Wrapping Up This Trip

Monday 9/19

Last week was uncharacteristically dry here in Rwanda, but the rains seem to be coming now.  Hope I don’t get drenched on the way to class.

Tonight’s class is focused on advertising and promotion.  I always look forward to this particular class.  It brings out the creative and fun loving side of our entrepreneurs.  We will undoubtedly share some laughs tonight, and have fun as they learn how to promote their businesses.  In general, Rwandans place a high value on being serious minded, nevertheless they smile easily and have a good sense of humor.  When you are communicating cross-culturally humor can be touchy.  Sometimes humor doesn’t translate well; nevertheless, I have discovered common ground with simple humor.  It’s little things like humor that help you connect.  The real treasure in Rwanda is the people.  I hope I get a chance to introduce you to some of them – We are looking for intercessors, online mentors, and visiting executives.

Tuesday 9/20

Dr. Mulford and I have been traveling back and forth to Rwanda regularly for well over a year.  It has been a wonderful and gratifying experience, and we have certainly seen God’s faithfulness in our efforts here.  The fruit is very encouraging.  Nevertheless, we know that to expand our programs here and multiply Business Development Centers around the world, we will need to reproduce ourselves.  Today was spent focusing on continuing to build our systems here and training facilitators.  Our national director, Donatien, will help with one of the classes this week – he has been a tremendous blessing to us and is a pillar of our team. 

I met with Junior Chamber International, another organization encouraging young entrepreneurs.  We have had several of their members go through our program, and I wanted to give them a special invitation to this Thursday’s open house. 

In class tonight, the entrepreneurs are really digging into their business models and focusing on how to build customer relationships.  Good stuff – You can see real progress over the last week or so. 

Wednesday 9/21

I spent most of the day with Donatien promoting our upcoming Customer Service seminar.  We were able to visit a number of the major companies and government agencies.  We have been warmly received, with several customer service directors agreeing to send trainees right on the spot.  This kind of thing is a significant part of what we do.  The existence of the Center here allows us to leverage the impact of Visiting Executives, and have a real impact on both the public and private sector.  Rwanda is changing and it is nice to be moving with the momentum.  This nation offers those who want to make a difference by sharing their business expertise an unusual opportunity to participate in dramatic change. 

We cover break-even and the financial model of the businesses tonight – always an interesting class.

Thursday 9/22

Typical Day for me at the BDC

• Before breakfast Bible reading and reflection on last night’s class.  Break-even analysis brought sobriety to some of the entrepreneurs 
• Early morning breakfast meeting with a young man visiting here with his church group, he has been tasked with doing a feasibility study on micro-enterprise development 
• After breakfast a meeting with a graduate who has a mining project, our meeting last week was fruitful; progress is good 
• Have until lunch to send a slew of emails to staff, seminar invitees, government, etc.  Also need to write a letter to our local bank. 
• Lunch meeting with visiting executives. Get to hear about the amazing meeting they are having with our entrepreneurs
• I have a little time to create a handout to help a few of the learners who are struggling with breakeven from last night.  I will put it on blackboard for them. 
• Just enough time to make some phone calls.
• I walk over to our offices to meet with staff.
• Downstairs to class at 5:45
• Pascal our training assistant is setting up the projector
• Open house again tonight. Not the crowd we expected but we have had about 8 visitors total this week. Not bad
• Back to the guest house for a 9:30PM dinner and the pillow.

Friday 9/23

I have a lot of loose ends to tie up today.  I ate breakfast with my to-do list handy.  Our Visiting Executives Michael and Janet Shultz are leaving late this evening, and I will need to say goodbye to the entrepreneurs tonight as well. I fly home tomorrow.  Donatien is organizing the business presentations tonight.  One of our entrepreneurs presented last night and it was quite good.  Over the next two weeks of field work we want them to soft launch their businesses if they have not already.  Please pray for this group!  Dr. Mulford will be with them in a couple of weeks to cover finance and operations. 

Why Have We Been So Successful?

Thursday 9/15

Had an early morning meeting with the official who serves as our liaison at the Rwanda Development Board.  RDB is the government department that is charged with business and economic development.   We are working together to put on a customer service seminar in October.  We also discussed our graduation ceremony and other matters.  The meeting went well.

Our visiting executives are busy with mentoring meetings morning and afternoon.  We had a nice lunch meeting at Shokola, a safari themed café in downtown Kigali.  The Shultz's and I head back to meet learners and Dale remains downtown for a mentoring meeting with a graduate who is also a banker. 

People ask us how we have been able to attract such high potential entrepreneurs to our program. 

     1. God’s blessing. 

     2. Effective Approaches to Marketing. One of these is Open House.  Each Thursday evening when class is in session we have Open House – this is an opportunity for the entrepreneurs to invite their friends.  The turn out tonight was great as we had 15 open house guests, all of which seemed very interested in our training.  I talked with them during our break, give them a couple of brochures and we will follow up on them by email and phone calls.

Friday 9/16

Got out bright and early to visit several large local businesses. We are inviting them to our Customer Service and Leadership training in October.  The training is for the top leaders of the top companies in Rwanda.  The response has been encouraging.  There seems to be a real hunger for this kind of training here, and I know that this seminar will be great.

It is a shame I will miss it.  Dr. Mulford and I tag team as facilitators for our training here and it’s his turn in October.  I am excited by the prospect of training other facilitators, however.  I see a day in the future when we will have a great pool of people who do what we do.  This will allow us to expand this program beyond Rwanda – 100 BDCs around the world. 

I am encouraged by how well our VEs are doing with facilitation.  All our VEs this week are also facilitators in training.  90% of the class was led by Dale Fenwick tonight.  Good stuff – SWOT, the 4Ps, etc.

Saturday 9/17

We had a special Open House in our offices today from 9-12 AM for our graduates.  It was great seeing them, and our little office was a beehive of energy.  From the beginning we have wanted to find eMentors for our graduates.  Several are asking for mentors now.  I think of Théoneste in particular.  His business is creating online database driven applications for the B2B market.  His most successful product is a SAS for Rwandan schools.   He would love to have a mentor with some background in IT and web technology.  I just know that the Lord has someone who would be willing to email and occasionally Skype with Théoneste. 

After visiting with Graduates we went to Donatien’ s (our Director here) house for lunch.  What a great day!

Visiting Executives Make Huge Impact!

Tuesday 9/13

I spent the morning doing facilitator training with visiting executives Michael and Janet Shultz from Australia. The gateway into the Rwanda Business Development Center is a 14-week entrepreneurship training program that uses an action-based learning model. As such, the content in the training is presented in a discussion format rather than through lecture. Our facilitators (we prefer this title to “instructors”) learn how to create a learning environment where they can draw the right conclusions out of the learners. We want the members of the cohort to discover the learning objectives rather than merely have a facilitator tell them. This approach becomes second nature with time, but often feels awkward at first.

The training tonight focused on marketing research. The following is an example of how we approach the subject: The facilitator asks the entrepreneurs a question, in this case "Why is research important?" Heor she then captures some of the most promising answers on a whiteboard. A follow up question could be, "What kinds of things should an entrepreneur research?" The facilitator has a diagram in mind: a stick figure entrepreneur with a couple of thought bubbles. As the learners call out things that should be researched the facilitator begins organizing them in one or the other bubble. The facilitator knows that all the good answers will fall under one of three categories: customer, industry or economic trends. Through a series of leading questions and clarifying questions the facilitator helps the class build a diagram that essentially shows – the entrepreneur must conduct research to be aware of what is happening in his or her industry, to know his or her customer and to understand the larger trends that are impacting both (above the bubbles). This class discussion would then be followed by a small group discussion where we ask the entrepreneurs to analyze their own business concept and identify areas they need to do more research in light of this diagram.

Wednesday 9/14

Today we had a working lunch focused on an insurance business startup that some of our graduates, as well as current learners are working on. Visiting executive Dale Fenwick, who works in the insurance industry, has been able to help them think through their business model and their approach to capitalization and come up with some out of the box approaches that could lessen their capitalization burden and help them with speed to market.

Visiting executives have a huge impact on our entrepreneurs, through their expertise (depth) and their general business experience (breadth). The payoff for VEs is that helping in this way is extremely gratifying and often downright fun. Furthermore, this coaching/mentoring environment provides ample opportunities for VEs to have meaningful conversations, share testimonies of God’s goodness and pray with the entrepreneurs. As I write this I am thinking of all the Christian business people who could come for a week or two and bless the socks off this nation by just spending time with entrepreneurs and sharing their real world business experience.

Class tonight is focused on segmentation, targeting and positioning. I am looking forward to this, but missing family. Especially my son Mark who turns 11 today. Happy Birthday Mark!

Blessings Found in Kigali!

From Jason Benedict

Saturday 9/10

I arrived Saturday to rain and cool temperatures here in Kigali. It was actually nice to drink in the familiar sights, sounds, smells. Solace Guest House has become a kind of home away from home. It’s amazing to think that by the end of this two weeks I will have spent the better part of 4 months here. The 31 hour trip is taxing - I crashed for about an hour then went back to the airport with Donatien, our on-site director, to pick up visiting executive Dale Fenwick.

Sunday 9/11

Dale and I went to the early service at Restoration Evangelical Church a number of our entrepreneurs have come from REC, and I was able to share a little about the BDC with the congregation. I was able to get some work done in preparation for the busy week ahead. Dale Fenwick and I had dinner with a graduate who has a mining project in the DRC. Dale has a degree in mine engineering and was a real blessing.

Monday 9/12

I started the day with a meeting with the BDC team. I was able to spend a little time orienting our new Office Manager here. I went from there to a follow-up meeting on the mining project. Dale and I were able to meet with the other member of our graduate’s team and make some real progress. Dona went to the airport to greet visiting executives Michael and Janet Schultz. We went for a working lunch at Mille Colline Hotel – where I spent some time orienting our visiting executives. We had a grand time in class – the entrepreneurs were enthusiastic and responsive (after a little cajoling). They were also eager to sign up for coaching time with our VEs, and I was happy to see their calendars filling up. Dale was the hero of the evening when he figured out how to solve a problem with the wireless router that was interfering with our marketing research activity.

In class, students work independently and collaboratively on projects and exercises.

            

                                          Dale Fenwick - the Hero!                                                                 Students enjoyed having meetings with our Visiting Executives

More to come about this most recent trip! Stay tuned.



Graduates On The Move

 John's Blog: Week Two Continued...

Seeing how the graduates are doing is a high point of every trip.  I look for opportunities to encourage them and to help them, primarily through networking.  God often provides the way.  For example, on the flight to Kigali, I met the sales manager for a Dutch company that installs fiber optic systems.  He said he needed to find a Rwandan company with the technical expertise to subcontract some installation.  I immediately thought of Charles (Cohort 2), whose business idea was fiber optic cable maintenance and installation.  The two met and it looks like a contract may result. 

Theoneste (Cohort 1) e-mailed that he wanted me to see his office, a very simple, inexpensive space near his home.  I was so proud to see his business up and running.  He created a software package to manage schools.  He has 20 schools using the system.  He demonstrated it for me.  Very impressive.  He expects to add 58 new schools soon, but needs to acquire more bandwidth to serve them.  He hosts his system on servers in the U.S. and Canada.  Dona and I prayed for him and his business.  

I met Hamim and Jacques (Cohort 2) for a soda at the Umubano Hotel.  I had visited their Football (i.e., soccer) Academy in the spring when they had two groups.  They have added several groups and coaches.  They wanted to talk with me about how to introduce character training into the mix.  I suggested three options—two excellent character curricula and one special program for football run by a Regent alum in Guatemala.  We even brainstormed about bringing a youth football club from Hampton Roads to play some friendly matches with Rwandan teams and to build a “brother” club relationship.  My soccer-playing son would love to do it.

Ntare (Cohort 1) was selected as one of 50 entrepreneurs worldwide to display his business at a conference in Finland.  As a result, he is joint venturing with a Finnish software firm to localize their school management software for Rwanda.  He also has 4 clients for his pharmacy management software product.

Fabrice (Cohort 1) won the contract to supply the government of Rwanda all HIV/AIDS test kits.  He is bidding on malaria tests and tests for other diseases.  He imports rapid diagnostic test kits from S. Korea.  He arranged a meeting with the leadership of Junior Chamber International (JCI) to consider a partnership between our BDC and JCI to train more entrepreneurs in Rwanda.  JCI plans to train 300 a year in a short course.  We talked about training their trainers and enrolling the most serious graduates in our 14-week program.

Michaelle (Cohort 1 first prize winner) took some time off to have a baby.  She will launch her business in October with five coffee vending machines imported from Italy that serve fresh brewed Rwandan coffee from her family’s plantation.  She had planned to start with 15, but lack of finances led her to see the wisdom in starting smaller so she can learn the business well before expanding. 

Peter (Cohort 2) has identified a great facility for his Christian K-12 school.  When I visited the site, I was swarmed by local children fascinated by this “muzungu” invading their play space.  Peter plans to teach 950 students and plant a garden (using Farming God’s Way principles) on the site.  He still needs about $20,000 to get started.     

Earthquakes, Broken Eggs and More!

John’s Blog:  Week Two  (August 20-27)

Latin America Meets East Africa

My colleague, Sergio Matviuk, arrived Sunday night.  He is the coordinator for global affairs for Regent University.  As an entrepreneur and an educator who has delivered training programs in Peru, Ecuador, and other countries, Sergio knew exactly what was involved in getting something like BDC Rwanda off the ground.  We had an enjoyable three days together.  I could see the class sit up and pay attention when Sergio talked about starting a business in Argentina when he was 17.  He encouraged them and challenged them.  We also had an excellent meeting with the Rwanda Development Board.  They asked for a proposal from Regent to train the presidents, deans and faculty of Rwanda’s 18 universities. 

Class Loosens Up in Week Two

Week two started off with a bang—or I should say a “crack”.  Monday’s class was devoted to a project in which each team builds a package that is both attractive and protective (of the raw egg it holds).  Each team has 60 seconds to sing the praises of its package.  Then comes the drop—from six feet onto a cement floor--followed by howls of anguish when the egg breaks (3 of the five) or shouts of joy when the package does its job.  This was the first day that the class really came out of its shell (bad pun, but true).  One team created an Easter basket for their “Easter egg”, and sang the Hallelujah chorus to introduce their product.       

Broken Egg

While Monday freed them to express their emotions, it took another day or two to free their minds to think outside the box.  When given the assignment to brainstorm business ideas without any constraints—that is, no limits on time, money, technology, labor, skills, etc.—the class produced a list of very “ho hum” ideas, such as cement block manufacturer, secretarial services, print shop, etc.  More than 70% of the ideas were businesses already operating in Rwanda.  I sent them back to the drawing board with the charge to come up with some really crazy, “out there” ideas.  That freed up their creative juices.  We had edible plates, self-cleaning shirts, human breath as an energy source, and houses floating on magnetic fields.  Although they probably won’t implement these particular ideas, the exercise will help them innovate new ways of doing the businesses they are contemplating.

We had several good discussions about the values and traits of an entrepreneur.  I started class by putting a word on the screen and asking for reaction--Trust, Action-oriented, Generosity, Resourcefulness.  These generated deep discussions and questions.  Sometimes the class referred by to my “Doing business with a pure heart” presentation from week one.  They would comment that a classmate’s position seemed to reflect doing business from the “stomach” (the lowest motivation from my tri-partite model) rather than from the heart.       

Staff:  Shaken Up and Reconstituted

We interviewed several candidates and hired Patrick Kanuma to replace Chrystel, who resigned two weeks ago. He is married with a young son and in his last semester studying law.  He seems sharp and has good sales skills.  We’ll put him to work recruiting.

Anatole informed me that he is leaving in September to spend a year in the Netherlands on a full scholarship for a Masters in Rural Development and Food Security.  We’ll miss him.  He has been faithful meeting the needs of both current students and graduates.  Fortunately, Pascal, graduate of Cohort 2, has agreed to join us part time.  Pascal received the servant leadership award for his steadfast volunteer help with Cohort 2.  Now, he’ll continue that service for pay. 

Several graduates volunteered to help out when they heard that Chrystel had resigned.  They feel a sense of ownership and loyalty to the BDC and want to see it succeed.   

 What’s Going On at Home?

I thought it was a joke—a 5.9 earthquake in Virginia?  But it was true.  Then I learned that Hurricane Irene was bearing down on my house while I was in Rwanda.  Amazingly, I was able to get home as scheduled.  I arrived home just after Irene passed through—3 p.m. Sunday, August 28.  Fortunately, Irene wasn’t much of a hurricane in Hampton Roads.  Easy for me to say.  I wasn’t there.  My family took care of mopping up the water that blew through our wall.  I sawed up the downed tree.  We all are suffering the aftermath of no power.  But we thank God it didn’t do any more damage than that.