NALA- Competition and Mentorship.

We were so excited and honored to be a part of the challenge and mentorship program offered by NALA. From over 2,000 business plan submissions and 1,127 product feedback submissions received we were among 20 finalists who got a chance of receiving mentorship program and workshop training in Business strategies, advertisement and marketing, Product /Service development, Business Accounting, and finance and Business Sustainability.

NALA team, Guest Advisors and 20 finalists.

What were the skills and knowledge acquired?

1. Product/Service advertisement, marketing, and branding

Here we learned different techniques used in the advertisement such as digital marketing and social media to inform our service/product details and reach many users potentially customers in a short time. Also the use of traditional marketing such as Radio, TV, and newspaper.

Also, the importance of business networking with other potential stakeholders to asses the potential and competition for better Product/Service development.

Here we learned the nature and importance of selling point i.e Unique or Emotional Selling Point(USP)of the product and services.

2. Business Planning and Strategies

Here we learned important stages used in establishing business enterprises/Company :

• Gathering the facts-Analysis of Business Strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are helpful
• Vision Statement-Here business general intention and goal you want to achieve during providing services is stated i.e Main Objective
• Strategic Macro-Objectives-Breaking down goals to deal with them independently
• Actionable next steps-Elaborative steps that are practically followed on for further development.
• Review and measure progress-Assessing the achievement and getting a chance for further development.

TakaCycle team member and Competition winner during a workshop session

3. Business Sustainability

For the long term sustainability of any business, there are a few things that should always be considered;

• Office culture- this is how the team members should live amongst each other since it’s in the office where one spends a lot of time than at home, hence the members should treat each other as family. The founder or CEO is responsible for office culture.
• Loving your business- as a founder or an employee, you should create an atmosphere so as everyone can love the business.
• Load to sustainability- The major components of any business are Team, Product (service), Capital (money & resources)and the Stakeholders (investors); hence for the sustainability of the business, one should embrace change through the customer’s feedback and research, value proposition, that is how to differentiate with others in the market. Lastly, build your business on the base of belief.

4. Accounting/ Finances

For any business, each and everything should be recorded in the expenditures or business income of the company. Mainly software documenting like the use of Microsoft Excel is recommended to the manual documenting.

One should have the ability to differentiate between business expenditure and personal expenditures.