5 reasons why starting a side-project with Gold-up can be a piece of cake

If someone would have told me, one year ago, that launching a new entrepreneurial adventure was compatible with a demanding job, I would have either ask him to stop lying or taking drugs. But that was before discovering the Gold-up program and it’s close-knit and supportive community.

So here are the 5 reasons why this 5 saturdays’ program is a must to all ambitious women who want to learn, test and scale their projects.

1. Drawing energy from an incredible and dynamic atmosphere

When you start thinking about an entrepreneurial idea, the road that separates you from making it real is full of fear and doubts. But when you cross the door of the 25, Rue du Petit Musc, The family’s office in Paris, a positive-charge fills the atmosphere, and be aware : it’s contagious ! Start-uppers, coaches, investors, young and old people meet in this full-of-life and colourful place that stimulates imagination and creativity.

It is true that when your eyes cross a glittery-award in the name of “Frichti” or “Agricool” , you can go through both contradictory feelings of excitement and distancing-effect at the same time. Because, when you are a woman without a technological-background, you might think wrongfully that developing an innovative project cannot be your destiny. But joining the Gold-up program feels like making the first step to move forward and gain to the confidence you need.

When you take part in this program with other women, not only you feel in the right place ; not alone in your “from-where-I-should-begin troubles” and in the right mood to let down your hesitations and hit the track.

Starting from the first day, you witness the power of a community that share strong-values of mutual support and care. You finish your day believing that magic can and will happen !

2. Getting better in self-organisation and planning

When you have a full-time job and live in a vibrant city such as Paris, finding the right balance between professional and personal life, can be challenging. Many times, you have to make your choice between a corporate event, a fitness session, a dinner with your lover or catching-up with friends and many others you prefer to bypass this decisions, to enjoy a brief chilling night in front of Netflix. So when I heard that the Gold-Up program was exclusively running on saturdays, I was relieved : I was finally able to join an ambitious learning program without compromising my other plans.

In this same incredibly designed open-space that is accommodated the right way to liberate your creativity, different sessions take place during the program. From 9 pm to 4 am, master-classes, workshops and lunch-and-learn time take time. The work schedule is dense, but satisfying to all the eager-to-learn ladies that can stay in the office until 7, challenging their ideas and asking for feedbacks.

Outside of the program and official workshops, we were able to meet with the other “goldies” for some quality time. This aside moments pushed us to find some time to free our minds, to get to know each-others in different contexts and strengthened the links between us.

Throughout the program, I found it easier to structure my calendar and allocate time efficiently to learning, executing and relaxing.

3. Meeting the best and right experts for an e-commerce business launching

I postpointed my project for a long-time, claiming not having the necessary technological background or having an administrative phobia, but the truth is you don’t need any coding knowledge or heavy processus to launch your business online. There are just as many tools and services as you can imagine to help you start, but one can wonder how to choose theme or even how to identify and even anticipate your needs to subscribe only to the essential.

Being a part of The family eco-system, the Goldup program can capitalize on the knowledge and experience gained by supporting many different entrepreneurs and understanding the common patterns of their life-cycles.

Furthermore, the program invites and mobilizes many experts from the startup system to first, share their expertise and second, present their solutions. Thus, our first class was sponsored by Shopify and Payplug.

The whole program is indeed designed to make you move from the ideation step to meeting the market and understanding the hacks and strategies for growth. Which means, for example, that in the same afternoon you can both find an answer to your first legal concerns and learn how to automate all the time-consuming operations related to animate your social-networks.

Furthermore, because discovering new tools that increase your efficiency and literally change your way of working, a one-to-one session is scheduled with every Goldie to challenge her ideas and get answers to her specific question and problems.

4. Structuring the approach and tuning the project in-vitro

As stated above, when launching a project, knowing what to prioritize and how to do it can make a great big difference. All along my participation to the program, the next-steps felt pretty clear and it was easier to concentrate on the essential and eliminate the meaningless.

Even though I studied business, I realised I was dreaming big and thinking about my product launch as a CAC 40 company, while I could not invest an amount with more than 4 zeros. The program made me swift from this “I want it all now” state-of-mind to “I’ll start small, bootstrap, and make it to the top”. Now, I believe this ability to structurate the next moves relieves from a lot of anxiety and also help gaining time and energy.

Gold-up was also a laboratory to test and have honest feedbacks from both peers and experts to improve quickly my product, switch direction when necessary and accelerate my project.

5. Involving the network and gaining visibility from an early-stage

Finally, joining Gold-up is a great opportunity to get your product on stage and learn to communicate about it. Before addressing the general public, you can test-and-learn and adapt progressively your pitch.

Indeed, it is a perfect opportunity for both meeting future partners, potential clients as well as some first brand-ambassadors. The community is engaged into liking and, when possible, sharing each-other’s’ projects. This social-boosting dynamic is particularly precious at the beginning of the project when your product is still looking for some legitimacy before getting the attention of more people.

In a nutshell, the Gold-up program was an intense and stimulating period where all the participants made great encounters and also get to know more about themselves. From day one, our doubts vanished and gave place to ambition and determination. And now, It feels so weird and sad to write this words one day before the ending of this beautiful adventure.

But one thing is sure, Gold-up is only the beginning of a long metamorphosis and the reason behind many amazing friendships.

So yes, building a side project is possible when you surround yourself with the right people and the Gold-up program is tailored to meet this need. As far as my brand is concerned, it’s now officially launched on terredizza.fr and new days are if this article made you realise that Gold-up might be a fit for you, one last advice to enjoy the program : come hungry and dare to ask for cutlery ;)