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Caveat that this review is at the very beginning of my journey with Sidebar - I have literally only completed the first group meeting as of 02 June 2023. However, I joined a different group designed for women in late 2020 that I was a little disappointed with. I can already see HUGE advantages in Sidebar's approach, particularly with the tech supports. Most exciting to me was the meeting experience! They are using a bespoke solution inside of their community and at the top it has this outline of the meeting agenda with planned time for each activity. In real time a little gauge is moving across to show everyone where we are now and how much time is left for that activity. Like, WOW! I want this for ALL of my meetings! On the human side, our facilitator was phenomenal! In the other group I had joined we were each "taught" to facilitate and took turns throughout the year. That had very mixed results and Sidebar's dedicated group facilitators was actually a key reason I was willing to try this concept again. Chase did not disappoint - he's amazing! The Sidebar team clearly has a good process on the human side of things too. I was also impressed that once I was matched to a group a special space opened up for us where we could clearly see the milestones for the entire journey ahead and link to materials already made available to us. There were also all of the standard features whereby I could see the group members and our group chat, open new chats with 1 or more members, control notifications, etc. Overall we're off to a strong start and I am truly looking forward to the journey ahead. I'll be sure to update this review as I become more familiar with Sidebar and their complete offering.
As a community leader that has always believed in building your personal "Board of Directors" and bringing peers together to learn from one another, I'm proud to be a brand ambassador and super fan. Sidebar is a great concept with a great product & customer experience, and a great team behind it all. To all my Product friends, you should definitely check this out!
Congratulations on your launch, Lexy & team! Personal Board of Directors is such a fascinating concept! Especially in a world where remote work is the new norm, finding like-minded people to grow together sounds invaluable. A lot of VCs try to create these environments for their founder communities, yet it's very organic, infrequent, and unstructured. Same for many alumni groups trying to facilitate similar environments, with limited success. Question; is it possible to create curated groups within a community, like my alumni group?
Sorry for another tactical question but have you all looked into whether Sidebar can be a tax-deductible expense for companies? I just think that L&D arms of companies have been investing in the same paradigms for a while -- love that there could be a fresh new avenue for them to explore.
Interesting concept. I see so much on exec coaching fronts but when I hear about people feeling supported, I hear mostly from people who have been in coaching "circles" and the value of talking with a small group of people with similar experiences. Love seeing you guys run with this concept. Quick question - do you have instances where employers reimburse the expense of Sidebar for a team member? Or pay for it for them outright? If Sidebar delivers results, I could see this being something companies could be interested in providing for employees.
Providing and receiving support from others who play a similar role to you is one of the best ways to grow your capabilities and succeed. Sidebar is taking proven methods for your own personal board of directors and applying a modern take on that using technology. Check it out!
Congrats on the launch! Love this! Two questions for you all: 1. What is your application criteria? 2. Is Sidebar a mobile app or should we think about it differently?
Sidebar is an amazing l&d product. I'm an early stage founder, and I've been a Sidebar member for 14 months. My Sidebar small group has helped me get dramatically better tactically, strategically, and emotionally at building my startup. I meet bi-weekly with 4 brilliant peers, who are all early stage founders. Each session is an intense coaching session with 4 world class entrepreneurs. We listen to each others' problems. Ask probing questions. And offer tactical advice. At the end of every session, we voluntarily sign up for goals and hold each other accountable in the next session. The public goal setting in front of peers I respect/admire is motivating, terrifying, and awesome. Love Sidebar. Love my small group.
Great founding team and the product has a lot of potential to be a meaningful part of a high performing professional’s career and life
Congrats on the launch, Lexy and Sidebar team! The focused on curation, vetting, and matching to create a "Personal Board of Directors" is a brilliant concept.
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