<\/p>\n
\n\t\tLyubov Guk is a founding partner at Blue Lake VC. She supports early-stage international founders working in the U.K.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRobyn Klingler-Vidra<\/span> \n\t\tRobyn Klingler-Vidra is associate dean of global engagement and associate professor in entrepreneurship and sustainability at King\u2019s Business School.\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJuanita Gonzalez-Uribe<\/span> All three of us are<\/span> immigrants to the U.K. We were each greeted with the classic \u201ccatch-22\u201d of trying to open a bank account and finding a place to live: To get a bank account, you need an address, but to rent a flat, you need a bank account.<\/p>\n This is just one of the (very minor) points of friction immigrants face when moving to a new country. Entrepreneurs who set up a business in a new country encounter more challenges. Lyubov\u2019s own experiences as a Ukrainian immigrant in the U.K. gave her both great empathy for the trials immigrant founders face, and the belief that immigrants often make and build world-leading businesses.<\/p>\n Beyond personal experiences, academic research seems to point to an almost inverse relationship between the contributions immigrant founders make and early acceptance by the ecosystem.<\/p>\n With personal experience as her motivation, Lyubov piloted a program that would offer a softer landing for immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.K. The pilot was an \u201cInternational Founders Open Office Hours\u201d program that would help immigrant founders boost their social networks and local know-how by meeting with VCs in the U.K.<\/p>\n Instead of the usual pitch format, the meetings were informal conversations that aimed to help founders build up this essential \u2014 and for immigrants, missing \u2014 social capital. The program was inspired by Playfair Capital and its Female Founders Office Hours.<\/p>\n The initial start was rocky, as it coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Lyubov and her Blue Lake partner, David Gilgur, were helping families and friends in Ukraine by day and drafting the program plan by night. Early on, there was the challenge of bringing VCs and partners on board. Blue Lake had been active for a few years but was still a new name in the investment ecosystem. Asking for investors\u2019 time meant that we had to prove we could launch something impactful that key players would want to be a part of. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lyubov Guk is a founding partner at Blue Lake VC. She supports early-stage international founders working in the U.K. Robyn Klingler-VidraContributor Robyn Klingler-Vidra is associate dean of global engagement and associate professor in entrepreneurship and sustainability at King\u2019s Business School. Juanita Gonzalez-UribeContributor All three of us are immigrants to the U.K. We were each greeted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1241474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1241472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrity-gossip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1241472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1241472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1241472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1241472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Contributor<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Contributor<\/span>\n\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nDesigning an international founders open office hours pilot<\/h2>\n