No entrepreneurial journey has been the same for all start-up founders. For example, take some successful ones, Elon Musk of Tesla, Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook, or Garret Camp of Uber; they all have their own unique stories. As inspiring and famous as these stories may be, they have bred some popular myths too. One of the popular myths about the awe-inspiring entrepreneurial pursuit crack opens right at genesis – the idea. In popular opinion, most aspiring entrepreneurs are in constant search of a fantastic start-up idea for investors to pounce at. However, a survey conducted by the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) busted the myth. According to the study, more than 70% of start-up founders were not suddenly hit by a great start-up idea; instead, they identified a gap through intense research and strived to fill it by painstakingly creating a better solution.
Turbine is an organisation that empowers start-ups by providing professional services and support to help them grow. To help such start-ups develop innovative and sustainable products and solutions, Turbine has launched ASPIRElearn. ASPIRElearn is one of Turbine’s training programmes developed by a team of industry stalwarts and start-up experts. The programme is designed to guide the aspiring entrepreneurs of Mauritius from the idea level through its fruition. Primarily, the objective is to help aspiring entrepreneurs articulate and validate the idea. Then, when the idea grows to be a minimum viable product or solution, which the market could seemingly accept, they stand a chance to be directly enrolled into their Test Drive Programme. Krishna Athal, Start-Up Community and Incubation Manager at Turbine, says,
“Just finding a problem and fixing it is not enough. You have to show your customer how much of a difference your solution makes compared to the current state.”
The ASPIRElearn Programme includes an array of workshops, seminars, practical activities and many innovative pedagogies. This programme is mainly designed to apprise aspiring entrepreneurs about the nuances of becoming an entrepreneur and how their start-up idea needs to be articulated. Besides, as a consequence, this programme shall also prepare them for Turbine’s pre-incubation selection. The programme will essentially impart the personal and organisational aspects of entrepreneurship and develop the essential skills required for laying the foundation for a start-up. They will be trained to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset and perceive upcoming opportunities and challenges through an enterprising lens. The participants will also receive professional guidance to develop investor-grade pitch decks. The curriculum includes technical aspects of founding a start-up, like design thinking, value propositioning, scaling, funding, market analysis, etc.
ASPIRElearn is a first-of-its-kind programme launched in June 2021, with four cohorts rolled out in one year. Every cohort will undergo three workshops based on business mindset, uniqueness, scalability, innovation and market. The list of expert trainers conducting the programme includes the staff of the ENL Group. They all come with vast industry experience and have studied the in-depth growth of the start-up landscape in Mauritius and other countries.
Training programmes like ASPIRElearn will offer hands-on experience and practical insights to the aspiring entrepreneurs of Mauritius. This initiative looks promising to ignite the minds of the youth of Mauritius towards self-employment and entrepreneurship.
And therefore, Turbine is poised to become the mecca for aspiring entrepreneurs in the Mauritian terrain.
To apply for the next cohort of ASPIRElearn, visit www.turbine.mu.
