WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Global Entrepreneurship Network is excited to announce the opening of Startup Huddle in Manila, Philippines, to help local entrepreneurs hone their pitch skills and discover solutions to the challenges they face.
Startup Huddle is a program designed to educate, engage and connect entrepreneurs. As an experiential learning opportunity, the Startup Huddle format is consistent in each location: on a given morning, one or two early-stage startup founders give a six-minute presentation of their companies to a diverse audience of peers, mentors, educators and advisers. Each presentation is followed by a 20-minute question and answer session and feedback via an audience survey.
“Startup Huddle will be the first of its kind in the Philippines – involving startup founders sharing their stories in the community and interacting with fellow founders for help and advice,” said Henry Ong, the acting managing director of GEN Philippines and the Startup Huddle Manila organizer. “This program is important because the event serves as a venue for startups to gather together as one community for support and encouragement.”
The culture surrounding Startup Huddle is that of a supportive, neutral space, welcoming entrepreneurs to be open and honest about their businesses and the challenges they face. Each event is organized by local entrepreneurs and community builders who volunteer their time to secure a venue, vet and select presenters and publicize the event.
As opposed to a traditional “pitch” environment, Startup Huddle was not created to be critical of entrepreneurs, but rather for the presenters to learn from shared experiences and find ways to support one another as a community.
“Startup Huddle is a unique platform for us to build a community of startups for support and ideas sharing,” he said. We hope that through this regular event we can help expand the community by encouraging young people to go into entrepreneurship.”
Startup Huddle is an educational experience for both the audience and the presenters. Presenters are given resources and support to prepare for their presentation and surveyed after their presentation to see what they’ve learned.
“We all know that nine out of 10 startups almost always fail and every founder goes through similar struggles in establishing a successful business. Having this event will help keep the startup community in the Philippines united.”
