As most professionals have made the transition to remote work during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to compile a list of 10 resources to help you take control of your professional growth.
Here you will find digital resources that you can take advantage of from anywhere in the world, including many that cater directly to the Washington DC entrepreneurial scene.
Whether it’s taking online courses, finding a world-class virtual accelerator, gaining access to funding, or simply connecting with like-minded individuals in the local community, there’s something for everyone to take away on their journeys toward professional growth.
Here are 10 resources to help you along your way.
Take an online entrepreneurial course
Digital transformation was already taking place before the coronavirus pandemic hit, but since its arrival, online resources for entrepreneurs have shown tremendous growth.
Gro is an online academy that teaches aspiring entrepreneurs how to start a successful business.
Using their free idea assessment tool, Gro X, budding businessmen and women receive a customized brief to help determine the validity and market opportunities for their business ideas without having to pay a penny.
Once the business idea is validated, Gro takes care of all the rest — setting up online lessons and exercises guided by seasoned veterans who help turn ideas into successful products and services.
Gro recently partnered with Entrepreneur.com to co-launch a new education platform for idea-stage entrepreneurs called Start Your Own Business.
The platform is currently offering a 7-day no-risk trial for its toolbox of educational resources, and webinars with industry experts, which can idea stage entrepreneurs take the first steps on launching potentially world-changing businesses.
Hire a purpose-driven business coach
Growing a business is a journey. As such, new challenges will arise every step of the way, but not every entrepreneur will know the best course of action to take in their decision making.
Silicon Valley CEO coach Barbara Shannon works with purpose-driven CEOs to teach them how to meet and conquer all the challenges that lay ahead.
“As a CEO coach, I get to partner with amazing individuals in pursuit of their dreams. Their successes are the rocks my business is built on,” she boasts.
Shannon helps passionate visionaries find their true business potential. To help leaders on their journeys, she creates a wealth of useful content offering actionable advice for CEOs and purpose-driven business leaders. You can check out her podcast series ‘The B-suite’ here.
Enter a pre-seed accelerator
COVID-19 hasn’t slowed down the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, the Founder Institute, as all in-person programs have been successfully migrated online.
No matter where you are in the world, you can still receive the best mentorship, access to funding, and expanded office hours that puts you in front of the brightest minds across the Founder Institute’s 70+ chapters in over 185 cities across 60 countries.
After the move to go fully virtual, CEO Adeo Ressi said, “Our application volume is as high as it has ever been, because times like these are when smart entrepreneurs build the future.”
Apply to a seed accelerator
Years before the COVID-19 pandemic forced accelerators to go online, Techstars was already offering virtual Anywhere Accelerators, and these programs have continued to see significant growth in 2020.
This year, Techstars has been transitioning its main acceleration programs to virtual formats, which gives entrepreneurs and mentors even more flexibility with increased availability and communication between teams.
Techstars’ Washington DC-based “Future of Longevity” acceleration program is about to kick-off in September with a focus on solutions for providing and receiving elderly care.
“With generations living longer than ever before, there is an incredible opportunity for innovation within the caregiving space,” said Techstars Senior Vice President of Accelerators Keith Camhi, at the time of the program’s launch in January.
This market is experiencing unprecedented economic growth as the American 50+ population is already responsible for trillions of dollars of spending and economic activity,” he added.
Upgrade your skills
As businesses grow they need to assess where their talent is at in their professional development, and job seekers need to know which skills they need to work on in order to be eligible for a company position.
PitchMe specializes in identifying which skills a person has and where they need to improve to meet the qualifications of job posters.
By setting up a SmartMe profile, the platform can capture over 4,000 hard and soft skills in under three minutes, and match which ones correspond to each user.
Once the profile is completed with all of your skill sets, that profile is then sent out anonymously to recruiters, who matches you with employers based on your skills, regardless of your age, gender, education, or employment history.
Learn to scale your business
If your company is looking to transition from market fit into scalable and repeatable growth, then Straight Talk Consulting has got you covered.
As a business consultancy that likes to get its hands dirty, Staight Talk Consulting ticks all the boxes that a marketing agency would do, but goes far, far beyond in bringing added value to its clients, including overseeing training, operations, sales, and analytics.
The consultancy is all about implementing processes that will carry a company along a successful trajectory by giving them the knowledge that they will carry with them when they are on their own.
Connect with entrepreneurs in your area
What better way to learn about starting up than from those in your local community?
As the largest network of incubators along the Northeast Corridor, 1776 was born in DC with the vision of building an inclusive incubator for startups disrupting entrenched industries.
In describing their key focus 1776 states, “We’ve purposely chosen challenging, government-dominated markets because our roots in Washington, DC give us proprietary connections, insights, and tools that can be used to drive massive scale revenue growth. The key to it all is connections and learning.”
Apart from having a physical location just a few steps away from the White House on Lafayette Square, anyone can apply to become a member online, with access to mentors, investors, classes, and events regardless of location.
Showcase your startup
Coming very soon, founders will be able to showcase their startups before a DC-based community of like-minded individuals at the annual DC Startup Week 2020.
Registration is now live, and the five-day virtual event is the perfect opportunity to showcase your startup while making meaningful connections with those in the community.
The event offers attendees the opportunity to:
- Cultivate new partnerships and opportunities with fellow attendees
- Meet one-on-one with founders, service providers, investors, and more
- Connect with the like-minded attendees through customized chat groups and new online micro-communities
- Learn during live, interactive events throughout the week
- Build your schedule via our streamlined schedule
- Engage with experts and directly ask them questions related to your business
- Access resources and exclusive offers from our partners and sponsors
DC Startup Week 2020 runs from September 14-18, and this year it has gone completely virtual due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Create a new digital product
Entrepreneurs amass a wealth of experience in their business journeys, and they should look to packaging their learnings in the form of digital products such as e-books, educational webinars, and online tools.
Software development company Talos Digital creates custom software and mobile apps to help businesses build their digital products.
The Talos team prides itself on its agile approach to software development and with locations that span from Latin America all the way to the Eastern seaboards of the US and Canada, the award-winning developers are in a convenient time zone from doing business on both sides of the Atlantic.
Looking to get into e-commerce? Talos has got you covered as well, with certified Magento development specialists who create custom, top-notch solutions that drive traffic and generate revenue.
Get media coverage
You’ve got a great company, and the whole world should know about it, but where to begin?
Some businesses have the backing of celebrity investors, and if you’re lucky enough to have one of those, then the press should be blowing up your inbox any second now.
But for the majority of us who don’t have that luxury, getting media coverage can seem like a daunting task, but the return on investment from achieving a well-placed article featuring your brand can be exponential.
Fortunately, digital PR and marketing services can help grow your brand awareness by placing the right story in front of the right journalist at the right time.
These types of services do all the heavy lifting for you — from creating press releases and pitching special stories to relevant journalists to articulating your company’s vision while beefing up your SEO and social profile.
In Washington, DC, TOP works with everyone from Fortune 500 companies to startups with only a handful of employees to maximize their media exposure and more.
It is never too early to start thinking about sharing your message with the world.
Disclosure: this article includes a clients of an ESPACIO portfolio company