Venture Mentoring Service
What is Cabarrus Center Venture Mentoring Service?
Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) is our premier program at the Cabarrus Center, connecting business founders with exceptional advisory services. Through a competitive application process, we select the region’s top, most viable startup companies and a handpicked team of mentors who work together to further the development of the venture. We also help early stage companies get “mentor ready” through our programs and coaching sessions. This program has been refined for over 20 years at MIT and is licensed to over 100 communities worldwide. It gives experienced professionals an opportunity to mentor our next generation of entrepreneurs and stimulate our region’s economic development.
Team Approach
Based on the MIT model, our entrepreneurs are matched with a diverse mentor team of experienced entrepreneurs and business people, flexible to adjust with a venture’s changing needs.
Invaluable Mentorship
Our venture teams meet monthly in sessions that will both develop the entrepreneur and guide them through their business challenges and opportunities that they might encounter as they begin to grow.
Engagement
Our program makes it easy for mentors and founders to meet and collaborate. There is a formal process to onboard companies and mentors, so that everyone is on the same page in terms of expectations.
Mentors
Chris Gonzalez
Terry Crawford
Greg Orr
The Flywheel Foundation is pleased to host the MIT VMS program license and administer the program on behalf of the Cabarrus Center. We are dedicated to promoting a healthy entrepreneurship ecosystem through education, research, events, innovation challenges, and business accelerators. The Flywheel Foundation accelerates home-grown economic development with diverse pathways for inception-stage startups, micropreneurs, students, and alumni working in supportive innovation communities. In just five years of operation, we have supported sixty-two companies, and more than 50% have received growth financing, are rapidly hiring new employees, and are entering the commercial real estate market.
