again. Community. Community. Community.
The talk covered common mistakes startup and scale up businesses make in HR. As I have already said, the talk was so well structured, it became a logical conversation. Everyone who I have spoken to about it since, got massive value and it goes to show what value experts in a specific space bring (I started rightly so, by saying HR is not my specialty, surround yourself with people who can do that tasks that you can’t.)
Thank you to Carole and the entire team (a presentation of that quality doesn’t just happen). We look forward to seeing you deliver another presentation and you visiting to catch up with the team again soon.
The Business Founder Meeting
A real asset to our community is the founder meeting, whilst events like the CPD and lunch event are open to everyone within the team and wider community, founder meetings are a sacred space, just for founders. They’re a real secret sauce to that community aspect I keep talking about. Why are you sharing such secrets, I hear you cry. It’s simple.
Creating a safe space for founders to talk about their successes, their struggles, fears, worries, weaknesses and strengths. It is something we should absolutely normalise and encourage, it moves the conversation away from just the business, into looking after our own wellbeing. I get so much out of it. Whilst I have grown a number of businesses, people often forget that I am a founder too and like every child, a startup is different every single time. We think we have created an incredible space I wanted to take this platform to promote just how effective doing this well is for everyone within the space.
Next Incubator Community Meetings
Our next meeting, on Tuesday 1st March, will be a CPD talk from Luminous PR talking everything you need to know about your PR strategy for startup and scaleup businesses. Members of the incubator will then be invited to sign up for free one-to-one sessions after the discussion. Tuesday 5th April we will be joined by Anglia Capital Group, talking about raising early stage investment and investment preparedness.
If you are interested in joining the Akcela incubator, you can find out more about business incubation in Norfolk and our approach to supporting startup businesses.