Startups seeking mentoring through Milwaukee
​Venture Mentoring Service

The goal of the Milwaukee Venture Mentoring Service (MKE VMS) is to build a supportive startup community by accelerating the number of Milwaukee founders who are successfully scaling their startup. We do this by forming mentor teams around entrepreneur needs.

Eligibility:

• Startup located in the Milwaukee area
• Startup is scalable, venture-backable, high-growth potential (MKE VMS is industry agnostic)
• Startup is an established business with an MVP (ideally with some revenue)
• Entrepreneurs are expected to commit to a sustained relationship with the mentorship program and to be professional, open, and responsive to the volunteer mentors who work with them.

 
To apply:
Please contact Linda Walsh. 
​

Quick links:

• Apply for Mentoring

• ​Learn more about Mentors

Frequently Asked Questions:

​What is team mentoring? What makes MKE VMS unique is the team mentoring approach. Each entrepreneur is assigned 2-4 highly experienced mentors with diverse backgrounds who meet as a team to provide practical, day-to-day professional advice, coaching, and support. Entrepreneurs meet regularly with their mentor teams (usually monthly) in order to maximize value of these sustained relationships that entrepreneurs can depend on long-term.
 
Our mentors have senior leadership experience in launching, growing, and managing successful businesses. All MKE VMS mentors have served previously as a founder, CEO, chairman, chief technical officer, or another senior leader of a successful enterprise.
 
Team mentoring allows entrepreneurs to receive broader insight from varying experiences and strengths.
 
What is the mentoring process?

• This is a free service, and we do not take equity.
• We provide face-to-face, team mentoring.
• All interactions with MKE VMS are confidential and under nondisclosure. Mentors follow a strict code of ethics, which guards against conflicts of interest, and controls financial involvement with the entrepreneurs and their ventures. In addition, all mentors sign a blanket non-disclosure agreement ensuring that all their interactions with mentees are confidential. Mentors may not solicit business from ventures or invest in ventures they are mentoring.
• Mentors help with all aspects of building a startup. Our goal is your success and development as an entrepreneur. All business decisions remain under the full control of the participating entrepreneur. In other words, we are here to help; we cannot do it for you. We provide practical mentoring that is focused on what your next steps should be.
• Generally, mentor teams meet monthly.
• Mentor teams can be long-term relationships as long as: 1) entrepreneurs are getting value from mentoring and 2) entrepreneurs are making progress with growing their startups.

 

For more information, contact Linda Walsh.

---

---