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Ureeka taps Kevin O’Leary (AKA Mr. Wonderful) to launch SMB curriculum

Ureeka, an SMB mentorship platform for next-wave entrepreneurs, has today announced the Kevin O’Leary Bootcamp, which will offer members access to an exclusive curriculum of his knowledge and advice.

The startup, which raised $8.6 million in April, looks to offer a full-scale mentorship platform for underrepresented founders across all industries. Alongside offering a community of other entrepreneurs to bounce ideas off of, Ureeka also gives members free access to mentors (experts who are still active in their industry) and paid access to coaches (who continue with the member to tackle specific issues over the course of six months or more).

With the introduction of the Kevin O’Leary Bootcamp, Ureeka is shining a light on coaching circles. Circles place members into a group of five, plus a coach. That coach leads a group conversation each week that focuses on a different pillar of building a business, with concrete tasks given to members to complete.

In the case of the Kevin O’Leary Bootcamp, Ureeka coaches have been trained in his specific curriculum and framework to lead these weekly meetings and pass along his unique flavor of advice.

“He resonates with our audience because he is an entrepreneur,” said Ureeka co-founder Melissa Bradley. “He’s been there, and he’s done that. Second of all, there are a lot of programs out there that are not driven towards outputs or outcomes. Unfortunately, it’s a vicious business model to get stuck in ongoing consulting and that is not his process. He’s going to tell you what you need to do, tell you how to get it done, and get it done, and you see those results.”

Bradley added that several of O’Leary’s portfolio companies were involved with Ureeka early on in the company, which was the original connective tissue between the startup and Mr. Wonderful.

Here’s what O’Leary had to say in a prepared statement:

Underrepresented entrepreneurs, women, people of color are time and time again barred from the type of access so many take for granted, whether it be financial, educational or otherwise. We have to do better. Ureeka is doing incredible work to make tools and connections that are usually reserved for the big fish, actually accessible and all in one place. I’m thrilled to be working with them and to be able to provide small businesses access to my all-star team and resources.

The Kevin O’Leary Bootcamp is 12 months and costs a total of $3,750 across the year, which works out to $312.50/month.

One of the most unique things about Ureeka is that it gives members a series of levers to pull when they run into a problem. They can go directly to their coach to ask a question, and then to a mentor, and then to the peers in their coaching circle, and finally to the broader community.

Co-founder David Jakubowski and Bradley see the greatest challenges to Ureeka as a matter of building trust with users and managing scale.

“With everything going on in the world right now, there are so many people who need help,” said Jakubowski. “It’s not one quick fix. I can’t jump on the phone with anybody in 30 minutes and fix their business. It’s about systemic focus on doing the right things on a repeated basis that will put your business into the best position. There are just so many people who have such dire need right now, whether it’s getting the funding, or getting advice. There are just so many of them that it’s a bit overwhelming.”

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Chief CEO Carolyn Childers, Reboot.io CEO Jerry Colona, Ureeka co-founder Melissa Bradley are coming to Disrupt 2020

Becoming a successful leader isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula. Each startup — depending on the industry and internal culture — has its own needs.

The hard part is figuring out what leadership style best suits the personality of the CEO or founder as well as the needs and culture of their startup and employees who work there.

This year at TechCrunch’s virtual Disrupt 2020 on September 14-18, we’ll talk to the people who with the expertise and insight to help startup founders and other C-suite level executives — as well as those who someday hope to be in that spot — find the right leadership style for their business. We’re excited to announced that joining us on the Extra Crunch stage to discuss leadership styles is Carolyn Childers, co-founder and CEO of women leadership network Chief, Melissa Bradley co-founder of SMB networking platform Ureeka and Jerry Colonna, co-founder and CEO of executive coaching firm Reboot.io.

The three speakers will dig into what makes a successful leader and how to find the right management style as well as tackle other challenges that founders, CEOs and other executives face while building a company.

Bradley’s company Ureeka gives small business access to the expertise needed to grow their business. She is also founder and managing partner of 1863 Ventures, a business development program, and serves as advisor to the New Voices Foundation and New Voices Fund, as well as the Halcyon Fund. Bradley is the former Co-Chair, National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was recently named one of The Most Entrepreneurial Women Investors in 2018.

Chief, which Childers and partner Lindsay Kaplan launched in January 2019, is a private network to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. The organization is designed for senior women leaders. Prior to founding Chief, Childers was senior vice president of operations at Handy, led the launch of the site Soap.com (Quidsi) and acted as its GM through its acquisition by Amazon. Childers’ work landed her on Inc.’s 2019 Female Founders 100 List.

Colonna’s company Reboot.io specializes in executive coaching and leadership development. Colonna, who has experience as an executive, venture capitalist, journalist and board member, is also the author of ‘REBOOT: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up.’

You may have heard that we’re taking Disrupt virtual this year, a move that lets us make the event accessible to more people than ever before while keeping everyone safe. Disrupt 2020 is scheduled to run from September 14 through September 19. Buy the Disrupt Digital Pro Pass or a Digital Startup Alley Exhibitor Package today and get access to all the interviews on our main Disrupt stage, workshops over on the Extra Crunch Stage where you can get actionable tips as well as CrunchMatch, our free, AI-powered networking platform. As soon as you register for Disrupt, you will have access to CrunchMatch and can start connecting with people now. Use the tool to schedule one-on-one video calls with potential customers and investors or to recruit and interview prospective employees.

We’ll see you there!

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