The Nedbank andRLabs Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programme was officially launched in Cape Town last week.
Designed to offer support, advisory services, resources and incubation for 50 women and youth-led entrepreneurs from peri-urban, township and other marginalised communities across Cape Town, the programme is enabled through a R3.2 million partnership with Nedbank.
Speaking to ITWeb ahead of the launch event in Athlone last week, Marlon Parker, founder of RLabs, explained that the 12-month programme aims to equip entrepreneurs with all of the building blocks they need to grow their businesses.
“RLabs has been working with entrepreneurs for the last 10 years. In fact, we’ve worked with over 3 000 small businesses since we launched in 2008. Nedbank wants to enable and support the work that we are doing.” The idea is to learn what some of the key stumbling blocks are for these businesses and give them the skills and mentorship they need to grow.
As part of the programme, participants will undergo intense training, which includes specialised bootcamps, practical workshops, master classes, mentorship and coaching sessions.
In addition, they will be invited to networking events, gain access to financing and professional services, boost their financial management know-how and receive SME business banking through Nedbank.
According to Nirmala Reddy, Nedbank Business Banking’s senior manager for enterprise development, the role of SMEs in developing countries is critical. As such, the bank wants to promote economic upliftment, business development, job creation, community empowerment and social transformation.
The 50 entrepreneurs who will participate in the first programme were selected according to specific criteria. Their businesses had to be fully operational and located in the Western Cape and each had to have less than 10 employees and an annual turnover below R5 million. A crucial requirement was that the business owners were willing to dedicate time to being active participants in the programme.
“When you’re running a start-up there are so many things that you don’t know or understand simply because you lack experience,” says Allan van der Meulen, a co-founder of Zlto and one of the programme participants. He believes a programme like this will help him to successfully convert actions into sales and give him the confidence needed to communicate more effectively in a business setting.
Cindy-Lee Stander, another programme participant and a director of a start-up brand development business Resonate, says learning how to build a business network will be useful. “This has been a downfall for me in the past.”
RLabs hopes to see all of these youth entrepreneurs growing their ventures into businesses that can employ others, contribute to the local economy and their communities.
“Being an entrepreneur really is a lonely journey and people will regularly tell you that you should rather be doing something else,” concluded Parker. “But if we can create 50 good stories and 50 role models, we can change the narrative around what it means to be an entrepreneur and start your own business.”
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