The First 90 Days podcast will give raw account of startup growth claims founder

Lauren Davies founder of virtual business incubator The Growth Academy believes there is need for transparency around the process of starting a startups and growing a business. Davies is partnering with US-based venture builder WotWot Ventures to run The First 90 Days podcast.

Through the podcast the two plan to provide a raw account of their startup Upski’s journey from idea to business in three months.

Davies (pictured), who is involved in the Future Females platform launched earlier this month, told Ventureburn that the first episode of the podcast, Day 1, will go live next Wednesday (6 September). The series will feature content developed by her and Mark Berman, co-founder of WotWot Ventures.

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The Growth Academy will provide methodology, expertise and templates while WotWot Ventures will provide the funding and the development team. The startup will be owned by WotWot Ventures.

As part of the project, the daily podcasts will look at the everyday tasks that an entrepreneur goes through like defining their business model, with real documents being shared as well as templates being made available for those interested to use free for all.

Davies and Berman hope the podcast will reach around 3000 entrepreneurs.

The First 90 Days aims to break the myth of overnight success

She said she came up with the idea for the 20-minute podcast in a bid to bring transparency to the process of starting and growing a business and wants to break the myth of the ‘overnight success’.

“It takes years to start and grow a successful business and so we want to tell the real story of what it’s really like,” she said.

“There is a lot of smoke and mirrors around start-ups and entrepreneurship. We always hear about the success stories not about the hard slog, sleepless nights and massive insecurity that is all part of the journey,” said Davies.

“There is a lot of clutter online when it comes to entrepreneur education and digital marketing. As a first-time entrepreneur it’s impossible to know what is quality, who is credible and where it’s worth spending your money,” she said.

“You don’t actually need 50 courses on Facebook ads to choose from – you just need one simple strategy, that’s proven to work and taught by someone who has actually done it,” she added.

The podcast

Each podcast will discuss a single key topic. Topics to be covered on the podcast include defining a business model, understanding who your best target customers are and what they will actually pay for and building an online presence and branding among others.

Davies says over the course of the series, the two will discuss their plans, wins and failures while starting and growing Upski.

Additionally, the podcast will contain practical tips for entrepreneurs on what action to take for their own businesses and how they can access actual working documents like content planning spreadsheets to plan and execute content that will translate to relevant leads.

“For example on Day 1 we’ll be giving access to the ‘Is this the right idea for me?’ test that allows entrepreneurs to be sure the idea they are pursuing is aligned to their passions, strengths and goals,” said Davies.

She said The Growth Academy has developed a methodology that takes entrepreneurs from idea to business in 90 days. “Essentially Upski is a live case study that will publicly prove the success and value of this methodology,” she said.

Weekly video

At the end of each week Davies and Berman will send out a video summary via email to podcast subscribers.

“This will be a personal account of the previous week and what’s to come in the current week, filmed in situ at co-working spaces in Cape Town, recorded in a video log style through Facebook Live on a mobile phone. It will be a true, transparent, unedited account of how we and Upski, are progressing over the 90 days,” said Davies

A month after the two launch the series, they intend to write a blog or an ebook on exactly how the podcast came together.

“After the Upski 90-day case study, the plan is for this podcast to invite entrepreneurs to feature and discuss their first 90 days and what it was like for them to get started – whether they have achieved success or not we want to show both as this is the reality,” she said.

Below is a trailer of the podcast:

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Featured image: Lauren Davies founder at The Growth Academy (Supplied)