Rally Scale Up: Filling a Critical Gap in a Social Entrepreneur’s Journey
Rally Scale Up: Filling a Critical Gap in a Social Entrepreneur’s Journey
Ken Peach’s Social Enterprise MobileMedix Plus Gets Scaled Up
As Orlando’s social enterprise accelerator, Rally aims to help social entrepreneurs transform their early-stage work into sustainable ventures that have positive and measurable social or environmental impact. During the 16-week accelerator program, Rally Fellows work on building and validating business models and social impact strategies alongside a team of seasoned entrepreneurial mentors. Each Fellow graduates the program having crystallized their ideas, ironed out sticking points, and a social impact model based on the globally recognized Sustainable Development Goals.
After the fellowship closes, Rally alum go onto the next stage of their entrepreneurial journey: cultivating partnerships, raising capital, and driving social impact.
However, through gaining valuable feedback from past fellows, the Rally team realized that there was a gap immediately after the accelerator program and before the momentum hit when moving into this next phase in their entrepreneurial journey. Sensing a need for a personalized support system for Fellows and non-Fellows in this position, the team got to work on a program that focused on the transition from early-stage work to mid-stage action. As the number of Alumni grew, the Rally team sought additional ways to continue to help past Fellows move their venture forward.
The New Program: Rally Scale Up
Rally Scale Up is a customizable program that bridges the early-stage conceptual work done in the accelerator to the mid-stage momentum that follows it. It offers social enterprises on the cusp of raising capital or scaling their operation with short-term help from seasoned entrepreneurs who have successfully scaled, raised capital, and exited businesses. Each engagement is customized and focused on activities that successfully drive the social entrepreneur’s venture towards the next phase.
“We noticed that many organizations had great people and an important mission, but most of all, they needed something to get them closer to what they were looking to achieve,” said Matt Umbers, Scale Up’s Program Director. “This came in the way of needing connections, help selling more, promoting more, raising more awareness, and product refinement.”
With 20 years of working with innovative startup organizations from the ground up, Matt comes with a wealth of knowledge in the entrepreneurial space; and, in the past decade, he’s worked on various social issues in the capacity of volunteer, advocate, activist, and fundraiser. Pairing his business acumen with his drive for positive social impact, he was brought on to the Rally team as the director for the new Scale Up program.
An Orlando Healthcare Social Enterprise Gets Scaled Up
Ken Peach, a seasoned healthcare professional in the Orlando region, leads Care-A-Medix, a community paramedicine service and nonprofit organization supporting complex care patients at home. In 2021, Ken was accepted into Rally’s Summer Cohort to help strengthen his venture’s social mission and business model.
“Beginning in 2017, our program was 100% grant supported,” explained Ken. “We gained partial program sustainability by 2019 by finding large medical groups that saved money using our service.”
In early 2023, he formed MobileMedix Plus as a revenue stream to access capital required to expand Care-A-Medix. MobileMedix Plus, a for-profit business that would help to support the nonprofit’s expansion, employs licensed and insured Florida paramedics to make in-home well-check visits to someone’s loved one or friend.
“As grant income declined, we needed assistance identifying and securing additional paying clients,” said Ken. “This is where we engaged Matt and the Scale Up program.”
It Starts with a 60-Minute Investment
Once Ken connected with the Rally Scale Up program, Matt and his team met with him to discuss his unique situation in a 60-minute consultation.
“A 60-minute conversation is the investment required to determine if and how we can help. It really comes down to that,” said Matt.
From there, Rally Scale Up developed a customized plan for MobileMedix Plus based on its specific obstacles and goals.
“Ken was the ideal person for the program in many ways. He had a great team, a solid mission and had been making steady progress,” shared Matt. “He simply needed a more comprehensive sales approach and go-to-market strategy. We decided to work together month to month but with the assumption that the work would likely take 3 months.”
During this time, Ken was committed and followed the Scale Up program outlined for him, even at times where it was out of his comfort zone. “The first month is always the hardest – hard work, but nothing to show for it; but, Ken was patient and then suddenly he started the see momentum and see how things began to change,” said Matt.
“After 6 weeks, [Ken] was deep into conversations with several meaningful customers and once he got over some road bumps, he was in ‘flow’ – that is, he had established momentum, had a pipeline, a process and was executing on his mission.”
From Ken’s perspective, the Scale Up program delivered on its promise. The Scale Up team checked in on his progress at least twice every week, encouraging him to take the steps in the customized program along with training and guidance along the way.
“Matt coached us and drafted model email messages that actually resulted in completed prospect meetings in Orlando and Miami,” shared Ken. “In three short months, the program established a long prospect list, provided us with communications tools, and led to us signing a major client.”
Why Scale Up is Working
Since Scale Up isn’t a one-size-fits-all program, the first step is a 60-minute conversation with Rally’s Scale Up Team. Within that time, the team can determine if and how they can help.
“Oftentimes, organizations don’t know what they need, so this conversation, at minimum, identifies opportunities or challenges,” said Matt.
If Scale Up can help, the team then develops a customized plan that will guide a social enterprise efficiently and effectively through to the next level of momentum.
Q&A with Scale Up Director, Matt Umbers
In your own words, what is Rally Scale Up?
Rally Scale Up began as an idea to support organizations post Rally accelerator, in a customized way to really scale up their missions – to increase their social impact metrics with help with sales, marketing, fund raising, making connections by leveraging the Rally network, and much more.
Who would be the ideal participant for the Scale Up program?
What we have found is that within a 60-minute conversation it becomes very clear one way or another if and how we can help an organization. I don’t think there has been a conversation that has taken place that even within 60 minutes we haven’t been able to offer some assistance. The Rally support team and network is comprehensive, and we look to leverage the collective efforts for good. More specifically, any company that is participating or has participated in the Rally accelerator would be a candidate, an organization that delivers a product or needs a very specific, tangible deliverable (i.e. raising $50k, finding a product person, delivery x widgets to market) or is open to exploring what those gaps/opportunities might be. It is a good reminder that often many organizations don’t know what they need so the 60-minute conversation, at minimum, identifies those opportunities or challenges (or both).
Can you share one example of a meaningful moment while directing the Scale Up program?
I will provide two examples of the meaningful work of Scale Up, which hopefully show the diversity and tailored nature of our approach. The first was an organization that came through the accelerator. We had a 60-minute conversation, and it became apparent what their gaps were. It was also clear that in this particular instance the Rally Scale up initiative would NOT be in a position to help (long term and formally) That said, we were able to make two connections from the Rally network (one a product person and the other an investor) that subsequently relieved the pain points and thus they could continue on with their work. They have since continued to experience meaningful results and I would like to say that in part this is attributed to these connections…which stemmed just from one 60-minute conversation. I mention this use case only to suggest that it all starts with a conversation. On the flip side, after a 60-minute conversation with another organization it became clear that they didn’t actually need funding. What they need was the ability to scale sales. We engaged on a month-to-month basis and after this time they had generated the amount of revenue they were looking to seek in funding. At worst, they are in a better position to seek more funding now; at best, they are on the merry way to scaling without any funding at all.
How to Get Your Social Enterprise Scaled Up
You’ve formed a founding team and have validated product-market fit with early customers, and now it’s time to scale your operation dramatically with an almost guaranteed return on investment and pathway toward sustainability and impact. Successfully preparing to leap into this new phase is no small feat and full of challenges.
Start the conversation about how Rally Scale Up can help you prepare to scale or raise capital.
Tags: healthcare, rally, scale up, social enterprise, social entrepreneur