Philly Startup Leaders rebrands and pivots strategy, after years of declining revenue
Philly Startup Leaders rebranded to Startup Leaders earlier this month and announced a slate of programming that expands its reach outside of Philadelphia. This change was a long time coming, CEO Isabelle Kent told Technical.ly. The org had long wanted to create a single place for founders to access everything they need — not necessarily by providing it all directly — while also making the organization more sustainable, she said.
'The goal for us is not to be the primary organizer,' Kent said. 'But rather spread our support around to organizations that can contribute to different aspects of the founder lifecycle, but still be tethered to this anchor of Startup Leaders.'
The effort to strengthen the org in the long term comes at a time when Startup Leaders faces its lowest revenue yet. The total amount of money brought in by the org dropped dramatically in recent years, only making $105,000 in 2023, compared to $630,000 in 2019, according to the nonprofit's tax filings.
The nonprofit is prioritizing virtual programming with the rebrand, while pointing founders to other orgs for in-person events.
Startup Leaders' shift to digital events began during the pandemic, and its model eventually became a mix of both in-person and online events.
For example, the org continued to host its monthly founder meetup, Welcome Wagon, until very recently. The newly launched venture studio United Effects Ventures told Technical.ly earlier this week it would be taking over the event series.
Startup Leaders has been rethinking its programming for the last few years, according to Kent. It wanted to create more structured, self-paced programming so founders could have access to resources outside of events and accelerator cycles.
PSL hasn't conducted its Founded in Philly accelerator since 2022. Instead, the org has been partnering with and supporting Founder Institute's Keystone Chapter accelerator program, Kent said, rather than hosting its own.
With the rebrand, Startup Leaders will now launch a 'digital accelerator' program, according to Kent. It will be a database to direct new founders to other support orgs in their region, in-person events, investors and educational materials, as opposed to a traditional in-person accelerator. It also wants to offer an expert library, a job board, a new Slack channel and ecosystem maps.
The new format will be a tiered membership structure ranging from $50 to $120 per month, but Philly founders will receive a discount. It is also developing a proprietary mentor matching tool and a chatbot that will act like a digital startup coach.
'Utilize Startup Leaders as a jumping off point,' Kent said, ' as you try to navigate which resources are available [and] what you should be doing at each stage of your growth as a founder.'
A rebrand after years of financial struggle
Startup Leaders is just one of several entrepreneur support organizations in Philly, all on different tracks.
The Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) shifted more of its focus to supporting startups in the city, expanding from the suburbs. 1Philadelphia, an initiative of tech education org Coded By, launched in 2020 with the goal of bringing equity to the tech industry in Philly.
Unlike Startup Leaders, both of these organizations saw revenue growth over the last few years. While previously Startup Leaders was making most of its money from events and accelerators, the org's financial dip really began in 2020 when the pandemic forced a change in format, according to Kent.
'Post-pandemic … it became pretty obvious to us that we needed to start reconsidering what the future structure of our organization was in order to create a pretty different channel of revenue for the organization,' Kent said.
Still, in other regions, local entrepreneur support organizations are also seeing an uptick in support. While Baltimore and Pittsburgh, for example, have vastly different ecosystems, each city's main ESO has generally increased revenue over time.
Startup Leaders will still be a Philly org
Startup Leaders launched in 2008, solidifying itself as a gathering and educational space for Philly founders over the years. The nonprofit celebrated its 15th anniversary at the end of 2023.
However, the organization faced challenges over the years. In addition to revenue hurdles in the years following the pandemic, Startup Leaders faced criticism in 2017 for a lack of diversity, eventually leading to Yuval Yarden, executive director at the time, stepping down.
While Startup Leaders is moving away from its place-based identity, supporting Philadelphia's startup community is still top of mind, Kent said.
'This is not us leaving or abandoning Philadelphia,' she said. 'This is truly an expansion of our capabilities. And the goal for this is to really go out there and bring knowledge and resources back to the Philadelphia community and help it connect with the world at large.'
Despite Kent's motivation to reach a wider audience with a virtual focus, she also said that Startup Leaders will be a part of creating more physical spaces for tech leaders in Philly to gather.
Physical space is one of the elements that Philadelphia needs for a strong startup ecosystem, she said. Over the years, many physical spaces have shifted focus to just life sciences or have shut down.
Startup Leaders has been working with other orgs for over a year to create an emerging technology incubator. It's piloting an in-person space and plans to raise funding to build a new physical meeting place for tech founders that hosts collaborative programming between stakeholders, Kent said.
'All of this will really serve as us helping unite and inform a vision for Philadelphia's innovation ecosystem,' Kent said. 'That all the organizations, whether those are legacy orgs or whether they're newcomers, can work towards.'
Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
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