I take you behind the scenes to make a huge announcement – myself and Vegan Business Tribe has been selected for the ProVeg Kickstarter For Good Incubator in Berlin, Germany. And I’m going to be keeping a video diary of my experience as I go through the incubator.

I didn’t think that the incubator started until we got to Berlin. I was very, very wrong! An overview of the immediate tasks we have been set with a short deadline to complete them.

One of the first tasks is to complete a 30-minute entrepreneur test to find out how likely I am to be a successful entrepreneur. I get 90% in one part, but only 50% in another!

First week of tasks complete – and it’s already made me realise that we’ve been trying to solve the WRONG solution with Vegan Business Tribe.

How CAN a vegan business move the vegan and animal rights causes forwards? That was one of the big questions from my last diary entry, so I share some examples of companies who use their business as their form of vegan activism.

I have my first early-morning catch-up call with the incubator’s founder Sebastian, and reflect on getting the input of people who have experience of creating much larger organisations.

The maths show that you are far more likely to find success if you have a co-founder, or even a team of co-founders.

I often say ‘you don’t need to reinvent the wheel’. In a role model analysis, you study other companies or organisations that have been successful doing what you want to do – so that you can learn how they did it.

I thank you for your support and feedback on this video diary and give a couple of shout-outs – plus talk more about the logistics of being on an incubator whilst also running a business.

A problem tree is a way for you to map-out effects of the problem that your business or organisation is looking to solve. I walk you through the problem tree I’ve created for Vegan Business Tribe and explain how it’s improved our understanding of the what we are looking to solve.

I’m on my way to Berlin, via a short trip to Luxembourg, so I take this time on the road to share The Startup Playbook.

I present Vegan Business Tribe to the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg, and then pull everything together from the pre-programme into a single one-page document from the comfort (?) of my hotel room.

The pre-programme has ended so join me for day-one in Berlin at the ProVeg headquarters.

And I also take you shopping…

Just because it’s Sunday doesn’t mean we get a day off. We have a fireside chat with Veganuary founder Matthew Glover, I share the results of my personality test and also have a confession to make.

The first in-person week of the incubator comes to a close, with the sobering news that up to 50% of us might not make it through to the second half of the programme.

Creating a vegan business ecosystem is key to scaling Vegan Business Tribe, but I need to stop trying to create it myself – I should be helping YOU create it.

I give one last update before I submit my pitch-deck for the mid-term review and spend far too long on the incubator feedback form in case that’s part of the test!

I bring everything together from the first half of the incubator into a single ‘mid-term review’ hand-outk document.

That’s it, I’ve had the review call. I record my reaction video straight after the session and ask a big question about the future direction of Vegan Business Tribe.

I talk about how we’re balancing family life with being on a business incubator, and also why we’re choosing to home-school our daughter because of animal agriculture’s permeation of early-years education.

We’re now in the online part of the incubator and I learn the importance of being able to show your impact, especially if you are trying to get backing.

I find out exactly what backers and funders are looking for, and how much they expect you to ask for.

I return to Berlin for the second in-person part of the Incubator, but this time bring the family with me!

Even I have negative days. What do you do when you just can’t get people excited about your idea? Pick yourself up and try again.

It’s finally here, the day we’ve all been working towards.

Watch David’s final pitch for the Kickstarting For Good incubator

Find out what happened on the last day of the incubator as I share my final reflections about what we’ve learned from the programme.