The support for entrepreneurs has been one of the main objectives of the Businesses Department of Granada Provincial Council in the Office for Employment and Sustainable Development. As part of a policy instrument focused on the agreement with the different municipalities of the province, the Provincial Plan for entrepreneurs arises to support strategic sectors of the province's economy, within which the training of business culture and business administration appears as a mainline of action.
In this context, the Businesses Department of Granada Provincial Council, it was designed a series of workshops aimed at entrepreneurs to advance from their idea to the design of their business model. Between 2017 and 2018, these workshops were not as successful as in previous editions, thus demonstrating depletion of the way they had been designed. This circumstance led the Businesses Department to subcontract these services, being the awarder of this contract the Grenadian Company called Taktice, established in 2012 in Granada and Malaga.
Taktice, from 2019, takes charge of the workshops, reviewing the program offered up to that moment for them, as well as in the way in which the participants were selected, and finally, in the teaching methodology and in the teaching staff. All these workshops were face-to-face, but since the pandemic caused by covid 19, this approach had to be revised to give them digitally.
The new approach pivoted around three main issues:
- The program content and structure
- The participant’s selection
- The methodology and teaching team.
This new proposal begins with a workshop called “Boosting an Entrepreneurial Culture”, which consists of two 1,5 hour sessions to develop entrepreneurial skills and identify initiatives of interest for the next "Business idea validation” workshop. This first workshop was attended for by 32 participants.
From this, and if anyone wants to follow the full itinerary, it is mandatory for each applicant to maintain a 15 minutes interview with the mentors and Granada Provincial Council technicians after having fill out a questionnaire. From here, the ones who will follow the path are selected, and as a result, those who do not either continue but not with the “Business idea validation” workshop. Indeed, a new action was designed for them referred to a two-session workshop called “Business fundamentals”, 2 seminars of 2,5 hour each one to learn the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.
Finally, to continue with the itinerary planned, the “Business idea validation” workshop was offered only for 20 entrepreneurs which included 8 theoretical-practical group sessions of 2,5 hours duration, plus 4 personalized tutorials to develop each of the business initiatives offering support to each business initiative by 2 specialized mentors. At the end of this training, all the initiatives were presented through a final pitch prepared by each participant.
The program included 4 didactic training units with 8 online sessions:
• Business model: 2 sessions
• Customer development: 2 sessions
• MVP: 2 sessions
• Financial and market viability: 2 sessions
In addition: 4 one to one remote meetings have been planned regarding:
• Business model canvas
• Buyer persona & Customer Journey
• MVP
• Fixed and variable cost
The key success factors of this workshop were:
- Previous selection to identify, assess and qualify top initiatives.
- Limited to 20 beneficiaries
- Structure and contents.
- Templates to fulfill made “ad hoc” by teachers.
- Dual simultaneous teaching by 2 specialized mentors
- Personalized one to one remote meetings
Two successful initiatives from the 20 have been selected to participate in the Online extra workshop – Covid19 measures-exchange of experience and knowledge of the 23rd March 2021:
- Wine tasting web platform, by Magdalena Rosillo who represents a company whose primary objective is to spread the culture of wine through the organization of events such as face to face and virtual tasting of wines and spirits, design and delivery of specific training programs in viticulture and enology, organization of wine tourism routes, team building, promoting teamwork, fostering camaraderie, competitiveness and improving internal communication between employees, …
- SaveNow App for emergencies, by Niko Sánchez, a technology that saves lives. The Solution, RESK the emergency APP, in case of floodings, forest fires, vehicle accidents, chemical incidents, terrorist attacks, shootings/kidnappings, domestic violence, reporting fire safety issues, and inclusion. www.savemenowapp.com
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