The FAQs.
You have questions. We have answers.
See below for general info about Mindshare and platform-specific FAQ’s for members.
General info about Mindshare.
The Mindshare website offers a private, Member-Only community for all Mindshare alumni, the current Program cohort, and our Organizing Board.
To access the member-only content and resources simply login. Use is by other groups or individuals is not permitted.
To date, Mindshare has over 1,100 alumni.
All were CEOs when they joined. Many have gone on to lead multiple companies, have transitioned into other industry leadership roles, or are now investors themselves. The result is a potent and vibrant community of industry leaders.
You must be invited to join Mindshare. New members are nominated by our current Alumni Network members or an Organizing Board member.
We are on the lookout for CEOs from all backgrounds, gender, and races. Our criteria for CEOs we consider adding to the Mindshare network is:
- Industry:
Must be in emerging technology, with a product (not consultants or government contractors). - Experience:
While our network is full of extremely experienced CEOs since we have 26+ years of Alumni, most new members are new to the role of CEO. (There are exceptions to this rule.) - Region:
Must be in the Washington DC area.
As a rule, new members are CEO’s who are relatively new to their role, will offer value to the community, are in the DC area, and want to engage with an active group of peers.
PROCESS:
You will be contacted by our board and asked to formally apply to join. Then you can submit your application.
TO LOCK IN MEMBERSHIP:
- You need to pay the one-time program and membership fee ($1,100).
- Attend The Program
All new members must attend The Mindshare Program. There are 8 events over 8 months and a December “graduation” event. New members must attend at least 5 of the 8 regular events. After that, you are a member for life.
We are looking for the most promising CEOs in startup technology. Membership fees are not the most important criteria for our organization.
If finances are tight, we offer partial scholarships to assist candidates in their membership requirements.
The Program is our annual CEO course for newly accepted members to the network. It’s a series of monthly events (usually held the 3rd week of the month) Find out more about it HERE.
Each year The Program consists of roughly 50-60 CEOs from the DC region.
No. Newly accepted members must attend most of The Program events. This is an important part of the Mindshare experience. Building relationships with your cohort is one way to foster key, real-world connections.
Every new member must attend AT LEAST 5 of the 8 events held over your first year in Mindshare. Upon completion of The Program, you are an official Alumni of Mindshare and your membership is life-long.
Congratulations! You’re one of a handful of CEO’s selected each year.
Please go to The Program page to see more info and to understand our expectations for new members (once you are accepted). You can begin the application process by emailing us HERE.
Nominated CEO’s must submit their official request to join Mindshare by the end of January.
Platform insights for members.
We are always looking for fresh CEO’s to bring into the network. If you are an Alumni of Mindshare (or on our Organizing Board) – you email us HERE to submit a nomination.
We will follow up directly to verify your nomination is in process.If you are a member of Mindshare and have never logged into this site, or have forgotten your password, you can get a new password by using the Reset Password function.
In order to reset your password, the email address you enter into the box on the Reset Password page has to match the one we have on file. If your email address has changed and you no longer have access to the email account you used when you were in your Mindshare class, please use the Contact Us page to let us know your new email address.
No, All Mindshare alums are already pre-subscribed. You will receive an initial email from Mindshare asking you to set your password and we ask that you take the time to do this one time. You will then be able to engage via email and also enjoy greatly expanded capabilities if you do log in to the website.
You can use the “Post New Message” button at the top of your Alumni digest email to send a message out to the Alumni group or you can email your post to [email protected] to start a new thread.
You can use the “Reply to Discussion” and “Reply to Sender” buttons associated with each post in your digest email to respond to an existing thread.
A few people have asked if they can receive their messages in the old, plain-text style. You can change your subscription settings to do this on the Community Notifications page, which you can reach by clicking the “My Subscriptions” link at the very bottom of any email.
Select the “Plain Text” option from the drop-down for any list you want to change.
If you don’t need/want to receive messages from the community right away, you can choose to receive them summarized, once per day per group, in a Daily Digest. The Community Notifications page described above will let you change your subscription type.
The daily or weekly consolidated emails are recommended for those looking to receive fewer emails.
All discussions can be found by any alum at any time by browsing the online community or searching the site.
The main community/group is the Alumni community. Everyone is subscribed to this group automatically. General discussions, Q&A, recommendations, etc. that don’t fit in one of the subgroups should happen in Alumni.
Subgroups should be used for topic specific discussions.
Admin can create new subgroups as needed, but we want to be careful about getting too granular as there will be too many groups and discussions can easily be spread too thin.
The big advantage to subgroups is that they act as filters. If messages specific to a topic are posted in the appropriate subgroup, only those who are interested in THAT topic (and have subscribed to that subgroup) will get the message.
This helps cut down on message volume, while at the also increasing overall message volume as people can be less “afraid” to share info because they are not “bothering” the entire alumni membership. They know they are ONLY talking to people who are interested in that specific topic.
Absolutely. Here is how subgroups and their administration works using an example “Onshoring” subgroup:
You want to get alums to join your community. To join a subgroup, click the Discussions link in the main menu, scroll down to find the subgroup you are interested in, for example “Onshoring SIG”, and click the red “Join” button.
Community admins can also invite people to join who have expressed an interest but have not yet joined. The system will send those people an invitation and they can click a link to join immediately.
- Any dialog you want to happen in the Onshoring group needs to be posted there.
Future discussions about Onshoring should be done this way – within the subgroup. That way those that care about Onshoring (and join that group) will receive notifications of those posts, and those that don’t want information about Onshoring, won’t receive it.
However, anyone who is logged in will be able to read the posts on the site at any time – even for subgroups they have not subscribed to.
You will need to send an email to mindshare_[subgroupname][email protected] (for example [email protected])
HOW TO DO THIS IN THE SYSTEM:
- From the main menu on the site, hover over Discussions then click Post a Message. In the Post a Message screen chose “Onshoring” from the “To” list
- From the main menu on the site click Discussions, scroll down or page through the subgroups to find the desired group (Onshoring) and click the title of the group to open it.
- Then click the green “Add” button next to Latest Discussion Posts to share your message.
- From the main menu on the site, hover over Discussions then click Post a Message. In the Post a Message screen chose “Onshoring” from the “To” list
Yes. In fact we recommend subgroups periodically share a summary of what’s going on in the subgroup with the entire Alumni list.
This helps to generate more interest and keep other members up to date.
