From June 8th-12th, the Recycle Up! Business Incubator program conducted a Virtual Incubator Week on the topic of financial analysis and funding for circular economy startups. Once again, all trainings were held online and we had 7 exciting sessions on relevant topics with highly knowledgeable and renowned guest speakers.
The training week commenced on Monday with a session on economic and financial analysis held by Franklin Akwaah-Oboe. Overcoming some initial technical challenges, he presented our incubatees with units on Interconnected Thinking, Trendline Thinking, Business Case Thinking and Bottomline Thinking that amounted to a comprehensive overview of micro- and macroeconomic principles, business cycles, investment appraisal and others.
For Tuesday’s topic of “Fundraising: An entrepreneur’s journey”, we were joined by Nzambi Matee, founder of Gjenge Makers Kenya. This company specializes in the production of alternative building products from plastics in Nairobi. As a successful entrepreneur herself, Nzambi Matee provided our teams with valuable insight on the importance of proper research for business funding as well as crucial details on different funding rounds and prototypes. Disclosing some of her initial shortcomings as well, participants were able to learn which details should be focused on in these steps of business development.
The first Wednesday session was hosted by Recycle Up! Co-founder Manuel Schulze who is also the managing director of Incedo Services. His presentation offered an opportunity to learn about key components of financial sustainability for startups and objectives for financial planning. In a hands on session, he also provided our teams with a useful template sheet to use for their financial forecasting and explained how to make the best use of it. In the evening, we had Rob Kellogg, founder of Sathi Fund USA, joining us for an explanatory session on Lean Business Canvas. Participants were excited to learn more about this useful one-page business plan method.
On Thursday, we were lucky enough to have two more sessions on highly relevant topics with renowned guest speakers. Bestselling author and business consultant Evans Kwesi Mensah offered an interesting presentation on Management and Team Roles including essential tools and strategies for good management and defining team responsibilities. The second session, hosted by Acquaye Ferguson Hooper of Hoops Consult, focused on essential key learnings for accounting and taxation related issues in Ghana.
For the last session of the week that took place on Friday, we were excited to get another high-profile guest speaker on board: International Business Strategist and Forbes Coaches Council member Tamiko Cuellar, founder of pursueyourpurpose.com. This session covered the topic of developing the right revenue model. As a framework for generating financial income, this is a key aspect to consider in business development and our teams were eager to learn more about the different types of possible models and questions to consider when making a choice in this regard. Ms. Cuellar also demonstrated great interest in hearing about our startups’ ideas and business models.
Overall, this training week was a great success once again and our teams have demonstrated their eagerness to learn more and further develop their business skills. We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank all speakers for their contributions. In our evaluation surveys, participants also reacted positive to the resources provided with quotes like „I learned so much“, „I had a little idea about this topic and the presentation has really made me understand a lot“ and „Thanks to the Recycle Up! team for this great opportunity“.
Participants of Friday’s training session with Tamiko Cuellar
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