Last year was undoubtedly a challenging one due to Covid-19 for Turbine Incubator.

Diane Maigrot, Start Up and Growth Manager at Turbine Incubator shares with us how Turbine managed the year 2020 and the plans that she has for the year 2021.

Shifting Test Drive Online

Turbine organises Test Drive Programs where it invites aspiring entrepreneurs and people with a business idea to participate and develop their business ideas.

One of the major challenges that we had last year was to shift the Test Drive Program online during the confinement. All workshops were conducted online and our participants were in contact with their respective coaches through Zoom and Whatsapp.

Thanks to Turbine’s coaches, experts and speakers, we were able to organise the Pitch Night successfully.

Corporate Challenges

Turbine organised 3 corporate challenges last year.

MUA Challenge

MUA collaborated with Turbine to find an innovative telematic solution for its customers to improve drivers’ behavior and to encourage safe driving in Mauritius. We received 30 applications from both local and international companies. Turbine team and MUA have shortlisted 5 out of them and are currently finalising the winner.

Intrapreneur Challenge for ENL

This program was organised for the employees of ENL Group where they were given the needed tools and support in terms of workshops and coaching they needed to build sustainable solutions for existing problems that the different clusters of ENL had. The team Unstoppables won the challenge for their project to redesign bus stops in Moka to become more modern, comfortable in an ecological way.

Ascencia Innovation Challenge

This program was a combination of Test Drive and Start Up Challenge that was organised for Ascencia Shopping malls to help them achieve one of their sustainable objectives which is to help 10 entrepreneurs build and develop their start up in Mauritius and beyond. Applications were open for anyone with a business idea related to mall businesses to apply for the Test Drive Program.

Out of 10 projects, 4 have been selected by Ascencia. They will receive extra support in terms of marketing & promotion along with network access from Ascencia during their incubation period with Turbine.

The aim of Turbine by doing these challenges is to offer start ups the opportunity to work with corporates and get an access to customers.

What’s ahead for Turbine in 2021

Turbine has decided to launch its Acceleration Program in February this year.

We currently have 6 start ups that meet the criteria of our Acceleration Program. This program will last 6 months and will focus on Sales, Leads Generation, Marketing, Communication and raising investment.

The selected start ups will also have the possibility to receive 1 Million investment from Compass Venture Capital so as to allow them have financial support to develop their businesses.

New Business Coaches at Turbine

3 Business Coaches have recently joined Turbine to help and support our start ups. Isabelle de Melo, founder of Moris Angels, Krystel Dookhith, who was previously Group Investment and Business Manager at Eclosia and Fabrice Boullé who is in charge of the Venture Investment Fund of ENL Group.

Along with our existing business coaches Marc Israel and Alexandrine Maigrot, we want to make sure that our start ups are well accompanied with professional advice throughout their journey.

Turbine is looking forward to recruit 10 impactful start ups for its Incubation Program as well this year. We look forward to organise more corporate challenges in collaboration with corporates.

I would like to end with a quote of Nelson Mandela that I cherish:

”Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.”

Following their participation in Test Drive 3, LeFinTech is now under Turbine’s Incubation Program. LeFinTech’s mission is to design and develop experiences that make entrepreneurs’ lives simpler. We had a chat with the founders to know more about themselves and their Test Drive journey.

Meet the Founders

Neha Gunnoo

Driven by passion for digital projects, technologies and entrepreneurship, Neha is a consultant in Brand Content Strategy and Digital Marketing. Skilled in project management as well, she has worked in multinational companies such as AfrAsia, Accenture, and Barclays Mauritius. Neha brings her expertise, specializations and years of experiences in LeFinTech.

Nayar Joolfoo

Nayar is an experienced Linux and Cloud Engineer. Being very passionate about technology, he likes to experiment with various technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Being the lead developer at LeFinTech, he creates the most innovative software solutions to the common hassles which many businesses have.

What is LeFinTech about?

LeFinTech has been created to help entrepreneurs and small business owners focus more on their core business while leaving finance and admins to robots and chatbots.

We have the fastest and easiest registration process which requires no dedicated application to be installed on your mobile phone or laptop. It starts with a simple ”hello” on our Facebook page and our chatbot will execute your work while you can focus on building up your business idea.

Services that we offer:

LePocketCFO: The first virtual CFO in Mauritius dedicated to SMEs

We have a full blown chatbot application that allows sales orders, quotes, invoices to be sent and filed from a simple chatbot interface.

LePocketCFO does all your bookkeeping activities; from quotations to payment receipts just like any other CFO, anytime and anywhere. It is available on a 24/7 basis, user-friendly and quick! All your processing is done on our secure encrypted servers. Even your most complex tasks can be simplified into 3 simple steps with LePocketCFO. It’s a CFO in your pocket!

Image Source: https://lefintech.ltd/landing/

LePocketShop: An E-Commerce Platform via Facebook Messenger

We want to help SMEs to get online faster, in a cost-effective and efficient way, and at the same time participate in the effort of flattening the infection curve.

So, we have come up with a simple solution that enables an e-commerce platform via Facebook Messenger. Each SME can have a chatbot set up on their Facebook Page where customers are to place orders quickly and safely and proceed to payment through a digital gateway. This minimises touchpoints to order food and essential items, while allowing more SMEs to leverage e-commerce, for little to no upfront investment.

It allows small businesses who do not have the required capital for a full-fledged e-commerce solution, to get a ready-made solution almost instantly.

What was your thought process when you saw the AD of Test Drive and how was your experience of participating?

We have been following the Turbine Test Drive since the first edition and realizing how it encourages fresh and pioneering ideas. We were both pleasantly surprised when our business idea was accepted by the Turbine Team.

We had the golden opportunity to network, build relationships with the other Test Drive participants and shared our business ideas with each other.

We cannot stress enough on how the workshops were an eye-opener for us to ponder in every possible direction as new business owners. We even had the chance to learn about the mistakes, failures and successes of the entrepreneurial experts.

But most importantly we had fun. It was late night work, but we made sure pizza was there too!

Do you guys have any advice for someone with a business idea?

We were given this idea by our mentors which we’d like to pass on to our readers now: ”Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything!”

Therefore, we should not just keep our ideas to ourselves but rather go out, speak to people about it, test the market whether it is actually solving a problem or not.

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Turbine Incubator | Overview of 2020 and Objectives for 2021