Abide Completes Impact Boom Elevate+ Social Enterprise Accelerator
The last time I wrote about Abide: The co-living platform, we were still called Koostoo. That was in October, and a lot has happened since then, including a name change! But our mission has not.
Abide connects students in need of low-cost housing with baby boomers who have underutilised space in their homes. In exchange for providing low-cost housing, baby boomers not only get to have an additional income stream and other social benefits of living with a young person.
Our purpose resonates with many people. Because of this, we have always had strong support from the Brisbane startup and social enterprise ecosystem. The result of that support was that we were Impact Boom Elevate+ social enterprise accelerator as part of the 2019 cohort!
Impact Boom helps people and organisations unleash their potential to create positive social impact. Their mission is to create the right conditions, resources, tools and programs to help people tackle social and environmental challenges, changing the world for the better. Elevate+ is their social enterprise program, wholly funded by the Brisbane City Council.
We started our Elevate+ journey in February with an announcement during the Brisbane Social Enterprise Drinks & Networking. During the event, we were announced along with 14 other social enterprises from across Brisbane to be part of the 2019 cohort.
Impact Boom Elevate+ accelerator offers participants:
- 12 weekly digital modules
- 12 in-person group workshops
- A mentor for the duration of the accelerator
- Numerous opportunities to network and gain exposure
- Finally, it all culminates in a pitch night in front of the Lord Mayor of Brisbane and an audience drawn from across Australia’s startup and social enterprise ecosystems!
Our mentor for the program was Tobias Spark of PWC. He was invaluable for an early-stage startup such as ourselves. Tobias asked a lot of hard questions. Our operational thinking is better because of his input. We are also looking to continue our mentoring relationship through Resonate Consulting. So the mentoring may not end with our graduation.
We also learnt a lot from the digital modules and the in-person workshops. For me, a lot of what I learnt was a reinforcement of my learning from the MIT Bootcamp. But the MIT Bootcamp only briefly touched on social enterprises, but Elevate+ teaching went more in-depth into what is needed to be a social entrepreneur. So, we learnt about articulating our purposes, consider our impact model and also consider what success looks like for us.
To understand what success looks like for a social enterprise. As part of the Elevate+ program, we went on the Brisbane Social Enterprise Tour. It was great to see established social enterprises such as Food Connect and Substation 33. But we weren’t the only people on the tour bus. The other seats on the bus were filled by people from government, fellow social entrepreneurs and corporate people who are keen to help social entrepreneurs. Abide made some valuable connections during that tour.
Overall, Impact Boom Elevate+ was a great learning opportunity that has accelerated the development of Abide. I am looking forward to seeing where my Abide journey takes me next. I feel more empowered to take on what comes next thanks to Impact Boom Elevate+, and I know our cohort mates will be there to cheer us on!
