Are you in a startup and looking for a coach/mentor/consultant to guide you along the way? Look no further! Applications for the Twin Entrepreneurs coaching programme, organised by the Vienna Business Agency, are now open, and interested startups can register by 14 November for the chance to receive one-on-one coaching sessions with coaches brought together by Twin Entrepreneurs.
A total of 20 startups from Vienna and Bratislava will be selected for the sessions, each of which can claim up to 10 hours of coaching time. inventures.eu spoke to Selma Prodanovic, one of the coaches, to find out what such coaching might entail.
Entrepreneurs – mind, body and soul
“There are quite a few needs all startups have in common, such as financing,” said Prodanovic. “Yet, when it comes to more personal issues – the area where business and personal life begin to blur, one-on-one coaching and mentoring are indispensable.” An entrepreneur herself and currently the CEO of brainswork, Prodanovic knows the pains and mistakes of starting a new company.
Twin Entrepreneurs’ coaching will aim to address precisely some of these issues, because while business is, of course, important, it is also crucial not to forget the people, who run those businesses. “Any startup out there is first and foremost a group of people – a typically sleep-deprived, often times worried and exhausted group of people,” said Prodanovic. “And it is particularly difficult if moral support from family and friends is sparse – any startup needs to know that they’re not alone.”
Sometimes, you have to get burned
The more business-centred aspect of the coaching will focus on preventing common missteps young entrepreneurs make, as “losing track of one’s vision after countless iterations of adapting to the target market,” Prodanovic gave an example. “It is in many cases difficult to keep personal and business visions aligned.”
Avoiding mistakes is, however, not an option. “Falling is inevitable,” she said. ”The real art is in using setbacks as clues to get back up stronger than before – which is both mentally and financially difficult.”
Apart from being a coach in the programme, Prodanovic will also hold the third Twin Entrepreneurs workshop on 28 October in Bratislava, where the topic will be how to grow into new markets, manage brand and positioning, and how to select a target group.
Alongside brainswork, TPA Horwath and Vergo Consulting are also onboard as coaches.
Twin Entrepreneurs is a cross-border initiative aimed at providing practical assistance to startups from the area of Vienna and Bratislava that want to make the second step – sustain their business and expand abroad. The series is organised by the Vienna Business Agency, the European National Agency for Development of Small and Medium Enterprises and the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia.
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