In a society where men still dominate business leadership, mentorship for women by women helps create and access opportunities. The new mentorship programme from Mindset is designed to give female-led startups from emerging countries a jumpstart with investor communications, personal branding, customer intelligence and external communications.
The challenges the program seeks to address are well-documented. Less than 14% of startup founders are women, while only 2,3% of global venture capital funding reaches women-founded companies. A meagre 11% of female founders say they feel supported by their investors, and in emerging countries specifically, the credit deficit facing women-owned businesses is estimated at $1,5 trillion.
Mindset, a Madrid-based, women-led integrated marketing and communications agency for tech companies, is eager to bring this programme to life. “At Mindset, we work with female founders every day, and we keep seeing the same barriers,” says Dina Mostovaya, Founder and CEO of Mindset. “Women still have less access to capital; less than 2% of global VC funding reaches women-founded companies, and fewer people are opening doors for them. For founders from emerging markets, breaking into more developed economies can make those challenges even harder. We built this program to give fifteen founders practical guidance and direct access to people who can help them move forward, together with an actionable playbook. It’s our mission put into practice.”
What is the Programme
The programme is a six-week, speaker-led curriculum that will prepare 15 female founders from emerging markets to raise capital, build investor relationships, and run their own communications as they expand into Europe, the UK and the US.
Applicants must be from a country on the World Bank’s list of emerging economies, including South Africa.
The programme curriculum runs across four tracks, each taught by a practitioner with direct experience in the subject:
1. Investor Communications
Taryn Andersen, Impulse4Women, THCAP Venture Capital, and EIC Jury at the European Commission will present the topic “How to Raise Capital as a Founder from an Emerging Market”. It provides an introduction to the EU and US early-stage landscape, including funds that specifically back women and emerging-market founders.
Astghik Zakharyan, Mossy Ventures, SIA Startup Investor Accelerator, will be the presenter for “Building Your Angel Round From Zero”, covering how to identify the right angels, conduct cold outreach that gets replies, and understand how syndicates come together.
2. Customer Intelligence
Natasha Gorobinskaya, Founder, Blueberry Research Group, formerly Google, Miro, and TheFork, leads the track about customer intelligence. She will present the topic “Customer Communication: What Stops You From Hearing Your Customers”. This will include templates designed to help founders distinguish what they know about their customers from assumptions that have become accepted as fact.
3. Personal Brand
Karolina Attspodina, Beyond Vision, Business Growth Advisor at BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, and serial founder will lead a session outlining what a strong LinkedIn presence looks like for a female founder, and how a solid personal brand can translate into deal flow. It is titled “The Female Founder’s Personal Brand That Helps You Raise Capital”.
Erik Eklund, Founder of The Oasis, Instructor at IESE Business School, leads the session on “Turning Your Story Into Your Competitive Advantage”. It entails going through the 60-second, 5-minute, and 15-minute versions of a founder’s story, designed to help founders turn a non-linear background into an advantage.
4. External Communications
Lastly, Dina Mostovaya, Founder and CEO, and Natalia Edde, Partner and COO of Mindset, will lead the founder-led DIY comms playbook session that covers how to know when it makes sense to bring in an agency. It will be titled “Building Your Own Comms Engine”.
Each successful applicant will receive 1-on-1 mentorship sessions and live access to tier-1 journalists and investors. Participants will retain access to program materials for three years after graduation.
The selected cohort will begin the program on 21 September and graduate on 23 November. Applications close on 30 August. Successful applicants will be informed after the review period concludes on 6 September.
Who Can Apply
The program is designed for female-founders from emerging countries who are ready to expand and willing to grow internationally. The programme is free to join.
Women who apply must meet the following criteria:
- A woman who is either the founder or co-founder of a startup
- Fluent in English
- Willing to scale and engage with global media
- Based in an emerging market (such as South Africa) and planning to expand internationally
- Interested in growth across Europe, the United Kingdom or the United States of America.
- Has a business plan
- Has a pitch deck
- Has a functional website
- A clear business model and monetisation strategy
- A functioning MVP (not a prototype)
- Has 1-2 hours per week to dedicate to mentorship sessions and assignments
- Prepared to actively participate in discussions, share experiences and apply insights
- Currently raising or planning to raise seed or Series A funding within the next 6-12 months
- Have already secured at least $150 000 in funding (may be a grant, bootstrapped or investors)
- Have one or more B2B clients, including pilot projects, or more than 500 B2C paying customers or signed pilot agreements with corporate clients.
- Has an active social media presence, blog or newsletter
Female founders who complete the mentorship programme can benefit from:
- Better visibility across investors, fellow founders and media networks.
- Clear investor narrative through a robust communication strategy
- Understanding PR fundamentals
- Feedback received and actionable recommendations from investors, mentors and speakers
- Market insights from experts on the venture landscape in Europe, the US and the UK.
- Insights about how investors source deals and make decisions
- Strengthen your founder positioning and credibility across investor channels
Women who meet the above criteria can apply on the Mindset website.
