THE BOLD WOMEN COHORT BOOTCAMP: REFINING BUSINESS STRUCTURE
The Bold Women Cohort Bootcamp by Mkazipreneur ensued between 21st
to 23rd August 2024, assembling 12 women-led businesses across the
country at Four Points by Sheraton Kampala, for a process of incorporating and
organizing their business structures to the finest details – with the ultimate
goal of winning seed funding under the NSSF Hi-Innovator Program.
Mkazipreneur is a community platform whose existence since
2018 has been grounded on promoting qualitative and quantitative women
entrepreneurship through skilling, networking, celebrating and empowering women
entrepreneurs both across the country and the continent; having trained about
7,000 women entrepreneurs on a pro-bono basis and unlocking over $1,000,000 in
seed funding to help them transcend their businesses to new heights.
The shortlisting process for the businesses to attend the bootcamp was
needle-thin; with 189 small growing businesses (SGBs) applying for the cohort,
where only 25 were advised by the experts at Mkazipreneur to express interest
in being a part of the cohort, which finally resulted in the small pool of 12
businesses that attended the bootcamp.
At the bootcamp, sessions of key topics in entrepreneurship
like business goal setting, assessing and building business technical
competency, the marketing mix, economic and social rights, storytelling and
pitch practice formed the bedrock of the facilitation by many partners and
technical personnel, who added to the to-do lists of many entrepreneurs in
attendance.
“The bootcamp facilitators have showed me the loopholes in my business and most of the systems they talked about made me reflect and understand the value of having them in place,” Khainza Milly, Kuchi Events Ltd.
Khainza
Milly(left) of Kuchi Events Ltd. during an interactive break at the bootcamp
To show the women entrepreneurs that winning the prize money is possible despite the rigorous process, winners and peers in entrepreneurship, who doubled as either winners or applicants at previous cohorts were given the limelight on day one to share insights, from a position of experience, on how to win seed funding and more importantly, manage a successful and ever scaling business entity long after winning the prize money.
Charity Mbatudde,
manager of Pink House spices Ltd, shares her experience in winning the prize
money in the previous cohort
“Advice to entrepreneurs out there,
this program is not just about the money. It helps you iron out a lot of things
in your business,” Charity Mbatudde.
“At first, I failed to get the funding
because I believed all I had to do was sort out my paperwork which made me skip
important training like pitch practice and groundwork in my business which
would have guaranteed success. After all the trial and error, I finally got the
money the third time of trying because I balanced both the groundwork and
documentation,” she added.
In the grand scheme of things,
Mkazipreneur believes in fronting women entrepreneurship long after seed
funding is gained. The bootcamp is one of the many examples of the ways the
organization works tirelessly to connect entrepreneurs to gurus in the entrepreneurship
world, who more often than not point to many areas of business management that
get pushed to the curb and left there. To this end, Immy Nakyeune, the Team
Lead at Mkazipreneur tasked the entrepreneurs to draw up their vision boards
which they could hold themselves accountable to within the course of their
business life.
“The vision boards have helped me as an entrepreneur to balance both my business and my personal needs like wellness and relationships which generally make me function as a human being. With this vision board, I set a number of goals for my mental health, physical health, family and some me time just to make sure I am the best version of myself so that my business can get the best out of me,” Immy Nakyeyune, Team Lead – Mkazipreneur.
Immy guiding an
the different entrepreneurs in designing their vision boards
The team is confident that the bootcamp
has been very insightful in building the confidence of the female entrepreneurs
as they gear for Pitch Day on September 4, 2024. With the many facilitators who
answered the call to prepare the entrepreneurs, drawing boards have to be
revisited to finetune the different businesses if they are to be successful on
pitch day. Some of the key topics visited include
“My standout session was conducted
by Innocent Bagumira, the business coach, who spoke about how to strategize and
manage our distribution channels that will enable us optimize sales of produce
compared to our method of mass distribution,” Miriam Apolot, Akoho Agro
Investment Ltd.
Bob Ogwang, the Program Lead of the NSSF
Hi-Innovator, shared his heartfelt appreciation to the team of Mkazipreneur for
being at the top of the game in identifying the businesses, profiling them and
taking them through the necessary assessments.
“I believe that they (entrepreneurs) are more than ready to not only secure the seed funding but to also put their houses in order to scale their business operations to new and unprecedented heights.”
Bob Ogwang presenting on essential
criteria for business compliance in the Hi-Innovator program
