Brazen Growth Group Software

Brazen’s Growth Group software offers peer advisory groups to women entrepreneurs/business owners anywhere in the world in a scalable way.

The problems of lack of confidence, networks and a propensity to utilize existing resources by women entrepreneurs have resulted in women opting to run business that are significantly smaller than their male counterparts. Research has demonstrated that peer advisory style groups that offer women the platform to share experiences and develop networks could be a promising method to address these issues.  

Peer advisory groups like Vistage, YPO & EO have helped CEOs for decades–and they work. Vistage research revealed that "members grew at 3X the rate of average US companies." But they are not ACCESSIBLE to small business owners in under-served populations including women entrepreneurs. Brazen’s Growth Group software makes peer advisory groups ACCESSIBLE to women entrepreneurs/business owners anywhere in the world in a scalable way. Growth Groups are peer advisory groups of 7-9 individuals that meet monthly to provide advice & support. The Growth Group software allows up to 6 members of each group to present their greatest business challenge in a self-facilitated fashion every month. The software also provides infinite data gathering possibilities. Peer advisory group members often stay in their group for more than 1 year, creating months of data tracking opportunity as members answer surveys and enter challenges, emotions and action items throughout their time in the program.

The problems of lack of confidence, networks and a propensity to utilize existing resources by women entrepreneurs have resulted in women opting to run business that are significantly smaller than their male counterparts. Research has demonstrated that peer advisory style groups that offer women the platform to share experiences and develop networks could be a promising method to address these issues.  Such peer advisor groups have helped CEOs for decades; however, high annual fees and eligibility requirements of these groups have prohibited most women entrepreneurs and small business owners, especially those in the under-served populations, from engaging in these programs.      

Peer advisory groups like Vistage, YPO & EO have helped CEOs for decades–and they work. Vistage research revealed that "members grew at 3X the rate of average US companies." But they are not ACCESSIBLE to small business owners in under-served populations including women entrepreneurs. Our proprietary Growth Group software makes these helpful programs available. The software also provides infinite data gathering possibilities. Peer advisory group members often stay in their group for more than 1 year, creating months of data tracking opportunity as members answer surveys and enter challenges, emotions and action items throughout their time in the program.

We believe that entrepreneurs and business owners in under-served populations have a particular need for peer advisory groups to receive connection and support.  We envision that the Brazen Growth Group software platform will eventually be available to these entrepreneurs and small business owners through self-initiated groups or as a part of an entrepreneurship support organization program.  The software is successful if the participants grow jobs, revenue and entrepreneurial aspiration.  The software is also successful if entrepreneurship support organizations are able to serve more under-served entrepreneurs and efficiently run the program because of our platform. 

track use rates in our software - 500 self-initiated, self-facilitated growth groups organized nation-wide in Year 1

track via surveys delivered through the software - 50% of members report that their growth group helped them grow their company

track use rates in the software - 25% of growth groups are happening in rural/suburban markets

Many peer advisory group programs and companies exist. To our knowledge (after intensive research), there are no other companies offering software that allows peer advisory groups to be formed and manage their group meetings in a completely self-facilitated way.

Brazen Growth Group software technology was developed at Brazen Global (formerly known as Prosper Women Entrepreneurs (Prosper Institute), which exists to help growth-seeking women entrepreneurs advance their businesses.  Brazen was initially formed to address the gender disparity in the St. Louis entrepreneurship ecosystem. In the three years since its initial launch, our organization has been to produce entrepreneurial programming to address and tailor the need for women entrepreneurs.  The concept of the Brazen Growth Group software is developed and built from our hands-on experience of serving women entrepreneurs in our local community.   

The Growth Group software is a web-based platform that can be used by virtually anyone for an extremely nominal fee. 

Although in the past three years, Brazen has been operating as a traditional non-profit (funded mostly by grants and sponsorship), our newly launched Brazen Membership marks our transition to a for-profit social enterprise. Our company is expanding through new corporate-owned and franchised Brazen cities, allowing all of our revenue to come from membership and franchise revenue. 

Because our programs are technology-enabled, we believe we have infinite opportunity to scale throughout the US and beyond. Our primary challenge will be to successfully reach women entrepreneurs in the region who may not be aware that we exist. A secondary challenge will be ensuring that we have adequate staff resources available to support the women business owners who participate in our programs.

http://brazenglobal.com

https://vimeo.com/195782475/409e6591db

Brazen has invested significant resources in the development of this proprietary software platform.  Support from Solve would enable the Brazen team to further develop the software to become a fully-automated, turn-key platform, with full white-labeling capabilities.

We have a myriad of partners supporting our efforts, including JPMorgan Chase, MasterCard, Emerson, Washington University and more. All of our sponsors can be found at https://brazenglobal.com/about...

Circular Board, Women 2.0, Women Who Startup, SheWorx, FemCity