Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Incubation
About Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Incubation
We have learnt that:
- Mindsets of young business people matter. Attitudes must be fostered in programs since they are essential to company success.
- Sound market knowledge should serve as the foundation for program design. Beneficiaries are more likely to have sustainable businesses as a result.
- Regardless of business formation, entrepreneur skills training delivers broad-ranging and lasting benefits for beneficiaries. It also facilitates entrepreneur access to financing.
- Entrepreneurship and vocational support should cooperate rather than compete. To maximize value and impact, several interventions should cooperate wherever possible.
- Programs that support young entrepreneurs must be comprehensive because those who receive ongoing 1:1 assistance over an extended period of time build more successful
enterprises. - To have the greatest influence on the beneficiaries, mentoring programs must be comprehensive. They require long-term funding, resources, and meticulous planning.
- Programs should assist young business owners in investigating alternate funding options, such as savings groups and crowd fundraising.
- Communities and families must be carefully involved in programs from the beginning. Youth entrepreneurship interventions can be “made or broken” by local support networks.
- Its not always true that one size fits all. Programs should modify their services to ensure that female beneficiaries receive the assistance they require, such as by setting specific gender targets, highlighting role models, and doing community gender training.
- To assist program monitoring, assessment, and learning, invest in good technology: it saves time, boosts performance, improves risk management, and helps with decision-making.
Never undervalue the influence of attitude:
Motivation and proactivity are crucial for entrepreneurial success. Starting a business can be a
big risk. An entrepreneur often works alone and faces many challenges along the way. Young
entrepreneurs are often going against what society deems to be a viable career option.
Motivation to take the leap and to keep going is crucial. The motivational component is crucial to
providing the initial push to engage in a new business or to expand the existing one. Research
shows that individuals who are confident that they have the skills to start a business are four to
six times more likely to act. While possessing the right skills is essential, confidence plays a
central role in motivating entrepreneurs.
Changing mindsets and encouraging entrepreneurial attitudes is central to helping youth identify
potential opportunities. Training makes young people more aware that entrepreneurship can be
a viable way to make a living. The most widespread attitudinal barriers to successful youth
entrepreneurship include beliefs that:
• Lots of capital and financial resources are needed to start a business.
• You need to “start big” to succeed.
• Entrepreneurship is inferior to salaried employment.
• The risk is too great.
Market intelligence:
Our entrepreneurs get market intelligence accurately and on time. We
think that for many interventions, the inability to accurately assess the various economic
opportunities and challenges has proven to be a limiting issue. Increased attention must always
be paid to market intelligence. It can be easier to direct young people to company sectors that
are expanding, have promising profit margins, and are not at risk of market saturation by
grounding interventions in solid market analysis. We have discovered that a novice
entrepreneur frequently chooses the incorrect industry without appropriate market information.
Often, imitation occurs. This could result in an unhealthy degree of rivalry in a market that is
already oversaturated, which is a common reason for business failure.
Training as a core ingredient for success
– Our mentees benefit greatly from
entrepreneurship skills training regardless of whether they launch a business or not. Although it
is a crucial component for success, talent development alone does not ensure the
establishment of a business for young entrepreneurs. It has also been effective in facilitating
financial access.
How we deliver effective entrepreneurship skills training
• Learning through experience is more effective than learning through lectures. We ensure that sessions are lively and engaging. We include the attendees. Use role playing. Encourage practical training;
• Use of role models. This has been noted as the most successful component of training in Uganda. We work with local entrepreneurs. We feature direct testimonials from individuals who built successful businesses from nothing. We employ role models that kids can identify with;
• Thinking hard about language. We use language in a manner that is informal and appropriate for the educational background of the target audience;
• Use of local references. Effective training makes use of pertinent local cultural references, such as cartoons, biblical allusions, mottos, and proverbs;
• Think of a little “commitment fee”. Free training sessions may not always be appreciated appropriately, especially in communities that get a lot of aid. We’ve discovered that when participants pay to attend training, they take it more seriously, are more motivated to show up, and are more focused during training.
• Follow up and reinforce. Wherever possible, we provide ongoing trainings that expand upon and continuously reinforce critical ideas. Even though it may cost more, the extra money is well spent.
Collaborate! We think that success can be boosted by entrepreneurial training and vocational skills -
We concur with the feeling that interventions that boost entrepreneurship and vocational goals
work best together rather than against one another. For enhanced value and impact, several
interventions should cooperate wherever possible. Youth who possess both strong occupational
skills and company management expertise may have a higher chance of success.
Training in vocational skills, such as welding or carpentry, focuses on preparing students for a
particular career or industry and can give young people the fundamental abilities they need to
support themselves. However, it's possible that young individuals lack the knowledge and
aptitude to turn these abilities into profitable ones. We've discovered that combining
occupational skills with youth entrepreneurship training, which focuses on the knowledge and
abilities required to run a successful business, can be effective for creating more enduring
careers.
Invest in more one-on-one assistance to build more successful firms
Mentoring has a significant influence but must be thorough
Our practical techniques for mentorship implementation include:
• increasing understanding of the notion of mentorship. If mentoring is a new practice in a field, this is especially crucial. It’s important to frequently reiterate the goals and advantages of mentoring, for both the mentee and the mentor;
• obtaining support from all employees in our organization. Since mentoring is new to our organization, early support from high management is essential;
• stressing the need of a robust mentor recruiting process. We consider that this will lessen our workload later on because we are aware that finding suitable mentors takes time;
• Mentoring and mentee training – we establish clear standards, guarantee excellence, and make sure that expectations are crystal clear. We consider frequent ongoing training for mentors to be beneficial in assisting them to maintain abilities;
• We make sure that mentors and mentees are carefully matched. The mentoring relationship has the best potential of success and sustainability when the partners are carefully matched. We think that if done properly, this will ultimately save us time;
• involving mentors in the program in ways other than just their traditional mentoring capacity. This guarantees that the mentor is aware of the larger intervention. Additionally, it’s an effective technique to maintain the mentor’s engagement and motivation;
• A committed resource is used to oversee the mentoring intervention. This is necessary to
guarantee quality;
• expressing gratitude and thanks to mentors. We organize networking events, and prizes are
effective; To address the lack of capable local mentors, we take into account the following possibilities:
1. Collaborate closely with the neighborhood business community and offer mentoring and training;
2. Encourage peer mentoring, so new business young people can exchange challenges and tips;
3. Switch to “cluster mentoring” when a group of mentees has similar business needs;
4. Use technology to enhance inaccessible groups; face-to-face interactions; and,
5. Recruit successful mentees and intervention alumni as mentors.
Financial support
in order to help young people overcome financial hurdles to business, we
as practitioners of youth entrepreneurship ensure the investigation of alternative models.
Platforms for crowdsourcing funds, joint ventures with financial institutions, and savings groups
are examples of models that have demonstrated potential. Young people frequently cite access
to capital as the primary obstacle to entrepreneurship. One of the biggest problems facing
practitioners is facilitating access to financing. Financial firms view lending to young people as
being too hazardous. Funding and cooperation are challenging to obtain because they
frequently lack collateral and a track record. Our research shows that offering mentorship
support lowers the "riskiness" of lending to young people and boosts their confidence and
likelihood of successful repayment. Some financial organizations are still hesitant to make
loans, though.
Undoubtedly, one of the essential elements for success is having access to finance to launch or
expand a firm. YBI members in many contexts experiment with alternate financing methods to
suit the needs of young entrepreneurs where an in-house credit facility is not feasible. We
believe and feel that:
- Working together with banks or microfinance organizations can increase the
effectiveness of lending; - Growing in popularity, crowdfunding platforms enable low-risk access to low-interest
financing; - Savings groups can be an effective, low-risk substitute for business loans; and,
- Interventions can be ‘made or broken’ by local support networks.
