Cupertino California, February 3^rd, 2021 - StartupWind Inc, the leader in virtual innovation management, is launching the SMB Innovation Platform to make the knowhow that is typically available for elite startups, available at the fingertips of main street SMB entrepreneurs to help them avoid costly mistakes that result in huge failure rates.

StartupWind plans to offer the SMB Innovation platform for FREE until June 2021 to assist small business entrepreneurs who are struggling due to COVID-19 crisis.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, 30% of small businesses fail in their second year, and 50% of small businesses fail after five years in business. 88% of the SMB failures are due to the lack of skills in market research, business planning, financial and business modeling.

StartupWind’s SMB Innovation platform addresses these issues by unlocking the expertise StartupWind built by working with over 50 University and State-wide Innovation programs and delivering simple tools for customer discovery, business planning, business model canvas, and video-based courses in a single unified platform.

The key capabilities of the StartupWind SMB Innovation Platform are :

• Lean Business Plan tools : Guided tools, wizards, and embedded short videos to help the SMB entrepreneur to create a Lean Business Plan and submit it as part of the US Small Business administration (SBA) loan application.
• Business Model Canvas tools : Ability to create a step-by-step business model canvas that helps entrepreneurs do the customer discovery, market research, define the unique value proposition for their business, outline revenue streams and cost structure. The guided tools along with embedded videos and courses get the entrepreneurs ready to launch and execute their businesses a lot more effectively.
• Online Entrepreneurship courses : To address reasons for SMB failure, StartupWind is making self-paced courses available for SMBs that focus on Market Research, Customer Discovery, Business Planning, Business Model Canvas, Financial Modeling, Intellectual Property, and Growth Hacking. The courses have contributions from top Silicon Valley venture capitalists, CMOs, CFOs and top innovation professors in the world.
• Video Conferencing tool : Simple video conferencing tool that does not have any limitations such as 40-minute restriction per meeting or number of participants who can join the meeting.

Kezia Fitzgerald, an SMB entrepreneur and co-founder of CareAline shared her experience with StartupWind :
“StartupWind platform offers a logical, guided workflow that is very easy to follow. The virtual mentoring capability coupled with calendar integration and scheduling is a great solution to connect and get feedback from the mentors. The business model canvas on StartupWind is very different from anything I have used in past. It is very organized, guides you step-by-step. with intuitive color coding and workflow. In fact, the Business Model Canvas I built on StartupWind was the first that really worked and made an impact for me. Overall, the platform is intuitive and captures the SMB entrepreneurs’ needs preciously.”

Deanna Junge, an SMB entrepreneur, and co-founder, of Landmark Finish shared her experience :
“The StartupWind platform is very easy to use and the Business Model Canvas feature helped us visualize our plan effectively. We could drill down the customer segments and the layout helped us narrow down the path we wanted to follow. It’s nice to be able to view your plan visually and have the ability to edit and modify it at any point. The customer discovery section helped us revisit the customer call reports and brainstorm innovative ways to solve their challenges. The mentoring feature is great as it offers access to mentors with a hassle-free meeting scheduling process. I would recommend StartupWind to any Small Business Entrepreneur.”

Naren Patil, founder & CEO of StartupWind said,
“42% small businesses fail since there is no market for their product or services and an additional 46% fail due to lack of financial, business planning and business modeling skills. On the other hand, small businesses create about 65% of the net new jobs in the US. By democratizing the innovation know-how and helping reduce the SMB failure rates would have a significant impact on job creation and prosperity in every state with the US. StartupWind SMB Innovation Platform aims to do just that and make the tools, courses, and know-how available to main street businesses instead of just the elite startups."

About StartupWind, Inc

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, StartupWind unveils a new way to connect, ideate, mentor, and scale startups and SMBs. StartupWind provides a comprehensive platform for startups and SMB entrepreneurs to scale their businesses and make an impact. StartupWind has been delivering an impact to about 25,000 users and 5,000 SMBs affiliated to over 100 universities across 100 countries in the world. It is helping universities and states to scale their tech startups and SMB economic development programs by delivering the AI-powered Innovation Platform that offers tools for ideation, customer discovery, business model canvas, business planning, competitions, mentoring, and learning management system.

Please visit www.startupwind.com for more information.