Entrepreneurs

How To Apply for the Fall 2023 Cohort

• Read this page. 
• Send us your for-profit social enterprise business plan by 28 August.
• Acceptances will be announced on or before 18 September.

Fall 2023 Timeline

• 28 August — Business Plans due. The plan is your application.
• 29 August to 17 September — Selected applicants will be interviewed.
• 18 September — Acceptances announced.
• 09 October — Business plans distributed to reviewers.
• 13 October — Clarification calls start.
• 17 November — Review and clarification calls end.
• 01 December — Mentor matching begins.

What We Do

• Connect social entrepreneurs to mentors who have dealt with similar problems but are not competing for the same customers. We tailor teams of experts to provide written and video-call feedback on your ideas. Then you and your potential mentors chose each other based on how useful and interesting you found each other. Think of it like a (non-romantic) dating site.
• Help companies succeed. Companies that we work with, as opposed to companies we almost worked with (that were qualified, and we would have worked with if not for space, timing, etc.) are 32% more likely to be in business when compared year-by-year. Read what our alumni have to say.
• We do NOT, alas, directly provide funding.

Who Should Apply

Entrepreneurs who are (a) Building for-profit companies that has social and/or environmental values built into how the business makes money, (b), open to feedback on their business model, and (c) who can commit to the following actions:

• Four phone/video calls – 2 with MCN team, 2 with prospective mentors. (A partial list of our mentors is here.)
• Submit a business plan in English, Spanish, or French.
• Review the feedback we provide on your plan
• Follow up with all of your reviewers — either with a simple thank you for their time, or to begin a mentoring relationship with those you found particularly helpful.

Business Plan — Why we ask for one

• While it would be fantastic to arrange one-on-one meetings with all of our potential mentors with each entrepreneur, this is impractical. So we give you and your potential mentors two ways to engage — clarification calls and document review. Most mentors take part in both aspects of our program. However, not all mentors can make the calls — we are a global program, and time zone differences can be a challenge.
• We provide detailed and constructive feedback on your business documents.
• We ask for a business plan, rather than a pitch deck, because our feedback is more valuable to the entrepreneur on an operational document than on a funding ask specific to a moment in time.

Business Plan — Details

• How: Email your plan to network@mentorcapitalnet.org as an attached file by 28 August.
• Length: Most plans we see are 16-24 pages long. We do not have a strict length limit, but text-heavy plans longer than 30 pages will probably annoy your reviewers.  You may link to additional online resources in your business plan.
• Cover Page: please include the following logistical information for the MCN on either the cover page of your plan, or the in the text of the email to which your business plan is attached: Company Name, Contact Name, Contact Email, Country (-ies) of Operation, Website/Social Media (if applicable), and a list of who you consider your competitors.
• Do NOT include any intellectual property. We use your business model as part of our mentor-matching. Not your patents or protected technologies.

Business Plan — Content

• Format: We do NOT have a specific plan format to suggest, because the most important thing is that you submit a document that you have written written to and for your leadership team, not for the MCN or someone else. There are hundreds of business plan templates on the internet. That said, you should cover the items listed below.
  1) What does your company produce or provide?
  2) Who pays for it?
  3) How do you find those people?
  4) What are your financial assumptions?
  5) What are the major risks involved?
  6) What advantages do you and your team have?

If your business plan includes an investment pitch:

• Do include: How much you are seeking, what you will do with the funds, and how those actions will enable you to repay the investment or attract further investment.
• Do not include: Specific terms (e.g. repayment schedule), since not all of our reviewers are accredited investors.

Language Options

All MCN reviewers are fluent in English. Enough are fluent in French or Spanish that we can make that work, although we will need advance notice if you will need to conduct your video calls in French or Spanish.

Alumni

MCN alumni including companies that are addressing some of the most important challenges in the world. A list of alumni companies still active under their own names can be found here. Some examples include:

• Increasing the amount of healthy food and healthy farmers in our world, like Ignitia & Elevated Honey.
• Bringing healthy food and drink to your table, like Kuli Kuli, Back to the Roots, Runa, & The Jackfruit Company.
• Providing access to financial services, like Tala, First Access, & Kopo Kopo.
• Improving the quality of, and access to, health care, like Access Afya, PACE MD, Sproxil, & Maternova.
• Creating safer living and working conditions for women, like Wello Water, & Pinkcollar.
• Generating affordable, clean, and renewable energy, like Husk Power Systems, ARED, & Gham Power.
• Cleaning the water, air, and/or environment for those who need it most, like Folia Materials, Chakr Innovation, and Sanivation.
• Creating a path out of poverty for employees, like Wash Cycle Laundry,
• Training and educating people to make their way in the world, like GogyUp 
• Designing sustainable products, like WholeForest, & Yellow Leaf Hammocks.

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