Developing people—let alone entire companies—and helping them reach their full potential is a huge responsibility and a lot of work. They are well aware of this at the startup LearnerOn, which facilitates education. Founder Vladislav Severa, one of this year’s Ment2Grow graduates, gave us an overview of how his company operates and its plans, and shared what the program has meant to him.
LearnerOn is a platform that facilitates employee development and training. Could you tell us a little more about what you do?
LearnerOn aims to become a smart self-service platform for learners—primarily employees, but generally adults—and we also offer a B2C version. In addition to features for employees, we also have many features for talent leaders. We say that for them, LearnerOn becomes a „weapon of mass learning“ if they choose to use it that way. We strive to meet individual learning needs, which is why we aggregate a large amount of educational content (currently about half a million items), both paid and free. We also strive to make it as easy as possible for users to access the materials. If Netflix knows what we might like, why couldn’t LearnerOn suggest to learners what might be good for them individually? We also frequently hear from talent leaders that only a small percentage of their colleagues have an active interest in learning; many of them often don’t even know that their company offers any kind of learning system. We try to draw them into the process by offering peer-to-peer learning. Users can create personalized programs and then share them with their colleagues, thereby helping to build a learning organization together.
What motivated you to sign up for Ment2Grow?
I'd heard positive feedback about Ment2Grow from friends who had previously participated in the program. I'm really glad I signed up.
Did the program meet your expectations and goals?
Yes, even though at first I couldn't imagine everything the program would eventually offer me, I'm pleasantly surprised.
One of the topics you were addressing when you enrolled in the program was business development and establishing a system for customer feedback. Did you focus on these specific topics during your mentoring sessions with Ivana Čermáková (Group T&D Business Partner at Asahi Europe & International)?
That’s right. During our mentoring discussions, Ivana provided me with some useful insights. Her feedback—and even the opinions of her colleagues, whom she sometimes brought in—were very helpful, and we’re now incorporating that into our communication with clients and using it to adjust, prioritize, and—in some cases—simplify our features.
How did the meetings with your mentor go? Did you have a strategy for your collaboration in place from the start, or did you tend to address topics on an ad-hoc basis?
It was ad hoc 🙂 We always discussed in advance which topics we wanted to address at the meeting—but the common thread was always the user’s or recipient’s experience with our solution.
What do you consider to be the greatest benefit of mentoring? Has this connection opened your eyes to anything in a particular area?
Feedback—even the unsolicited kind :). When a mentor sees that we’re missing something or phrasing something unnaturally or nonsensically, their feedback stings in the moment, but it’s helpful. So yes, it opened my eyes, and that certain ruthlessness was necessary at times.
During Pitch Night, you had three minutes to present your startup to about seventy guests. What was it like to stand on stage in front of potential partners or clients? And did this event lead to any valuable connections for you?
Fortunately, it wasn't my first time on stage, but I wasn't entirely prepared for a three-minute pitch. Those three minutes were the result of hours of work and refinement. The event led to some interesting connections.
Ment2Grow is a networking-focused program that aims to connect participants with potential clients, partners, and investors. One way to make these connections is through the contact list in the Expert & Network Pool. (which includes about 140 experts from various fields – corporate executives, experienced founders, experts on various topics, and contacts who can assist with international expansion (Editor’s note). How did you use this pool for LearnerOn?
I may not have reached as many experts as I could have, but as part of the pool, I got to know, for example, Maria Ursu (Head of HR at Uber) and Daniel Frühauf (Innovation & Co-creation Manager at the IKEA Group). I reached out to all of these external contributors—or whatever you want to call them—and had a discussion with them, during which I was interested in learning how they approach talent development in their companies. Although these are companies that LearnerOn cannot yet aspire to match in size, they deal with similar issues.
Ment2Grow helps B2B startups expand. What are your plans in this area?
In addition to expanding our business development efforts in the Czech Republic—where, thanks to our local environment and network, it’s not too difficult to secure a meeting with an interesting potential client—we’ve also ventured abroad. We’re doing this by generating digital leads—an approach we previously discussed as part of Ment2Grow when we were talking about digital marketing and how to expand abroad without having to move your entire family there. We’re currently experimenting in six European countries.
To wrap things up, how would you rate Ment2Grow? What was the highlight for you?
The program has several pillars: first, the transfer of know-how during professional meetings; second, networking among the startups themselves, which was also very useful—we shared advice and experiences with one another; and third, there are the external experts. The Speed Business Meeting turned out to be unexpectedly useful for me; there, I met people from companies I hadn’t known before, as well as investors. I met about eight people there, and I continued the discussion with five of them at follow-up meetings.
Author: Tereza Bartošková
