📜 Problem Statement

Operations can make or break a startup. Yet operators — the employees who design, build, and run operations — lack basic resources that their peers in other roles (like engineering, marketing, sales, and design) have in abundance.

Specifically:

• Education — Most startup operators come from either consulting backgrounds, or have no formal training. There is no easy way to attain the building blocks of ops, nor to ‘level up’ their skills outside of direct work experience.
• Credentialing — Software engineers and designers have portfolios. Sales teams have deal pipeline. Startup operators lack a universally legible way to signal their experience to hiring managers and each other.
• Community — Operators usually work facing internally, and thus lack opportunities to build their networks with each other, or to find mentors.

🗝 Our Solution

Operate Co will address the opportunity of creating a credentialed training program (Operate Cohort) + community (Operate Community) for startup operators.

What is the Operate Cohort?

The Operate Cohort is an invite-only, 7-week program designed to bring the very best ops talent from top startups to connect over a series of virtual lessons, workshops, and mentorships.

The Cohort will initially focus on early- and mid-career managers in operational roles (e.g. in finance, biz ops, customer support, HR, sales/marketing ops) at tech startups. Most people who enroll in Operate Co are looking to become C-level ops leaders later in their career, and want to understand cross-disciplinary best practices in general management. The curriculum will be generalist in nature — not focused on one particular area of ops (e.g. sales ops, marketing ops, warehouse ops) but rather on imbuing a set of mental models, frameworks, and software training that will help operators succeed in any field.

This cohort will meet virtually 3 times a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from 4-6 PM PST) for the duration of the 7-week program. Every Tuesday we will host a Guest Speaker for 1 hour coffee chat style to tackle one fo the following theme's:

• Problem solving
• Project Management
• Systems & Processes
• Org Performance
• Strategic Planning
• Financial Performance
• Org Behavior / Culture

The goal of the Cohort is to help members level up their careers with a foundational set of knowledge, a peer + mentor network they can rely on for help, and a credential they can use to signal their training to prospective employers.