3. 3
What we do
A low cost scalable virtual incubator that helps small business execute by:
Weekly
Meetings
10 entrepreneurs
2-hours
Challenge feedback
Agent model
Website
Platform
Challenge lessons
Leader boards
Meeting coordination
Monitoring
Behaviour
Change
Peer pressure
Role modelling
Gamification
Other
4. 4
Business Model Validation
PROVEN MODELS
RESEARCH
TRACTION
YPO
21 000 members
Academic Research
Masters, PhD & Consulting
R100 000 sold
R1.2M pipeline
Toastmasters
1 million members
Pilot 1
281 entrepreneurs
Weight-less
81 clubs
Pilot 2
20 entrepreneurs
5 pilots being planned
7. 8
Team
Justin Coetsee
Founded 2 businesses
18 years IT industry incl. IBM 9 years
R30M to R60M 18 months –previous company
Lean Startup Circle
Paul Smith
Founded 4 businesses
Masters and PhD candidate
8 years in SME sector (15 organisations)
Branson, Enablis, WBS, etc.
9. Contact Details
Thanks and Questions
Improving small business execution
Justin Coetsee
@JayCoetie, justin@startupcherry.com
10
Editor's Notes
Hi. I’m Justin Coetsee, co-founder of Grit Factory, an exclusive invite only club for young up and coming entrepreneurs.
As you can see our competitor landscape looks crowded, however if you assess the impact of these initiatives in terms of increased sales versus the investment or cost to the entrepreneur or sponsor you’ll see there is a massive gap. And that is where GritFactory comes in, we believe we can help small businesses grow their sales without charging them a fortune.
So what do we do? Well we get 10 entrepreneurs in a room. We create an environment where these like minded individuals can openly share and learn from each other. Each entrepreneur has a turn to discuss what they have been working on in their business, over the past week. We facilitate this process through our website by providing the entrepreneur the ability to select from a series of business building challenges, like Name your company, Create a Social Media campaign, Appoint an accountant and so forth. Basically all the tasks one would encounter in starting and growing a business.The entrepreneur presents to the group how they executed the specific challenge, what worked or didn’t work and how they overcame any issues in execution, and in return they receive some feedback from the group.We have gamified this process By displaying each entrepreneur’s progress on a leader board, hus allowing each entrepreneur to measure their progress against each member of their group.We believe this peer pressure will encourage behavioral change like advice seeking as individuals seek out advice and support from their stronger performing members.
We have validated our business model against similar leading organisations. We have also reviewed over 1000 academic research papers on entrepreneurial success. In addition we continually validate our assumptions through experiments in pilot exercisesIn terms of traction we have already managed to secure a deal of R100k and have a pipeline of over R1.2MWe are also planning a further 5 Pilots
In terms of market, worldwide spend on small business support is around R200B annually, including incubation and coachingAnd in South Africa there are over 1.5 million small business with an annual turn over of between R200k and R1M
Our initial target market are corporates with established ED programs or those looking to tie their brand to the corporate social investment initiatives. Our target entrepreneurs are between the ages of 22 and 28, degreed or tertiary drop out, a first time entrepreneur, have little work experience or even unemployed, has access to the internet, access to reliable transportation and can Speak and read englishIn terms of small businesses we target existing small businesses with an annual turnover between R200k and R1M with a desire to grow.
We are an experienced team of entrepreneurs who have started several businesses between us. we have and continue to spend significant time researching the latest best practices and techniques in entrepreneurship and apply them to the numerous startups and small businesses we continually advise.
SO where do we see ourselves in 3 years.We aim to impact 800 entrepreneurs within the next 3 years and in the process disrupt the current SME support industry.To help us achieve thisWe are looking for a tech partner or co-founder who can helps us to build our web platform or alternatively funding we can use to have this developed.We are also looking for advisors who not only can provide us with guidance as we continue to discover a sustainable and scalable business model but who are also able to open their networks to us for more corporate leads.
That is GritFactory, improving small business execution through a low cost, scalable incubation model. Any questions
