Over the course of the next few months I will be walking through some of our organization’s thoughts on building the local innovation ecosystem, shedding some light into how we do what we do, and answering any questions along the way.

Today, I start with without a doubt the question I get asked MOST by friends, family, community leaders, and colleagues:

Maybe if you’re reading this right now you’re one of the many who has asked. It’s a simple answer really, and one that every week I hope to unpack for all of you. Today however, I’m going to outline the core of what we do, and show off some metrics to help put that in perspective.

Simply put, WEtech helps entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurs to be) turn their ideas into reality.

In all honesty, here is where we typically lose people. The inevitable next question is HOW?

Now, I could take ten pages and outline how each role in our organization functionally helps develop Founders and their ideas locally, but I promised myself to keep this simple and to the point. So for today’s purposes let’s focus on the literal how:

We provide white glove coaching to entrepreneurs at any level.

That’s the magic, the secret sauce: we sit across from you and set a plan to support your idea, no matter what stage you are at, and then we help you achieve it.

We have tools of course. We have our 30-60-90 Day Milestone Tracker, a little black book the size of a phone book in the 80’s, full of experts and entrepreneurs waiting to meet and support you, our Perks Programs, an award-winning Advanced Accelerator for the further along startups, and TONS of events (like tons). You can see why I lose people at this point sometimes…

For today’s purposes I want to highlight the hardest working team in Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent, our Business Advisory Team; the magnificent Adam Castle and wonderful Janelle Abela, (shout out Chelsie Hunt as well).

When I say hardest working I can back it up. Over the course of our last Fiscal Year (April 2020 – March 2021), during the heart of the Pandemic, Adam and his team:

• Met with 195 unique entrepreneurs per quarter (that’s roughly 3.5 a day)

• Provided a staggering 2,107 direct advisory hours to WEtech clients

• Connected those StartUps with Mentors to the tune of 623 paid hours (the vast majority of which went directly to local experts in Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent)

• Supported our portfolio in raising $22.1M in funding

• Helped our clients grow to the tune of 140 gross new jobs

• All while maintaining an average Net Promotor Score (NPS) of +80 and an individual advisor score of 4.4/5

I could go on, and I will in future posts, but I think the most important thing to note is….

THIS ISN’T THEIR ONLY JOB!

Those other tools I outlined earlier…. they are responsible for understanding what supports the entrepreneurs in our community need most, sourcing or building them, deploying them, measuring and reporting on the efficacy, and oh yah, building the community by showing up to/running community development councils. But I digress (keeping it simple).

At the end of the day when folks think about WEtech Alliance, I want them to think:

We meet with you, build a plan, and give you the tools (and often confidence) you need to bring your idea into reality, no matter what stage it’s at.

(By the way it’s free. Let’s get started.)

Over the course of the next few months I will be walking through some of our organization’s thoughts on building the local innovation ecosystem, shedding some light into how we do what we do, and answering any questions along the way.

So follow along and fire any thoughts you have at me!