StartingBlock Programming

Madworks is a 10-week program, comprised of tailored mentorship on commercializing the entrepreneur’s product and/or service and building governance acumen. A typical cohort is 8 up-and-coming companies from Wisconsin. The program is designed to connect participants with entrepreneurial leaders in the community and to ensure that startups obtain a foundation in legal compliance, quality board management skills, and financial knowledge.
Program prarticipants receive:
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- $6,500 in grant funding per participating team
- 1 year membership to StartingBlock (24×7 access), with an exclusive space at StartingBlock dedicated to Madworks companies
- Regular access to Madworks & StartingBlock staff and connections to their network of mentors and experts
- StartingBlock member benefits, including 90% discount on Hubspot CRM

Level Set is a 1:1 milstone based coaching program. The program uses the Village Capital VIRAL methodlogy to establish the maturity of the startup across 8 domains: Team, Problem and Vision, Value Proposition, Product, Market, Business Model, Scale and Investors. Once benchmarked, the companies identify the most critical milestone they need to achieve to move the business forward.
Program participants receive:
- $1,000 in grant funding per participating team
- 6 month membership to StartingBlock (24×7 access), with an exclusive space at StartingBlock dedicated to Level Set companies
- Regular access to Madworks & StartingBlock staff and connections to their network of mentors and experts
- StartingBlock member benefits, including 90% discount on Hubspot CRM
Startup Support
StartingBlock also offers a unique recruiting service designed specifically for helping founders and startups grow. We help you build stronger teams, faster and with less risk.
A trusted partner in helping you grow, we understand the importance of finding the right talent for early hires and the risks early hiring decisions entail.
Our experienced team can guide you through the full life cycle of the recruiting process, including:
- helping define the position and develop a compelling job description and compensation packages;
- assisting you in developing a successful evaluation process;
- identifying and recruiting candidates with the skills most important to your success;
- pre-screening applicants to save you time and identify the best candidates you are likely to recruit successfully;
- preparing candidate so that they are ready for your interview and hiring process;
- providing outside evaluation of final candidates; and
- helping you extend offers, negotiate salary and land the talent you want.
Our goal is to help growing stage startups build stronger teams in the competitive Madison market.