Mentors and Coaches are the backbone of our incubator program. They share valuable advice, support with access to their network, take time to listen to startup challenges and promote our incubator teams tremendously. More than 50 mentors support the first cohort of the Vision Health Pioneers Incubator currently. Here just a few faces!
A huge THANK YOU to all off them! Check out all mentors supporting us here.
If you want to become part of Vision Health Pioneers Incubator, please reach out to us!
Design Thinking, Business Model Canvas, Personas – you might have heard about it but do you really know how to apply design thinking and lean startup methods. In the beginning of the incubation program all teams have been invited to refresh their knowledge and apply the startup methods to their ideas.
Supported by our super coaches – Barbara Posern and Robert Lange from designiT as well as Lust Haase and Prateek Mahalwar – our seven teams worked hard to plan the validation of the ideas they have been working on.
Enjoy some video impressions:
Also check out further startup advice from our coaches on Youtube!
Each Month our Incubator teams present their ideas to investors, editors, product experts and fellow entrepreneurs in a short online session – 3 min pitch, 3 min Q&A. Every critical question, every outside perspective is the foundation for further improvement. Each months, experts take time for us to hare their valuable feedback!
A huge shoutout to these amazing jurors that supported us so far!
There are more than 140 coworking spaces in Berlin – some are huge with thousands of members, some are small and have a special sector focus. Which one would become our crib?
In December our incubator team visited close to 15 spaces. At the end we decided to set-up our own space. At Wöhlertstrasse 14 – close to Charite, the Federal Ministry of Health, the Health Innovation Hub and companies such as Bayer and fellow startups such as ADA Health, we found a new home.
A former shop, turned ground-floor apartment that housed a family of 4, became our new incubator hub. After 3 months of adding dry and glass walls, testing desks and couches, we moved in – just in time for the first cohort.
In the next years we will welcome all mentors, experts and coaches into our new space at Wöhlertstrasse 14 in Berlin-Mitte. With 25 desks, 4 small conference rooms, a spacious community kitchen, a green community backyard as well as strong WIFI – we are sure we will have a creative environment to innovate healthcare in Germany!
There are multiple benefits that can be obtained by just communicating appropriately within teams and groups. These can go from the maintenance of good interpersonal relations to the development and transparency of a business. In fact, communication allows people to cooperate better and overcome obstacles even in stressful situations.
As much as it sounds old fashioned, good communication strategies help teams not just to define the short- and long-term goals but also the roles within the team to work in a synchronized and effective way. If we consider a startup, having good communication between team members makes the difference in terms of performance: alignment and clarity result in rapid execution and the capacity to confidently take on more tasks.
Therefore, on March 5th we kicked off a communication workshop so that the teams of the Incubator get the right vibe and collaborate in the right way for the nine months of the program.
Our coach Edo was the guide and facilitator for this day. His exercises – all backed by scientific research – were fun, effective and highly interactive which led to great feedback among the participants. Also, with his methodology of “learning by doing” he helped the teams to understand how to create a good teamwork environment even in close contact and under pressure, and get the focus needed for the startup journey.
A few words about the coach
Edoardo Binda Zane of EBZ Coaching is a communication and leadership trainer and consultant. He provides team and leadership development workshops. His focus is enabling teams and leaders to operate better in dynamic contexts, and increasing their capability of generating value under pressure.
One thing is certain, the business world moves fast and so do startups!
Among all the challenges a startup faces are: adaptability to new changes, a need to find the balance between organizing themselves as a team and be flexible enough to overcome obstacles in their business development.
Agile teamwork and decision-making are therefore important best practices for young entrepreneurs to create sustainability in team organization and business. For this reason, one week after the launch of the first batch, Rakesh Kasturi held an “Agile” workshop to help the teams develop the right techniques and rituals to get ready for their entrepreneurial journey.
In particular, this “Agile Starter Kit” considered 3 important aspects in a startup development, which are alignment and collaboration, self-organization and decision making, and emotional intelligence.
The learnings
Established the core values and purposes of their team and business
Learned principles of agile methodologies and how to apply them in their environment
Understood Kanban and other agile tools
Applied decision making principles in real cases
Recognizes the importance of developing emotional intelligence in their startup journey with a few tips and tricks
A few words about the coach
Rakesh Kasturi known as Sprintdoctor helps leaders in startups and larger organizations to create a culture of collaboration using agile methods like the Google Design Sprints. His practice in both diagnostic and clinical has been peer-reviewed and tested at institutions such as Google, MIT, LinkedIn, and IBM.
