Acceleration & Mentorship

Introduction

Lemon’s Mentoring programs are specially designed to provide tangible support to very selective startups every year based on recommendations by Jury/mentors. The prime objective of the program is to provide mentoring as well as business support to ventures for their growth & evolution. Lemon provides entrepreneurs with opportunities to maximize their potential as leaders, accelerate the growth of their organizations and deliver high-impact value. The program would leverage resources available in all verticals of LEMON i.e Lemon School of Entrepreneurship (LSE), Lemon Ideas as well as Innopreneurs. The startups/ventures/teams in this mentoring program are being accelerated by Lemon Ideas either by mobilizing the resources or through the intellectual inputs. Following are the key offerings during the Incubation program.

  1.  Regular & planned mentoring & progress review meetings during the tenure of engagement. (usually six months of active support).
  2.  Action planning & review during all meetings.
  3.  Access to Lemon’s pool of mentors, experts, business owners as well as investors to help entrepreneurs on diverse requirements .
  4.  Focus on important aspects of Innovation, Validation, Teaming , Financial Sustainability, Professionalism and use of Technology.

Since this mentoring program is about delivering high impact value to the ecosystem and providing the intellectual capital to the startups, this support program does not end in 6 months but the support continues as per the specific need of the venture team. The initial six months engagement is a planned one to kick start the long term evolution of the association & engagement for next 2 years of duration. The support after six months would be needed and requirements driven in line with request by incubate/entrepreneurs.

Basket For Support & Interventions By Lemon

During the course of this mentoring program, the startups will be assisted /supportedin many ways as per their need, situation & priorities. The support and area of focus would evolve as per the discussion with mentor/expert. The list below provides a basketof possible interventions.These interventionsare being formulated to support the startups on multiple fronts giving360 degree support.. Hence,ifthere is a specific need by any of the ventures/startups which needs to be taken into consideration for its venture’s benefit, Mentors/Experts would take the same into consideration for the discussion. The entire list may not be applicable to a specific venture butfew ofthe followingitemswouldbe picked up by mentors/experts in line with the needs and situation of the entrepreneurs.

  1.  Concept formation / refinement.
  2.  Start-up mentorship for launch .
  3.  Identifying scope for Innovation & new ideas.
  4.  Appropriate business modelling .
  5.  Support the business planning activity .
  6.  Strategic direction & roadmap .
  7.  Branding & positioning leveraging LEMON brand and platform .
  8.  Networking with right people / organizations .
  9.  Support in team hiring through LEMON SETU program .
  10.  Other human resource support for the venture .
  11.  Digital Marketing support .

  1. Identify domain-specific support through the network of LEMON .
  2.  Technology as enabler & support.
  3.  Pilot run planning / trial run / validation .
  4.  Preparation for fund raising / funding facilitation.
  5.  Resource identification & management support.
  6.  Legal company formation & associations.
  7.  Shared workplace & other shared services for founders if required.
  8.  Leverage support from other ventures and entrepreneurs at LEMON .
  9.  Financial planning & budgeting .
  10.  Pivot-change / diversification .
  11.  Approach for Financial sustainability .

Program Approach

The mentoring-incubation program is purely based on the intellectual capital of the LEMON team and would include knowledge sharing, experience based inputs as well as co-learning with other entrepreneurs. The underlying spirit of the engagement is co-creation based on mutual trust and belief and the journey is more evolutionary than planned. The meetings/interactions would be One on One (O3) with the entrepreneur/founder team to uniquely discuss very specific requirements of the venture. The program would also include Joint meetings & sharing boot camps for collective learning of the cohort & other startups in the ecosystem. The onus of action planning and performance would be with the mentee/entrepreneur based on the inputs & framework provided by the mentor/expert. Based on recommendations of the mentor, participants may be offered training programs by Lemon School of Entrepreneurship as per specific need. The program would include ideas/suggestions/inputs provided by Lemon mentors and would not include resources and other external intervention needed for implementation of the actions & ideas.

  1.  Support for IPR related matters .
  2.  Counseling / physiological services for the team.
  3.  Soft-Skills / Attitude / Leadership training for the team.
  4.  Support for accounting .
  5.  Support for legal with compliances .
  6.  Support for business development .
  7.  Support for promotions & events .
  8.  Support for branding and PR.
  9.  Support for initial customers acquisition.
  10.  Support for participation in startup showcasing events .
  11.  Access to corporate connections .

  1. Support for Internal Processes / Internal Automation.
  2.  HR support services (Performance / Productivity / Retention / Employee Satisfaction) .
  3.  Access to Guest Talks / Networking Events / Competitions at Lemon.
  4.  Exploring Collaboration / Partnership with other Entrepreneurs / Startups .
  5.  Access to the govt. associations / industry bodies.
  6.  Access to startup ecosystem.
  7.  Access to mentors / domain specialist.
  8.  Support / IT / WEB / Software Development.
  9.  Support for recruitment .

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