What a year this has been. 2020 forced us to think differently and allowed us to experiment with a lot of the ideas that have been on the back burner. It forced us to rethink our role in the regional tech ecosystem, and here are some of the details to how we changed how we worked during 2020.
Echelon 2020
One of the first things we did was to actively scrap Echelon 2020 from happening. This took everyone, internal and external, by surprise as everyone was expecting us to change Echelon to virtual event. However, we believed that due to reduced costs and complexity in running events, there would be a slew of high quality events happening globally, which was great for the ecosystem. Our efforts were better spent in activities that allowed us to make consistent and meaningful impact on a regular basis, hence the birth of e27 Pro Membership. Sometimes, you need to shift the entire company in direction, and that means giving up your past work to focus on future efforts.
Pro Membership
We were pumped, and really afraid, to launch e27 Pro Membership. The original plan, which got kicked in the nuts by COVID19, was to build the feature set for 6 months, and launch it all at Echelon with a bang. We now had to rethink building an MVP, where to focus our efforts on and how to go to market as quickly as possible. We nailed it to a few key area that the community needed help with the most:
- Saving costs on services, hence the launch of Perks
- Fundraising and access to investors, hence the launch of Connect and the improvements to our Investor database
- Better ways for Startups to showcase what they do, hence the improvements to the Startups database and profiles
It’s been quite ride, and we had the fortunate opportunity to work with hundreds of Startups and Investors who have signed up to Pro. The exciting part is that we can now make meaningful impact every day to the ecosystem, and not just wait for a 2 day period once a year.
Webinars, Connect Programs, Workshops and More
With the membership model came new ways to engage and interact with our community. We launched a slew of monthly webinars including Meet the VC series. We partnered with the Open Circles team to launch OC27, a webinar series featuring top speakers from around the world, including the Founder of Siri. We launched the Connect Program, where we matched Startups with Investors from around the region. We did this in different ways throughout the year, including a 2 week intensive Connect program. Now we do it in a more automated way, via the Connect buttons and early next year, we will be launching the Connect dashboard. It’s been pretty non-stop all year with activities and programs to better Connect and educate the ecosystem.
One of the highlights of what we do is that we are able to work with many different organizations that make an impact far beyond our reach and capabilities. Facebook was one of them, and we are thankful for the opportunity to partner with them for the Facebook Community Accelerator in 2020.
Facebook Community Accelerator
13 communities from a range of community efforts including LGBTQ to mental health awareness were part of this program. In a time like this, community organizations are more critical than ever. Members depend on them for support, and in some cases their livelihoods. Through our partnership with Facebook and various mentors, we were able to equip these communities with the tools to grow their communities and impact their members in more relevant ways. The 6 months program allowed them to think of news ways to serve their members, work out plans to these initiatives executed and milestones to keep the leadership members on track.
COVID support program
Finally, we understood first hand how the real the struggle was for Startups. At the end of March, just as different cities around the world were going into lockdown, we put in effort to promote Startups and share deals for companies to save costs on various services. We also shared various resources from VCs and the general community on business continuity planning activities, to guide Startups on how to evolve their working practices. We launched special webinars specific to COVID19 centric activities and even launched a category for COVID19 stories. It was a tough time for everyone, and we tried to play our part.
COVID19 has forced to rethink our way of doing things and reflect on our lives. It has been a stress-filled and challenging year, and a tragedy for too many people. However, it has also been a year of learning, change, reflection and growth.
I am proud of the way the team at e27 has responded to the challenges we faced this year. We wish the same for all of you as 2020 comes to an end and we look forward optimistically to a better year ahead.
The post e27 2020 Year in Review: A transformative year with lots of reflection, change and appreciation appeared first on e27.