Itzinya is focused on young entrepreneurial people between 18-30. Youth unemployment is one driving factor behind Itzinya’s vision. We want to turn young “job seekers” into “job makers”. On one hand it is often not enough to have a good education to get a job that brings out the best in me. Many well educated still find it hard to get into the job market. On the other hand entrepreneurship isn’t necessarily about education either. There are many ways to bring value and solve important problems. We often encourage our entrepreneurs to focus on important social and environmental problems and apply creative processes and innovation to solve them.
You Can Do It…!
The question is – what is the best way to get there….?
Young Entrepreneurs
Reinforcing
If you join our Academy, we will go through all the ins and outs of entrepreneurship in 3 months, 2 evenings per week. You will learn the mindset of an entrepreneur, refine your skillset, learn to recognize opportunities, and build business models to capture them. You will also learn how to solve societal problems in a sustainable way through entrepreneurship.
Resourcing
Right after the Academy the Incubator starts. You will build your network, shape your marketing plan, plan your strategy, get help to find a startup loan and be ready to hit the ground running. Besides itzinya’s mentors, you will be connected with mentors from the same industry locally and internationally. We don’t just want to see you start, we follow you along the way. And as you grow there is more training coming up.
Releasing
Now it is time to try your wings and fly on your own. Even after the incubator year the business mentors will be on hand for support. You will also be invited to events for special seminars, networking with other both local and international businesses and expand your network. This is your chance to make reality of that dream. Don’t wait, read about the business idea competition and apply!
You can do it – cause itzinya!
StartUp Academy
The StartUp Academy is one of several programs that we have. It is a 3 month process that focus on finding what is called Product-Market-Fit. A solution that is perfectly satisfying for a particular customer segment. We start with our best guess work and try to replace guessing with facts as cheap and quick as possible. This requires experimentation and communication with the market. So the Startup Academy is much more of a lab rather than a course.
The Incubator
When a Product-Market-Fit is established, the rest of a solid Business Model need to be created. Also this is a series of experimentation and communication with the market but now we know who to ask and what we shall deliver. The point is to find a way that we can do this again and again and bring more money in to the business than what it cost to serve our customer with our solution. We also want to know who to partner with and what we must become experts in and how our customers want to have us work with them. All this is happening in the Incubator. Those that find ideas with good potential are invited to develop them in the Incubator and finally start their business with our assistance.
Build on your own idea
You might come with a fairly developed idea, or maybe with a direction of what you want to do and a lot of motivation to discover and develop an idea you feel passionate about during the Academy. In any case, most of the sessions you will be applying the training on your own product or service idea. In this way it will not be theoretical. We like to think about entrepreneurship as something very practical and the Academy reflects that.
The Facilitators
Yes that’s right, we do not have teachers. We don’t believe teaching is the best way for you to get the understanding of entrepreneurship and the confidence in yourself that you can do it. We believe it is more like a journey. So instead of teachers we have facilitators or “guides” that accompany you on your journey. They will share shorter main learning points and lead discussions, reflections and exercises. Those facilitators will also become your coaches in the incubator process. In addition to this we will try to connect you with experienced industry experts that can mentor you.
Don’t wait – come and join us!
The Startup Academy starts 3 times every year. Check at “Application” for more details of the next one. We want to get to know you a bit in the application process. We ask you therefore to send us a short description of your business idea (if you have one) and answer 7 important questions that helps us understand your perspective a bit. After that we invite you to an interview before we make decisions on who to accept.