Grow Movement had its first TV appearance last week on TVCnews, a Pan African TV channel. Given less than 24 hours’ notice to organise our CEO, London based volunteers with African Heritage to talk with their clients via Skype and to prepare a team meeting! TV report Joyce Ohajah interviewed the Grow team… our CEO even had to tidy up her desk!

Alvi Kuti being interviewed

Takudzwa Kufa, a British Zimbabwean was filmed talking with his first client, Jean Claude Ntakirutima in Rwanda who runs a waste recycling business; Kigali Sanitation. They first worked together over a year ago so it was great for them to catch up! Jean Claude has continued with Grow Movement and is now working on a computer recycling proposition.

Alvin Kuti, spoke about his experience working with Malawi and
now Ugandan entrepreneurs and why he chooses to volunteer with Grow Movement.

Click here to hear what the Grow team had to say!

Friday, 11 September 2015

Friday, 11 September 2015

Volunteering with Grow is a unique and fascinating experience. Imagine having the opportunity after 3 years and 4 projects to go and visit Kampala. This is exactly what Karin Stumpf from Germany did, even finding time on her holiday to run two masterclasses with Grow clients.

Karin with Judith and Mohammed

Karin after her masterclass

Karin in Enterprise Uganda

The day is over very fast and we three girls are exhausted. We have met around 8-10 entrepreneurs in 7 hours. Each entrepreneur has being introduced to the program, first questions around his or her pain points were jotted down, and we had also to reject some entrepreneurs.

I meet my husband back at the hotel. While I had nudged him to follow me in this adventure, he is full of stories and impressions. We both enjoyed the experience that gave us so much insight into businesses in Uganda. Uganda has one of the highest rate of entrepreneurs per capita, and we got to appreciate what it means to face such strong competition while having little financial flexibility. Good to know that we VCs are helping make a difference in the life of hundreds of Ugandan Entrepreneurs…”

Thank you Karin for being a fantastic volunteer, for supporting Uganda600 volunteers in Europe as well as Uganda600 clients!

Recently Grow was asked, ‘What you do is amazing, what awards have you won?’ Simple answer is none, we have never spent the time on applications feeling that management time was better spent elsewhere. During our recruitment for #Uganda600 Grow spoke to many different companies and often we heard ‘What you do is amazing, why have we not heard about you before?’

Results to be announced on September 26th. Watch this space!

On the 20th July Grow Movement launched more projects in one day than in our entire combined history of 5 years. 570 projects went live on our new IT system. At Grow we do like a challenge so launching all of this on one day some may say ‘crazy’, others admire our go getting nature.

Making calls!

Other challenges have included ‘boot leg videos’. When you run so many projects on mass situations that have been around for a while suddenly take on a different light. Across Africa, South East Asia and South Americas boot leg DVD retailers are quite common and an entry point into business for many entrepreneurs. A number of VCs raised the issue if Grow should be working with those companies that flout international copy right laws, yet are registered to retail in Uganda. Grow took counsel from Enterprise Uganda, London Business School and members of our Uganda Advisory Board and made the decision to work only with those companies that have revenue from other products and services other than boot leg DVDs. A difficult decision to take.

Uganda 600 talking

Further challenges include the ‘adjustment process’ for new VCs. With over 400 new VCs getting to grips with clients without email access, smart phone or lap tops and whom have a very different approach to time, who will cancel sessions at the last minute and not do homework…it takes time! It is often difficult to know in the beginning how many sessions is it ok to cancel, how late can a client be before they are being rude? The simple answer is just to be patient… our clients are new to this process and at the start do not fully get it. Be patient, relax and stick with it. Once you get over session 5 the penny drops…..on both sides!

Thursday, 3 September 2015