Re-engaging to re-accelerate — supporting venture survival in uncertain times
In normal times, ygap supports early-stage, locally-led impact ventures at a time where they need structured support and business expertise in order to grow. 2020 has been a lot of things, but normal is not one of them. Like many other entities, when COVID-19 hit, we found ourselves quickly realising that ‘business as usual’ wasn’t the frame through which we should look at our work, at least until we settle into whatever the new ‘normal’ looks like.
After some analysis, supporting new ventures to grow wasn’t going to be the highest value contribution that could be made in economies where small and medium enterprises were being hit hard by the economic fallout of the pandemic. So we changed tact, to re-engage existing ventures that were alumni of a ygap program, to help them weather their way through and survive the difficulties of operating in a COVID-19 world.
In June, ygap launched a rapid response program, a ‘Re-Accelerator’, to support our program alumni through the challenges of operating during COVID-19. The content was no gamble; we started with a comprehensive survey of our alumni to assess the ventures needs based on how the pandemic was affecting their area, the results of which informed the program design, tailored to the needs and unique experience of each venture and ecosystem in which we work. It was, however, an experiment; testing a program that we’d never run before as an organisation. There were some key differences in the Re-Accelerator Program as compared to our usual program; the first was the change to the intent of the program — rather than business growth, it was about business survival, and how to support participating ventures to pivot their services and products to continue operating in lockdown or social distancing. The second difference was that ygap’s core programs usually commence with a five-day, live-in accelerator and include a significant amount of in-person 1:1 support; this was the first time our teams had run a program that was completely remote.
Despite these initial differences, and the deviation away from ygap’s usual work, our teams designed and led programs that were responsive, needs-based and filled a gap in the entrepreneurial landscape. As these ‘Re-Accelerator Programs’ draw to a close, our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning team are beginning to assess the outcomes to see how these programs made a difference to the difficulty of sustaining a business in the current climate. While we’re waiting for the data to come in, our teams have been doing some qualitative reflection on the experience of running the Re-Accelerators. These reflections are an excellent insight to what COVID-19 looked like for small and medium enterprises on the ground in Kenya, South Africa, Bangladesh, the Pacific Islands and Australia.
yher Africa
by yher Africa Regional Director, Katleho Tsoku
Ventures: Nine | Duration: Three months
Reflections on the program:
It is often said that resilience is key for anyone who wants to make it as an entrepreneur.
This was certainly highlighted in the yher Africa Re-Accelerator Program, where our women entrepreneurs had nothing else to offer but their resiliency to see their business survive this pandemic. While all of these ventures were impacted by COVID-19 and some even had to lay-off staff, none of these ventures have had to shut-down permanently, and that is affirming.
Some of the successes stories from this program include:
Teheca
Saw an increase in sales of the Teheca Delivery Birth-Kits during the COVID lockdown and was recognized by the United Nations Population Fund as one of East Africa’s most innovative healthcare startups.
Safe Motherhood Alliance
To address the high risk of infection during birth, Safe Motherhood Alliance explored a new revenue channel beyond their Delivery Birth-Kits by manufacturing 3D printed face-masks and visors across COVID-19 hot-spot areas in Zambia.
Women Smiles Uganda
Women Smiles Uganda saw a demand for their vertical vegetable gardens from individuals/home-deliveries. Pre-COVID their primary customers were hotels, restaurants and schools, but because these establishments were shut down, they had to explore a new revenue channel, which was home deliveries. Thus far it seems to have great potential even beyond the lockdown.
Lessons learned:
- The technology gap is widening and going into the Re-Accelerator, we anticipated that many of our entrepreneurs would struggle to access our program. Much to our surprise, with a few hiccups, this was not a deterrent. We do however need to be conscious of creating programs that do not exclude those who aren’t able to access reliable or affordable internet. The launch of a series of ygap interactive toolkits *link to the COVID-19 page* was amazing in this regard as it allowed entrepreneurs to be able to download them and work-offline with their teams.
- Sourcing technical mentors that specialise in the focus areas of the ventures we support is going to be key in giving our entrepreneurs deep and meaningful support. As a result we are exploring the idea of focusing on a few key Sustainable Development Goals for future programs that will enable us to bed down a pool of expert mentors and advisors to be available to our entrepreneurs.
- A strong community is key for women entrepreneurs as it offers affirmation and peer to peer guidance which is powerful. We saw the availability of such a community through a time of uncertainty and crisis as the most impactful part of our Re-Accelerator.
ygap South Africa
by ygap South Africa Country Director, Palesa Mabidilala
Ventures: 10 | Duration: six months
Reflections on the program:
When starting this program, our concern was about ensuring that the program is relevant and customised to the ventures’ needs. We were focusing so much on the content of the toolkits and the masterclasses, and the amount of engagement with each entrepreneur every month. However, as the program progressed, we started to notice that the pandemic has affected the ventures in different ways. As much as there were similarities among them, such as loss of revenue, loss of staff, loss of clients, etc, the way in which they have responded to the pandemic was different for each of them. It became apparent that what they truly needed from us was a sounding board, a cheerleader, someone to strategise and bounce ideas with. We didn’t have to have the best online content or masterclass; there was a whole network of ecosystem partners that filled that need. What we needed to be was present for them, to show up when they needed us, and to be as supportive as we could be. Our true value was in being there with them as they navigated through the various challenges that this pandemic brought.
Lessons learned:
- South Africa is not ready for a purely virtual programme, therefore we cannot rely purely on people having access to data or wifi, the culture in South Africa is not ready, people need to engage with each other and learn from each other which is only achieved during in-person support and engagements.
- Reduce the time of the online masterclasses. We found that the attendees struggled to remain engaged during the online sessions.
- Selecting ventures that have a product which can be commercialised. We found that the ventures who sell products which have a strong existing market were the most engaged and we were able to provide significant value to those entrepreneurs in our strategy sessions as well as financial support.
ygap Kenya
By ygap Kenya Country Director, Carol Kimari
Ventures: 15 | Duration: Six months
Reflections on the program:
All these sudden changes have a silver lining. The new way of working has enabled the ygap Kenya team to further prioritize the things we focus on when we spend time with our ventures. We can only directly support a limited number of entrepreneurs at one time, because of the current tailored strategy and mentor support we provide.
Based on running our re-Accelerator program, we’re already planning for what our support program might look like when things go back to “normal” by adopting a hybrid model that maintains the flexibility, scalability and access of online formats with more intentional in-person support that can help the ventures scale. We’ll therefore start becoming more selective in terms of what has to be done in person versus digitally.
A fully virtual program certainly has its downsides as well. Elements of the re-accelerator program were hard to fully replicate in person, including peer to peer interaction and trust-building. These moments of informal exchanges are fundamental to build trust between the entrepreneurs and the mentors that get to work with them and can also spark creativity. These are just much harder to replicate in a virtual environment.
Lessons learned:
- The program offered more flexibility for participating ventures. The virtual approach allowed the entrepreneurs to stay concentrated and make the most of their work sessions, sayby having a more focused one hour virtual strategy call, rather than spending more hours having to prepare to physically meet the team for a strategy session.
- The virtual program has also presented the opportunity to engage mentors from anywhere in the world who can offer additional support for our ventures remotely, to enhance their growth including those that bring enormous technical, business and market knowledge as well as speak the language of the startups.
- With online communication, mentors and founders are given a more detailed, personalized feedback session which encourages both parties to optimize their time and articulation of messages more efficiently.
ygap First Gens
by ygap First Gens Program Manager, Adelide Mutinda
Ventures: Nine Duration: 2 months
Reflections on the program:
We already know that in times of crisis, marginalised groups run the risk of being even more marginalised. With many migrant and refugee entrepreneurs facing the reality of significantly reducing or pausing business activities, the global pandemic provided an opportunity for ygap First Gens to pause its regular programming, step up and support existing ventures in our portfolio to survive the pandemic, retain jobs, revenue streams and impact.
Lessons learned:
- The importance of designing a program informed by the needs of the entrepreneurs. The re-accelerator program was driven by the results of a needs’ assessment survey conducted with alumni ventures and throughout the program, we tried to ensure that the challenges and areas of learnings the entrepreneurs identified were addressed.
- Another insight we gained is the importance of timing, being agile and acting fast during a pandemic in order to meet entrepreneurs at their pain point in a timely manner as things are rapidly shifting during a crisis.
- A final key learning was the value and importance of having a community of peers to lean on and providing entrepreneurs with wellbeing tools especially during challenging times.
ygap Bangladesh
By ygap Bangladesh Country Director, Erad Kawsar
Ventures: Nine | Duration: Three months
Reflections from the program:
The pandemic has stunted the growth of some ventures, but not all. With a completion rate of 100% and a number of success stories, it truly shows that even in the midst of an economic downfall, our entrepreneurs are always working to support their dreams and the local community. Because the sessions were conducted online, we could set up collaboration sessions more easily where the ventures could discuss ideas and possible partnerships to help each other out. This was completely unprecedented and came as a delight to us as to how involved the entrepreneurs became in these sessions. This is something we will be working to further develop and enhance the entrepreneurs experience.
Due to time restraint, we were not able to re-sit with the entrepreneurs to ensure that they followed the plan given for their finances and HR. Thus, due to their request we had to sit down with the ventures over multiple weekends to assist them further. The key learning from this was that deep and meaningful support takes time, and since finance and HR mentoring could not be completed in one sitting since it is virtually impossible for ventures to implement them on the same day. Thus, in future sessions we will make them longer into sessions and break them down into two components in order to assess their progress and ensure they are maintaining their financial statements and HR Policies properly.
We would like to share 2 success stories. Through our community collaborations sessions:
1. Garbageman and Meditor Health are now working to provide healthcare check-ups at a minimal costs to waste pickers in Dhaka.
2. AMAL Foundation and Footsteps foundation are working together to provide Disaster Relief Packages across the country who were hit by Cyclone Amphan.
Lessons Learned:
- Entrepreneurs were collaborating more during the online sessions than we expected.
- We need to allow more time in the schedule for broad stroke topics such as Human Resources and Finance, as trying to fit them into a limited time frame meant spending more one on one time with entrepreneurs.
- The program had a 100% success rate, which goes to show that it was necessary and useful to the ventures that were selected to take part.
yher Pacific Islands
By yher Pacific Islands Program Manager Talei Goater
Ventures: Five |Duration: Three Months
Reflections
Our women entrepreneurs have met COVID-19’s initial challenges with courage and Pasifika mana, navigating the intricacies of a paradoxical pandemic — insurmountable challenges versus surprising silver linings, cultural versus commercial demands, and “time” speeding up whilst staying slow — a rapidly evolving landscape, barriers and opportunities quickly fluctuating, set amidst a Pasifika ecosystem where everything takes longer than one expects.
From both a venture and program perspective, it’s been a period of rapid learning, adaptation and assessment — valuable insights that will serve us into the future.
Lessons Learned
- Remote delivery is extremely challenging in the Pacific Islands, where virtual communication is frequently thwarted by outlying locations, fluctuating weather conditions and expensive connection. Boots on the ground is key to future programming.
- Creating safe, in-person spaces to connect and collaborate is vital. This is particularly important in the Pasifika context, where growing trust through in-person “talanoa” (a traditional word used to reflect a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue, sharing ideas, skills and experience through storytelling) is integral to developing and maintaining relationships. The ability to conduct meetups in person, growing rapport and trust without the limitations and/or inconsistency of virtual delivery enhances impact.
- Due to thin markets and smaller populations, successful Pasifika entrepreneurs are often powered by multiple revenue streams; brands, services, product lines, and entities. Incorporating appropriate learning and tools into our support will help entrepreneurs navigate this multi-venture landscape more effectively, including decision-making and prioritisation.
- The World Risk Index ranks five Pacific Island countries among the top 20 most vulnerable countries in the world. In a region extremely vulnerable to external shocks, natural, political and economic, it is vital resilience and business continuity planning feature strongly in future programs.
