Carol Malakasis’ Post

On 20th April, we hosted an incredible "Lunch & Learn" event at our office! Our goal? To demystify the world of startups and connect with curious minds from diverse backgrounds. The result? An afternoon filled with: 1️⃣ Meeting talented individuals: We connected with fantastic folks from various industries, sparking insightful conversations and broadening our perspectives. 2️⃣ Breaking the ice (and building connections!): We kicked things off with some fun icebreakers, setting the stage for a collaborative and engaging atmosphere. 3️⃣ A product demo with a purpose: We showcased our product in action, getting valuable feedback from participants that will help us refine and improve. The most rewarding part? 4️⃣ Engaging with the insightful questions our guests asked – the kind everyone wants answers to but rarely hears discussed openly. From navigating the startup rollercoaster to fostering a thriving company culture, we covered a wide range of topics, all with the aim of shedding light on the realities of startup life. This event solidified the importance of fostering open dialogue within the startup community. By sharing our experiences and learnings, we can empower aspiring entrepreneurs and build a more vibrant ecosystem for innovation. A huge thank you to everyone who participated! Your curiosity and engagement fueled a fantastic discussion. Stay tuned for more opportunities to connect and explore the exciting world of startups! #startuplife #saas #lunchandlearn #community #collaboration

I empathise with #founders . Last few months I have been super active, creating mini communities because I believe in the power of shared interest. I believe in connection power. Just this month I announced chiefX Asia and shortlisted 10 MNC corporate leaders to debut my #podcast and secured 2 online fireside chats while creating the best value-for-money membership program, comprising 6 pillars. This is in tandem with prepping the last season of C-shark Tank, Season 10. What I find empowering about the #startup mindset is you do not need to have nailed 100% of everything before you launch. Start cooking, give it time to breathe, to brew, to validate, reiterate in the journey of it all. LinkedIn amplifies your voice and your reach. However, I do not call myself an entrepreneur. What I do pales in comparison with the 6 startups who are pitching to one set of C-sharks online on Nov 28 7:30pm and flying into Chiangmai on Nov 30 to engage immersively with another set of C-sharks. I empower #executiveconnections - not the superficial kind. The reason I made #clubchiefX membership cost less than a dollar a day is because I can and I believe in over-delivering. I don't do this for a living but I do this to scale a network of influence, collective growth mindset and peer support - diverse, gender agnostic. Early stage founders are like Swiss knives. They have to do everything, be everyone to everyone. They almost clone themselves every waking minute of the day to be effective in the front and at the back. No one does this just for a living. If you work at MNCs and are a director and above, join us in the online track Nov 28 for a "shark dive" with our curated 6 startups in tech infrastructure, fintech and healthtech. No executive has left C-shark Tank feeling unimpressed with the way we pace the pitch engagement, allocating good time to LIVE Q & A with the startups. DM me for access to C-shark Tank. It will be among the best 2.5 hours spent of your year. While you are at that, follow us on chiefX Asia and sign up as member at clubchiefX.com too. #boardmember #boardadvisor #leaders #csuite #peernetwork #angelinvestor

Had the pleasure of hosting The Founder Folks' first Founders meetup in San Francisco 📍, and tbh I was lucky enough to have Tammie Siew from pebblebed who helped me to pull this off, being a first-timer in the city. 🙌 I can't deny the fact that I was surrounded by some amazing smart founders chasing their dreams in this amazing city. We not only just hung out together at this party but we also had Product Leaders Ashu Dubey and Vinay Jain who took out time to help founders with some burning questions in this world of AI building companies. 🚀 We also had the privilege to host a couple of founders who showcased their products, and we got an amazing audience who engaged with these founders with true honest feedback. Plus, a couple of them actually kicked off some conversations with potential interested customers. 💬 A special shoutout for the demos, we had: Simone Maria Macario building Sharly Ruchir Patwa building SydeLabs Vinay Jain building Sesame Labs And Me showcasing Olvy 🌟 I did get some amazing response and good feedback that everyone needs this environment for early-stage startups, looking to find more like-minded people and discuss some of the common problems we go through as founders. That's what my and Suhas Motwani's vision is - to build an ecosystem with The Founder Folks for early-stage founders. And we promise to bring in a more highly curated set of dreamers in one room and make those conversations worthy for you to start your dream venture 💪

One of the best parts about building STEM Link is getting to meet, work with, negotiate, and close deals with CEOs, CTOs, and senior leaders from big tech companies we once looked up to. These are opportunities I could never have come close to if I had followed the conventional paths we were “meant” to take. Me Udara Thewarahannadige Manupa Samarawickrama and my team witnessed the impact these professionals could make in our lives in just 2-3 phone calls if we hit them up with the right proposal. If you’re a startup founder, remember that every small opportunity matters. Sometimes, the unexpected moments… a last-minute physical meetup, an unplanned event invitation, or a unprepared nerve-wracking boardroom pitch could be that moment which shifts the entire trajectory of your company. I’ve witnessed it happening for us in the past few months, and it’s been a real eye-opener. #startup_journey #STEMlink

It is a bit sad that I cannot go for a real coffee during IT Arena this week. But well, next time! During the past two weeks, it was a great lineup of founders preparing to Startup Track Pitch Competition. Some interesting founders I mentored where from: - dual use tech - mindfulness tech - health & beauty tech - b2b saas - ed tech - sales tech Most 'worked on' parts of the pitch: - overall storyline - how to shape our story? Which angle to take? - how do we explain our solution? - how do we explain 'how does it work'? - what should TAM/SAM slide communicate? - the best way to show traction with early customers/pilots? - how to highlight our reputation within the eco-system? - presenting founder/market fit. If you want to jump on some last few mentorship spots - link will be in the comment. Good luck during Startup Track pitch days: 26-27th of September! #itarena #itarena24 #startuptrack

The under dog and the brand association When you are the underdog, you need to leverage what you can. When I ran edocr.com I made sure when our much larger competitors were mentioned, we also got mentioned. This strategy helped me to have an awesome Alexa ranking as well as single handedly acquired 200,000 users prior to Exit. At Techcelerate Coffees Manchester, I had a lengthy conversation on the same topic with one of the cleverest tech entrepreneurs I know. When I was building ebdex, my first FinTech from 2004 to 2006, he was my biggest competitor. Then we teamed up together to create edocr.com but he left after a year. Today, he runs two tech startups with 2 other amazing individuals. These 3 are the most productive individuals I have seen in the tech startup world. He is competing with billion dollar companies and two trillion dollar companies. The strategy he is adopting is no different to the past and include: - Buy time and survive long enough to kill the cool kids - Brand association I spoke about my strategy for SkilledUp Life - for me, the brand we are developing is everything. We also have an unique culture which I want to later productise and make it available to our tech startup customers. At present, I have not bothered with identifying the competition - however, I need to have a deeper understanding on this soon enough. I hate the social impact bandwagon so hopefully I won't be linking us to such. But we need to start thinking about how we get our message across given the overall market we play in is diverse and extensive. Secondly, I also need to buy time, not to fend off potential competition but to shake off our MVP which we had been operating for over 4 years. Its now strangling our growth. We will then be able to iterate rapidly. We might end up feature rich given the skilled volunteer talent pool at our disposal. Sorry, this post might not necessarily make sense to most of you. But I just wanted to dump my thoughts. #SkilledUpLife #competition #brand #brandassociation #survival

What I learned at this years Startup nights? 1. Team Our team has an incredible positive attitude, energy and we just work hard! 👏🏻👏🏻 12 hour days? No problem! Debrief at 23:30? No problem! World. Class. Team! 🙏🏻 2. Leads Startup Days are not where we generate new Clients. It‘s much more a combination of Branding, being able to listen to the market and reconnecting with Clients and Partners of ours. 3. ICP Our ideal customer profile (Founders of Series A startups) are not hanging out here or at least did not visit our stand.🤷🏻♂️ 4. Prep Our preparation needs to improve! We did not invest enough in getting to know the participants up front to have more targeted meetings. Our friends at Peakora did that much better! 5. Visibility Not having a speech or break-out session (for the first time) hurts our effectiveness. We obviously had less interactions and visibility. Something to change for next year again. 6. Location Location is key! We made sure to have a location that most people would walk past. Like in real estate: location, location, location 😅 And the list goes on and on! Will we be there again next year with a Holycode™ stand? Yes, absolutely. Will we do better than this year? Yes, absolutely. How was the event for you? What are your learnings? ❓❔ Alyssia, Michael, Joël, Sandra, Regula, Kristian, Monika, Franziska, Andy, Wolfgang, Luc, Stefan, Luiza

Hello #Founders in #Singapore, Lepak House events are back! 😎 I'm SO excited to announce that Henry and I will be co-hosting our next founder event with none other than Iterative. 🏡 Who is this for: All Iterative community members AND Founders thinking of applying/already applied to Iterative's next batch 🏡 When and where: My sick patio. Lepak House, near Jalan Besar MRT. 30th August, 6pm-9pm. 🏡 What is this event about: Come hang out with members of the Iterative community, learn about each other, and have fun. We feel this is the best way to learn about Iterative! As with all Lepak House events, we say no business cards and yes to chill founder vibes. There is also no agenda or talks. If you're an Iterative founder and we haven't met, I can't wait to meet you! If you're a founder interested in applying to Iterative, bring your burning questions and grill us. 🍗 As an Iterative founder + scout myself, one thing I respect immensely about the Iterative community is it never intends to be gatekeep-y for no reason. We believe startup ecosystems can only grow and thrive if founders support each other. When I first joined Iterative, I was shocked at the number of founders willing to give candid support without expecting anything in return. These founders then go on to becoming visiting partners, angel investors, while taking their companies to the moon. While building Hawkr is my number 1 priority today, I want to give back to the founder community in any way I can. Btw, we're doing a potluck this time. The rule? Bring something that starts with the first letter of your startup. 😉 🚀 Many of you have been DM-ing me regarding your startups and ahhhhh I'm so honored to be part of your journey. My DMs are overflowing so if I haven't responded to you and you'd like me to, please drop a comment below and I'll get to it as soon as I can. _____________________________ We're going to have so much fun! Event registration link in the comments below. 👇

🌟 Reflections from Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024 🌟 Last week, I had the privilege of attending the Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024—an inspiring event that brought together innovators, thinkers, and trailblazers from across the tech world. One of the highlights for me was attending a session by Nuseir Yassin from Nas Daily. His talk on 5 Startup Hacks was incredibly insightful, touching on the very core of what makes startups thrive: 1️⃣ Talent Hack: Build a team of passionate individuals who align with your mission—talent is your strongest currency. 2️⃣ Marketing Hack: Focus on storytelling; it’s not about selling a product but creating a connection with your audience. 3️⃣ Office Hack: Invest in creating a space that sparks creativity and collaboration—it’s more than just desks and chairs. 4️⃣ Momentum Hack: Start small but keep moving—speed over perfection can drive incredible results. 5️⃣ Content Hack: Share your journey authentically. Content is not just king; it’s your direct line to your audience. Each point resonated deeply, not just as advice but as a challenge to rethink and refine how we approach growth and innovation at Ateam Soft Solutions. Kudos to the organizers for curating such a powerful lineup of speakers and sessions! If you attended the event, I’d love to hear your key takeaways—what inspired you most? #BengaluruTechSummit #Startups #Innovation #NasDaily #Leadership

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