The goal was to create a comprehensive alumni support program to support LEAP alumni in their business growth.
Design Approach
We needed to prioritize many factors in the design of the program.
Consistency: Clients historically didn’t have a consistent person to call on after the program participated in was completed so it was important to us to prioritize consistency in the alumni program to begin to set the standard.
Empathy: Understanding that many of the program alumni are coming from different places in their lives and business journeys so it was important to be patient and practice empathy because of the many hardships that come in life and as a business owner.
Accountability: We know that entrepreneurs need mentoring and coaching often times just to hold them accountable which was important for us to design around.
Understanding the Landscape
We started with data and doing some initial strategy sessions with clients to begin to get qualitative and quantitative insights on what their needs were. Overwhelmingly we heard and experienced that they weren’t getting the deep support they needed and intensive strategy post program. There also wasn’t enough hands on and available support to answer their questions and move things forward. We knew that meant we needed to figure out how to be there so having questions in a timely manner wasn’t a barrier to their business growth.
Challenges
The biggest challenges we faced on this project were understanding what type of delivery model worked the best. We quickly learned that entrepreneurs were looking for targeted personalized support rather than general events because of a larger industry trend of generic events. We helped curate the development of Business Made Simple which developed because the general tech focused Events were not well attended because they didn’t have a specific focus. We hosted these events in Q1 of 2025 hi three distinct topics and so our attendance rise every month. We covered calendar management and Canva which are essential topics for entrepreneurs. There’s enough events that go over general concepts and ideas. You can throw rock and find some information about starting and operating a business especially with the rise of AI. Focusing on an event with a specific and actionable next steps we had more attendance and engagement.
While we still support LEAP as needed with event support, we have dialed in on being a connection point for clients. Because of this, we took a different approach to more acutely and accurately support entrepreneurs.
Partnerships
Partners were key in this service delivery model because they helped us under the ecosystem and built out a solution that would actually work for our entrepreneurs.
AMP Inclusive Coworking
One of the key partnerships we have developed has been with AMP Inclusive Coworking. They have a premium location being located in Lansing’s entrepreneurial hub along with a great mission. They create a safe space for entrepreneurs to test their ideas and for us to have meetings.
