the model

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the model

• Asia Pacific Incubator Conference AAPIC 2007

Hanoi, Vietnam, October 2007
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What makes an entrepreneur?

• What influenced me?
• Started four companies
• Hundreds of jobs created
• Millions of dollars of value
• Seen as successful entrepreneur
• But....
• Never went to business school
• Never learned how to write a business plan
• Studied social anthropology at school
• Wanted to be an english teacher
• What went wrong!

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What influenced me?

• My parents
• My education
• Most of all, my work experience
• The people I met
• The processes I studied
• The advice and inspiration I got
• The environment in which i worked
• Wanted to recreate this for others...

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Setting up an incubator in Ghana, Africa

• 2million USD raised from private sector
• 2001 we converted a large empty factory

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How do we help?

• The hard inputs
• Electricity, water, office space, phones,
  internet
• The soft inputs
• People, networking, referrals, an address

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Are we Different?

• Not focussing on startups...
• Everyone pays nothing is free
• Were a business incubating businesses
• No deep intervention in businesses
• Supplementary services generate income
  traffic
• Cybercafe ( ISP later)
• Restaurant bar
• Copy services
• Training facilities
• Movies public events (fashion shows, debates)

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Some Data Points 6 years...

• 1.9 million visits to the centre
• 39 companies incubated
• Over 90 public community debates
• 1,875 conferences
• 6.6 million gross revenues

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What have we learned?

• Running such a facility IS profitable
• Being a business were focussed on client needs
  (products services), not donor agendas
• Deep intervention can be hard
• Finding good ideas good entrepreneurs is hard!
• Incubating an idea is very risky expensive
• Hosting young companies that are already in
  business gives everyone a real chance
• Proximity networking is absolutely crucial
• Incubation services do not need to be hard/complex

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To CONCLUDE...

• Were really incubating people relationships
  NOT ideas or technology.
• You can always rewrite/improve a business
  plan/idea, you cant rewrite the team!
• promoting entrepreneurship in Africa
• Put smart people together in affordable, modern
  offices, facilitate networking...

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thank you... mark_at_busyinternet.com www.busyinter
net.com