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StartNow is an online course that blends online and offline experiences for early-stage and aspiring social business entrepreneurs to advance on the creation and testing of social business ideas. Using the broadcasting power of technology, StartNow empowers people to become social business entrepreneurs and green job creators as they contribute to building a more climate resilient society.
With StartNow, Yunus Environment Hub builds capacities to use the social business concept as a means to fight climate change and bring about sustainable and resilient solutions to socio-environmental problems.
Inspired by Professor Muhammad Yunus, A world of Three Zeros, Yunus Environment Hub believes that:
- Every young person “has built-in capacity to be an entrepreneur” and they are “packed with unlimited creative capabilities”.
- Through the creation of social businesses, young people can unleash their potential and develop solutions to protect, preserve and restore our environment.
Course Overview
StartNow is an interactive course that invites aspiring and early-stage entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into a social business plan. The content of the course is aimed to equip young people with key entrepreneurial capabilities to move forward with a social business.
Based on Yunus Environment Hub’s business plan creation methodology, the key content covered throughout StartNow course includes:
- Ideation for social impact: includes problem identification and creating a theory of change
- Business development: includes market research and competitive analysis, customer identification, defining a business model, value proposition
- Sustainability: includes understanding and connecting the business to SDGs, circular economy principles, carbon footprint and impact measurement
- Financial management: includes cost analysis, pricing, sales projection, and building a financial plan
- Leadership: includes team building, organizational practices, operational plan, setting metrics and goals
StartNow participants are invited to unlock their creativity and innovative potential as they learn how to develop a social business plan. In this journey, they are accompanied by mentors who walk along side by side with the entrepreneurs to provide constant feedback and further resources. By the end of the course, participants are equipped with key capabilities to move forward with their ventures.
Entrepreneurs
- Idea stage: they have an idea about how to solve an environmental problem
- Early-stage: they are working on their social business, but they want to refine their social business plan
- Pivoting into a social business model: they want to convert their business model or their NGO model into a social business
- Driven to learn more about social businesses and tools to build their own
Mentors
- Motivated to sharpen their skills as a mentor for real social business entrepreneurs
- Interested in connecting with entrepreneurs working in areas they have expertise in
- Feel joy by supporting others on building their social business solution
Building Partnerships
We would like to connect with you if your organisation is:
- Dedicated to developing programs to support social business entrepreneurs in their venture building journey
- Interested in designing training or capacity building programs to expand your educational offer to drive social innovation through social business creation
StartNow can be part of your programs:
- Incubation and acceleration for social businesses
- Skills training for youth
- Entrepreneuship support trainings
- University training for social business
StartNow can add value as:
- A pre-course to build the pipeline for the selection of startups
- As a business planning tool to support early-stage social business entrepreneurs to test their idea
- As a business planning tool to support established social business entreprenreus to pivot new strategy e.g. related to circular economy transition
- Training potential mentors to work with social businesses
To know more about StartNow and partnership opportunities to launch a program, contact us: info@yystartnow.com