Sinapis: The Missing Link in SMEs Success

By Soko Directory Team / Published June 27, 2016 | 8:35 am

Many of us have the dreams of venturing into the entrepreneurial field. This is one area that has been proven to be lucrative. An entrepreneur needs empowerment to enable them go through the investment journey to success. This is what Sinapis is here to do, holding entrepreneurs’ hands and guiding them through the journey. Nurturing seeds of ideas that you have into a strong business.

Sinapis is a social enterprise that empowers entrepreneurs in the developing world by providing them with a rigorous business education, world-class consulting and mentoring services, and access to seed capital.

They are focused on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), which are generally more formalized businesses and, by definition, have higher annual turnover. This is because they seek to fill a gap not currently being met by the micro-finance industry and the traditional banking sector. unlike other non-profits, Sinapis focuses on mature SMEs and exclusively on SMEs in their earliest stages, typically when they are still just an idea.

Sinapis was started by three Harvard graduate students (who had worked at companies such as McKinsey, P&G, and PWC) in an effort to help prove a model that could help solve the main private sector bottleneck in Kenya, a lack of support (financial and human capital) for early stage entrepreneurs. This bottleneck was identified through research Courtney Mills, our Executive Director, performed in conjunction with Kenya’s Ministry of Finance during her time at Harvard.

Read: Mentorship as Empowerment for Successful Entrepreneurs in Emerging Economies

Sinapis has three inter-related programs that include the Sinapis Entrepreneurship Training Program, which is made up of an intensive 4-month business training program similar to a mini-MBA but customized for earlier stage ventures. Participants in this program spend approximately 20 hours per week completing online coursework, attending in-person class sessions, and doing practical “field work” assignments that allow immediate implementation of lessons learned.

Partners that have worked with Sinapis in deploying their training program include Makini Consultancy, who provide entrepreneurship training to the winners of the government’s “You Win” awards and iHub, who offer training on their tech & innovation community.

They have also partnered with some Churches in Nairobi including Nairobi Chapel, Nairobi Baptist, and Purpose Centre Church. Sinapis is looking forward to have taken their program in four other African countries in the next two years.

Sinapis as an organization lives to believe that the entrepreneur’s abilities are often of more consequence than the business idea itself. Thus, while most organizations provide only financial capital with very little business training and support, Sinapis provides a holistic training program specifically designed for early stage entrepreneurs.

As an Entrepreneur, Sinapis seeks to support you with innovative, scalable business ideas by providing you with business training and financing to help you succeed. Furthermore, they also make sure that you are exposed to Christ-centered business principles to help you develop the spiritual strength to triumph over ethical challenges.

Once you become successful in your business, Sinapis will not only create sustainable jobs and help alleviate poverty but also gain societal influence as business leaders. With this societal influence, they believe that they will be able to transform the business culture and society around them and mentor more young entrepreneurs to do the same.

About Soko Directory Team

Soko Directory is a Financial and Markets digital portal that tracks brands, listed firms on the NSE, SMEs and trend setters in the markets eco-system.Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/SokoDirectory and on Twitter: twitter.com/SokoDirectory

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