A great Startup Grind chapter is never a one-man or woman show. A whole community comes together to learn from a local luminary, and this takes a great team. Your first event will require at least a single audio-visual volunteer and a logistical volunteer whom you trust with checking in guests and collecting money for tickets at the door. You’ll likely need this whole team to help set up your venue with chairs, food, and then helping to clean it up. Celebrate your community by letting them get involved.
Startup Grind loves working with directors who are themselves entrepreneurs because they understand leverage: they know their time is best spent on finding great speakers, securing powerful sponsorships, and engaging directly with their community. They are comfortable finding smart, inspired, trustworthy individuals to fill in the gaps in marketing, logistics, or finances as needed at each chapter. Over time, the amount of guests willing to contribute their time to your events will grow exponentially. We don’t believe there’s a maximum size for your team, but as you grow, feel confident in promoting your long-standing volunteers into positions of increased responsibility and managing other members of your larger team.
There’s no doubt about it: being a volunteer at Startup Grind means playing a big role in the growth of the local entrepreneurial community. It’s a prestigious role for any student or entrepreneur, will bring them new clients and job offers, and get them working directly with the most influential people in their city. Be thankful and gracious to your volunteers, but understand that you’re both doing one another a favor. Your volunteers help you with your event and community. You help your volunteers with their career and personal development - and that should be exciting for anyone looking for opportunity!
You, the Director
Among all the entrepreneurs and investors in the room, you’ll have the best job in the room: giving the community a night of connections, takeaway lessons, and a burst of inspiration with which to build something that matters. Once the logistics of your event are in place and people begin to file in, you will have two responsibilities for the rest of the night.
The first will be to host the fireside chat and Q&A with your speaker once the time is right. The “Interview Prep” section gives advice on how to weave the interview into an incredible educational story.
The second, and equally important role, is to be the most helpful person in the room. Make everyone, especially the founders who seem new and fresh, feel welcome and empowered to take advantage of the night. Introduce people you meet that night to one another, especially if they seem to be able to help one another. Call out your incredible team for helping you put this show together. Thank your sponsors personally before the show starts, and again publicly after the interview.
In this room full of people, you really have the opportunity to share the values of Startup Grind and the feeling of being in Silicon Valley. Make friends, not contacts, and be as helpful to them as you can. The tone you set at your events is the difference between having to invite new people each time and having past attendees become local every month, with another friend in tow.
After you’ve thanked your speaker and helped them with anything else they might need (which may include a hasty exit for your VIP), say hello to other guests who approach you and with whom you’ve spoken before the interview session. Later, check in on social media to see if you’ve missed anything from your more introverted members. Post a few pictures online to make your community feel included and celebrated. Take your team out for a pizza and drinks. After the day of the event, your job is to enjoy yourself and bring others into your great energy!
Your Co-Director, CMO or COO
By your second or third event, well-connected community leaders might begin approaching you to become involved in Startup Grind on a more impactful and consistent basis. As you’ve thrown your first event and know your strengths, this is a great time to think about the high-level work with which you could use help. While the titles aren’t important - you will both be local directors - having a co-director is like bringing on a Chief Marketing or Chief Operations Officer.
As the Marketing Director, your mind is focused on an ambitious vision for the community, while attracting the best speakers and attendees. When it comes to people, you seem to know how to excite and inspire them - which makes you very effective in hosting, community building, and marketing.
As the Operations Director, your mind is focused on the details and perfect execution. In all logistics - from booking the venue to posting your events online - the operations lead is key to making the event flow well. You always seem to have everything under control and keep the team on track to growing well-organized events.
Your chapter will certainly be uniquely composed based on your needs and strengths, but this duo of detail and vision seems to work for many of our global chapters. Think of your Startup Grind as a startup, with the goal of empowering your community of entrepreneurs. Whatever role makes you and your team most effective in achieving that goal is the one you should take. It can also be effective to promote your volunteers into management positions as your staff grows,
Logistics: Venue Setup, Ticketing, Check-In
The volunteer you ask to help with check-in must be one whom you trust with technology (as they’ll likely be using Eventbrite on a tablet or phone), collecting money, and who will create a positive first impression for entrepreneurs as they come to the door.
If selling tickets at the door, the best tool continues to be EventBrite. Have a volunteer-serviced computer or mobile device with which guests can sign up and pay.
If using cash or credit, it will mean trusting your volunteer with the cash you have already taken out to make change, and any new money that comes in. They ideally also knows how to use a Square card reader to take credit card purchases at the door. If not using EventBrite at the door, take down the names and email addresses of purchases made at the door to have internal records and receipts to track.
After guests have checked in and paid, having name tags at the table will ease people into getting to know one another. They’ll also be responsible for guiding exceptionally confused guests around the venue, so familiarize them with the layout of the space during venue set-up.
As it’s a role that’s front-and-center, it becomes one of the most important positions to fill. This first volunteer will likely become an inspiration to the other volunteers you bring on, so nurture his or her leadership skills with additional responsibility after each event. After the majority of check-in is complete, the volunteer can of course enjoy the event with the rest of the team.
Audio-Visual Assistance
Covered extensively in the “Set Up Audio/Visual” section, your A/V volunteer should have some previous video experience and, ideally, his or her own equipment. He or she will have the added responsibility of double-checking the equipment after you, so their standards of quality must be high. Being able to move around the room with grace and having a creative streak will help your A/V volunteer create truly brilliant video. Some of the best candidates come from local art schools or local video startups. Make sure your volunteer checks the sound feed to camera, microphones, feedback, camera memory, and battery are all at the levels they need to be.
Building Your Team
Building the best team can be challenging, but universities, local startups, and your own audience are great talent pools from which to draw. Let the audience know there’s room to get involved before and during your first event to get started. Brian Park of Startup Grind Washington DC has built an all-star team and shares his best techniques here:
VIDEO: Washington DC, Brian Park - Team Building: http://youtu.be/6CtUfgo--no