Alberto Arenaza: Support for New Founders Influencing Learning and Work

Hello friends! My name is Spiffy, I’m an interplanetary journalist meeting up with inspiring entrepreneurs. Today I’m in Madrid, Spain, talking to someone who is passionate about learning, and supporting new founders. Help me welcome Alberto Arenaza, co-founder of Transcend Network.

Spiffy: Welcome Alberto! I’m excited to have you tell me about Transcend Network and the challenges you’re addressing!

Alberto: Thank you for having me, Spiffy! The main problem we are addressing at Transcend Network is the lack of support that exists for early-stage founders in building education and work innovations. We provide support by connecting them to a global network of founders, investors, mentors, and research.

Spiffy: That’s stellar! What motivated you to tackle this? 

Alberto: I was a part of the first graduating class at Minerva Schools. I learned firsthand about the challenges in building innovative education models. I also learned about the transformational impact it had on students, and it motivated me to support thousands of founders to build similar experiences.

Spiffy: How are you working at creating a more equitable world? 

Alberto: We believe it is critical to support early-stage founders in the first years of operations and to connect them more globally. Our theory of change is that this will allow for new innovations to move freely across geographies and for new models to emerge and scale.

Spiffy: Have you reached any recent milestones?

Alberto: Yes, Spiffy, we just accepted a new cohort of founders for our Fellowship—we have supported 80 founders from over 25 countries.

Spiffy: That’s amazing! Have you ever experienced failure? What did you learn from it?

Alberto: We started Transcend Network by writing a newsletter – we tried a lot of things in the early days to find market validation, then we discovered we could build a fellowship experience that connected founders to relevant resources and other founders. Experimenting with these different ideas was the best thing we could have done. That said, it was often hard to persevere through the experiments on a day-to-day basis without the necessary resources.

Spiffy: That would be tough! Before I take off, is there anything else you would like to tell our audience?

Alberto: Feel free to check out the Transcend Newsletter which analyzes future trends in education and work.

Spiffy: I’m going to check it out! Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, Alberto, it’s been an honor!

Alberto Arenaza is the co-founder of Transcend Network. He's currently based in his hometown of Madrid, Spain after living in six countries over the last few years, thanks to Minerva Schools. (Nominated by Pathway Ventures)