Given the situation, there are hundreds of issues to be frustrated about Bangladesh. The political deadlock, the gloomy economy, and every day death row and so on. But in the midst of all these problems people of this country are making progress. Every day they are trying hard to make a difference.
If you were at EMK Center today, located in the City’s Dhanmondi area, you could see the resilience of this great nation.
The first Build-A-Business Workshop appropriately titled 'Build A Business workshop with Kristen Bergman', organized by Bangladesh Startup Cup, is being held today at EMK Centre, from 10:00 am to 3:00 PM. When the Dhaka street took an almost deserted look a bunch of entrepreneurs and mentors gathered together to do some rigorous exercise on building their businesses - what else can be a better message than this to be sent to the thoughtless (so-called) leaders! The workshop was facilitated by KRISTEN BERGMAN, Ex- Vice President – Strategic Partnerships, The Global Startup Cup and President, Atmos Strategic Communications.
In this post I’ll try to give a short recap of the event.
The best part of any human gathering is interactions between humans which is not share-able. So I could not recap that for you! However, I’ll try to make up for it by sharing some excellent photos and tidbits.
Although the event started with mentor training session followed by entrepreneurs session, however, I’m not going to recap by category. Instead I’ll put it according to startup needs so that it becomes more intuitive and interesting to read.
Don’t be an idea guy, take action:
You have the great idea, best team, all the money you need, and then you do nothing-that's not entrepreneurship. You must act. Start. ~Kristen Bergman
Entrepreneurship is hard but don’t give up:
Entrepreneurship is the process of creating or seizing an opportunity.
Starting a company is a lot like making sausage.
Building a company is not easy. If it was everybody would be an entrepreneur. It's hard to build a business but you don't give up. ~ Kristen Bergman
What to use to design your business:
Business plan = Static. Business plan is dead
Business model = Dynamic. Long live the business model. ~Kristen Bergman
What a great pitch look like:
This is the value I offer..
This is the way I generate revenue..
This is my team..
And I’m going to do these things
Startup team:
You need a visionary in your team, you need a hustler, and you need someone who understands finance and man, also have a deal maker in your team. ~Kristen Bergman
Questions to ask:
What is you value proposition?
Who is your customer?
How will you generate revenue?
How are you different?
What need are you filling?
What are the expenses?
How are you are going to promote your idea?
What are things you are going to do take it forward?
Ask more,
How little money do I need to get my company off the ground?
What is the quickest way to start generating revenue?
This is the first of a series of events going to happen in next few days and a 7-month long Build-A-Business program which is scheduled for later of this year.
Kudos to organizers- Minhaz Anwar, Chief Storyteller, Better Stories, Bijon Islam, Director-Strategy, LightCastle Partners, Arif Nezami, Co-founder, Preneur Lab, & Ruhul Kader, Co-founder, Future Startup, and Starter, Good&Green and team volunteers.
