210 likes | 240 Views
MicroMentor connects 60,000 entrepreneurs and 26,000 mentors from 200 countries, supporting industries from IT to Fashion. Find mentors, build social capital, and benefit from altruistic mentoring. Discover the impact of online mentoring and how it can transform entrepreneurial outcomes. Join the community and create positive change in the world!
E N D
MicroMentor Empowering Entrepreneurs with Mentoring Anita Ramachandran, Executive Director
MicroMentor Our Community 60,000 entrepreneurs 26,000 mentors 200 countries 26,000 mentors
MicroMentor Our Community • 20,000 Entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 30 • 57% start with just an idea • Industries ranging from IT to Fashion to Education
MicroMentor Karim & Brian Karim started his MicroMentor journey at 27 years old. “[Working with Brian] has changed the way I work. It has impacted me and how I run my small business! I am so grateful because it is so hard to find an opportunity like this.”
MicroMentor Get Started
MicroMentor Search
MicroMentor Connect
MicroMentor Why is this important?
MicroMentor Social Capital 60% of entrepreneurs on MicroMentor, reported not having access to ANY business development resources, outside of MicroMentor.
MicroMentor Social Capital “Aggregate of the actual or potential resources… linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition” – Bourdieu (1986) May be exchanged for access to economic capital (investment, access to protected markets) (Portes, 1998; Prashantham & Dhanaraj, 2010; Shane & Cable, 2002)
MicroMentor Social Capital Two forms of social capital (Portes & Landolt, 2000) • Instrumental (direct reciprocity) • Altruistic (paying it forward) Instrumental social capital widely studied in entrepreneurship • Derived from ethnicity (Kalnins & Chung, 2006), geography (Laursen et al., 2011), prior work (Prashantham & Dhanaraj, 2010) • Vissa (2011) finds Indian entrepreneurs form ties based on caste, language, task complementarity Altruistic social capital receives less attention…
MicroMentor Mentoring as Altruistic Social Capital Benefits to mentoring (in general) well documented in law (Kay & Wallace, 2009), academia (Poteat et al., 2009), engineering (Dennehy & Dasgupta, 2017) Entrepreneurial mentoring receiving more attention • Students more likely to pursue entrepreneurial careers (Eesley & Wang, 2017) • More confidence in abilities to complete entrepreneurial tasks (St-Jean & Mathieu, 2015) • Short-term increases in profits for microenterprise founders (Brooks et al., 2018) But can entrepreneurs acquire altruistic social capital (in the form of mentors VIRTUALLY)?
MicroMentor The Big Question What are the effects of online mentoring on entrepreneurial and venture-level outcomes? Answer to this coming in 2020. But for now, we are interested in an antecedent question… • Antecedent Question How can entrepreneurs effectively find (online) mentors?
Experimental & Quasi-Experimental Design Retrospective (2015-2017 data) • Can Institutional Supports Improve the Quality of the Volun-‘told’? An Analysis of Online Volunteer Mentors (under review) • Narratives and Information Asymmetry: How descriptions of support needs affect entrepreneurial mentoring conversations (in progress) Prospective • How can entrepreneurs build social capital? An Experimental Study of Online Mentoring (in progress) • The Impact of Online Mentoring (in progress) • Online Mentoring for Practitioners & Policy Makers Toolkit (in progress)
MicroMentor Preliminary Findings
MicroMentor Our Impact • A mentored entrepreneur creates an average of at least 2 new jobsin the first year, $238/net new job • Through mentoring, 43% of fledgling entrepreneurs will turn their ideas into businesses for less than $5,000 per new business.
MicroMentor Karim As of 2018, Karim has improved the dental health of over 1,200 local community members.Karim has tripledhis customer base, doubled his revenue, and hired three full-time employees.
MicroMentor MicroMentor in organizations
MicroMentor MicroMentor Shared Impact • Engaging employees Providing a model for corporate social responsibility that engages and inspires employees. • Widening impact with a global networkConnecting stakeholders with people across the globe • Connecting stakeholders to proven resourcesMaking it easy for users to find mentorship through technological solutions like API integration • Stimulating impact by regionProviding a framework for proven economic impact in regions like the State of New York, Indonesia, Jordan, and Tunisia
Thank You! Anita Ramachandran, Executive Director