What is Cornerstones?
Cornerstones is division within DEF with the mission of advancing DEF members’ businesses and careers. Our Cornerstones program consists of four components:
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substantive training on skills useful to entrepreneurs; venture capital and angel investors; and professionals in the venture ecosystem. We host monthly skill development workshops. For example, recent workshop topics have included digital marketing, government funding, government contracting, pricing, supply chain, SEO, software development, financial modeling and angel investing. A soft skills workshop discussed the experience of being an employee and managing employees at an early stage company. Cornerstones occasionally conducts workshops or panels on specific industries.
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platform for DEF members who are subject-matter experts to gain more visibility in their fields.
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investor pitch nights for entrepreneurs seeking to raise private capital. We offer practice pitch nights with mock investors as well as live pitch nights with venture capital and angel investors.
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government contract pitch nights for entrepreneurs seeking to win government contracts. We invite government contract specialists to serve as mock government contract officers to judge entrepreneurs’ pitches.
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PRACTICE PITCH NIGHTS
Our practice pitch nights are designed to be a warm, supportive and non-competitive environment for participating entrepreneurs.
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We advertise Cornerstones events on this webpage, linkedin, on DEF slack and in the DEF newsletter. We will make recordings of most Cornerstones events available on this webpage.
CONTACT
Please contact hello@def.org, if you are interested in:
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participating in government contracts pitch night presenting on a government contract or funding topic in which you have expertise
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requesting a government contracting or funding topic of interest
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participating in Cornerstones VC/Angel pitch night
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presenting on a topic (other than government contracting or funding) in which you have expertise
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requesting we cover a topic of interest (other than government contracting or funding)
(DEF) PODCAST EPISODEs
