Seed Academy has opened in Cape Town, and is offering entrepreneurial training in both Cape Town and Johannesburg. There is more than R2,4-million of sponsored training available for early stage technology and women entrepreneurs.
Applications are open with courses starting regularly.
Seed Academy provides fast-track and practical training and mentoring to start-ups and early phase entrepreneurs. The focus is on the tech space but other ideas which are scalable are also considered. Seed Academy is also strongly committed to the development of women entrepreneurs.
Lara Rosmarin, CEO of Seed Academy, says: “We provide practical training by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, targeting their specific needs to help them realise their idea and grow their business. We want our participants to succeed, so our relationship continues up to 18 months after the course ends. We create course content around an entrepreneur’s specific needs. The material is neither theoretical nor academic and the training is carried out by entrepreneurs who have built their own businesses. They know what works.”
The practical sessions are presented once a week over ten weeks between and 6pm and 9pm, as not to interfere with an entrepreneur’s working day.
“Throughout the programme we aim to nurture, develop and train the skill sets mind sets, attitudes and behaviours of potential high growth entrepreneurs and provide them with access to their next growth checkpoints. These include personal and leadership development, sound business skills, a business plan and pitching skills,” Rosmarin adds.
Seed Academy has also developed South Africa’s first start-up survey to get a national picture of start-up entrepreneurs, what challenges they face, what issues relate to funding, what sort of additional support is needed to increase success rates.
According to Jeff Miller, chairman of Seed Academy: “We hope to get up to 1000 responses and we will share our findings. This national survey will develop impetus for industry and government to align efforts to create a more sustainable and successful start-up culture in South Africa. It’s essential that we succeed to create an economically successful country and to reduce our high unemployment rate.”
Participating start-ups could win one of three places at Seed Academy’s entrepreneur training programme valued at R48 000.
The results will be revealed at Seed Engine’s SA Entrepreneur Funding Summit 2015.
