eBusiness Weekly
Kudzai Mubaiwa
Not everyone is an entrepreneur. If anything, most people are destined to be employees, brilliant ones too, and there is no shame in that, for it is making an honest living. One of the greatest weaknesses of our past national entrepreneurship programs has been a numbers approach, where impact is measured by the number of people trained under such programs.
This has been followed by disappointment when very few of those large batches emerge with meaningful projects, even after being given access to funds.
Government ministries of youth and women, youth serving organizations in civil society and corporates doing community projects are all guilty of defining value for money by quantum rather than quality.
The most successful of our local entrepreneurs have created robust systems that create jobs for many more others.
As such, everyone benefits, the project promoter, those who utilise the company’s services or products and those who earn their living producing and delivering the services and products — employees. They are men and women who more likely than not have done more than the ordinary training attendee, very likely they would have already been self-motivated and started up some enterprises before getting opportunity to attend a formal training that explains the things they have already been doing.
Establishing and running a business is hard work that most will not be able to endure. This is why empirical evidence suggests that most people, especially youth, would prefer a job over an enterprise and some that would have started a business will readily ditch it if a job offer materialises.
In the absence of limitless resources, it is logical that we maximise by focusing on those most likely to do well. Selection for business incubation programs matters.
The best programs worldwide employ the call method — where they invite potential incubatees to apply to join a programme, and the call is widely publicised.
Interested parties are typically requested to complete a long and rigorous form; that is not difficult for a motivated individual, and is the first test in determining who is invested and who is not.
The form will ask for detailed information on the background of the applicant with regards to enterprise development and probe what they anticipate to work on next.
A well-structured call form coupled with a well-trained reviewers eye, will capture the start-ups most likely to do well.
It must be appreciated that not all good business people are great writers, and so as part of the call, it is a good idea to invite submission of pitches, two minute video or audios in which the applicant talks about their idea, the value proposition, the market and the team they will build with and perhaps indicate some financial projections.
The best pitches will clearly outline a problem and highlight the solution they will build that can be monetized for. (These can be submitted on an online platform or by leveraging available technology like WhatsApp which is more accessible and affordable). Put simply, applicants must demonstrate that they will build offer something people want.
Again, a trained professional is required to be on the receiving end, one who can quickly pick up the important indicators in an application and be able to see which ones will take off or fail.
The next level of selection would include live interviews, allowing first interaction between applicants and their coaches.
At each stage care must be taken to let go of those not ready for the program, but they will not be discarded totally, they will become the pipeline for future calls, and they must be given feedback on the gaps they still have.
In summary, entering into incubation programmes must be a competitive exercising, where only the best projects are admitted.
The initiative can still benefit their wider community that do not make it into the core program by offering other open training sessions, whereas the chose few go through a much more personal and intrusive curriculum.
In order to run a successful and profitable program there must be balance between learning and doing, or preferably learning by doing approach.
Incubatees must start with working on their idea and using the Business Model Canvas be able to describe, design, challenge and pivot their business model on paper.
The bottom line of business is profit so the economic model must be clear from the get go.
Training must include other core topics such as strategic planning for the enterprise, soft skills, capital raising mechanisms, legal and intellectual property issues, appreciation of the stages of growth and financial statements.
These meet-ups can be done as a group or cohort when learning, but the practical application will be crucial and obviously done at individual level. All training must be accompanied by practical exercises.
A successful program requires accountability and must make provision for office hours – individual coaching of each incubatee where the incubator manager asks candid questions on the progress in terms of building a prototype and testing it, identifying a market and closing sales, establishing an online presence and engagement, securing funding and strengthening the business team. The manager must also be experienced enough to challenge the program participant, give unique insights and inspire. They must also be able to link them to relevant persons and institutions, opening doors for further support. Finally, a successful program requires exposing the participants to the real world platforms. They must be encouraged, pushed even, to participate in local, regional and international competitions, fellowships and expos, as well as other entrepreneur support programs. This forces them to continually revisit their product, service and value proposition, even when unsuccessful, the repeated act of applying for such activities allows one to refine their pitch, rethink processes, and improve the product.
Clearly, the incubator manager plays a role as vital as that of a midwife in delivering a child. We cannot be careless in building the capacity and ability of those dealing with upcoming entrepreneurs and we need an investment nationwide in training of trainers, training in establishing successful incubation programs, training in leveraging local resources to support emerging entrepreneurs and innovators, and exposure to functional models within our African context.
It is also important to appreciate the various types of local innovation spaces that we require as a nation and we will look into these in detail next week.
We are the ones we have been waiting for, the tools and resources to build our nation from the bottom up are already in our hands.
Feedback: Twitter @kumub, Email [email protected]
