Starting a start-up

Are you an online entrepreneur or developer, with enough ideas for online projects to keep you busy for …well, forever?

Great. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about Business Beat.

It’s a collaboration between the Innovation Hub, GIBS MBA program and IdeaBank (my company).

The goal is to bring together people from all necessary disciplines to create a successful and viable online venture. There will be about 15 teams made up of techies, marketers, business students and hopefully you. You will work together to create a business plan and protype for an online venture (must be original, innovative and viable). At the end of the program, the three best business plans get brought into the incubator, and a big-name sponsor (to be announced soon) will help you develop it fully and take it to market. Of course the team can also take the business plan and develop it independently.

The first, introductory, session happens this Monday November 3 at the Innovation Hub at 2pm. Attendance is free and compulsory if you want to participate in Business Beat. There will be venture capitalists, existing online entrepreneurs and program directors to answer your questions. More information and sign up is here.

This is a great solution if you have been sitting on an idea for an online app that you want to see developed, but you cannot do it alone, or you need funding to get it off the ground. It also works if you have an existing venture that is hampered by lack of skill or funding.

It’s old news that the online environment in South Africa is hampered by lack of first round financing, or angel funding. Hopefully Business Beat will get the ball rolling, and this will be the start of many initiatives to pump money into ideas that can be turned into profitable –and formidable – online ventures.