GrowthWheel Unifies Business Support Tools Across Ecosystem

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The rapid growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Lebanon in the last few years, whether in the multi-fold increase of innovative startups or in the establishment of support organisations that paralleled that growth, has led Berytech to search for a tool that would help unify the business support language across all support organisations. With that in mind, the ‘GrowthWheel certification’ training was organised in Berytech Digital Park on 14 & 15 July 2016, with attendants from ALTCITY, Amideast, Berytech, IM Capital, UK Lebanon Tech Hub, …

“We are very excited to lead and coordinate this initiative, we believe that it will add much value to all Business Support Organisations in Lebanon and are thankful for the World Bank for accepting our proposal” said Ramy Boujawdeh, Deputy GM of Berytech.

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The certification and licensing was funded by the World Bank under the ‘Promoting Early Stage Innovation Financing (ESIIF)’ program in Lebanon through a Matching Grant Facility to Business Development Service Providers administered by Kafalat.

GrowthWheel is a visual toolbox simplifying decision-making and action planning for startup and growth companies. It helps entrepreneurs build their businesses through a simple action-oriented process that stays true to the way most entrepreneurs think and work.

For the business advisor, the absolute flexibility of the toolbox means that it can be fully adapted to existing advisory tools and client needs, and it can even be used by clients themselves, thereby saving time for the advisor.

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With the GrowthWheel 2-day workshop, that is currently touring the world, Berytech hopes to bring an added value to the ecosystem by unifying the business support language across all the organizations, so when the entrepreneur moves from one support organization to another, he is guaranteed to receive continuity and support in the most effective and efficient way.

We interviewed the trainer and attendants of the workshop to get their immediate feedback on the training and on the expected benefits of the ‘GrowthWheel’ tool in their work. This is what they had to say:

“It’s the first time that we do a growth wheel certification course in Lebanon. GrowthWheel is used in 33 countries around the world and Lebanon is now number 34 where we have certified advisors. It’s very exciting to see how the tool will be adapted here when it’s been wonderfully adapted in so many other places. The participants come from many different types of organizations; they work with many different types of clients. Some work with very early startups, some work with scale-up companies, some work with companies requiring investments and some don’t. My feeling here today is that everyone can find their own way of adapting GrowthWheel in their work with their clients.” – David Madié, Founder of Growth Wheel

“GrowthWheel did meet my expectations. The platform is robust, has many features which allow companies to build their decisions and take their actions more efficiently. We usually ask companies to prepare different documentations related to different focus areas, and companies prepare those documentations from scratch. GrowthWheel can be beneficial in the sense that it maximizes the time needed for the preparation of those documents by the companies. By providing a template from GrowthWheel, companies are given guidance on how to build these documentations in a more structured manner and a shorter timeframe.” – Mario Ramadan, UK Lebanon Tech Hub

“While working with our incubated teams, we often have to develop our own tools and templates and this often takes time and requires a lot of research until we ‘perfect’ the tool. GrowthWheel not only will provide us with an extensive library of resources but they have been tested and validated along the years by many business advisors across the world. They represent a valuable tool to accompany any entrepreneur into his journey and will definitely save time for us as they are exactly what we need: a detailed self-explanatory tool that will add more credibility to the Business Advisor and allow the entrepreneur to work alone as well.” – Joanna Abi Abdallah, Berytech

“The tool really exceeded my expectations in practicality and wholesomeness. At the UK Lebanon Tech Hub, we will be utilizing the GrowthWheel tools to assess and track the progress of our UKLTH International Accelerator companies. On another note, It is sometimes quite a journey identifying the needs and gaps of businesses, especially in the purpose design of the Signposting Service (for Business Support) at the UKLTH. A simple request to get an introduction to a VC Fund could be immature, and some gaps need to be addressed such as: business modelling, value proposition, go-to-market, revenue model, financial plan, and others. Often, a meeting is not sufficient to identify and tackle such gaps, and it may take several meetings and follow-ups to do so, sometimes even missing core development points. A simple 10 minute 360-assessment using GrowthWheel Tools could improve efficiency up to 5x times, or as David Madie says, “500% faster”.” – Aisha Habli, UK Lebanon Tech Hub

“I think that this tool is very user-friendly. I’m sure we will be using it with startups that we will be dealing with or that we already deal with at IM Capital. I think the tool will help us brainstorm together with the startups and at the same time we can come up with ideas. It’s a very useful framework. I don’t have an online tool or software that I already use that helps me with my work. Clients usually bring their business model and we work with that. This is new, some things that we have never thought of might come up since it includes everything.” – Renée Gharios, IM Capital

“I’m so glad that I actually attended this workshop because it widened my horizons of how to improve the processes in giving grants and definitely improving certain aspects in the way we do business.”        – Geoffrey Karaa, Kafalat

“I came to the training because I had already attended the introductory session and I had an idea about what we’re here to do. I think it’s a great tool to use across the ecosystem to make sure that we’re unifying the way we’re looking at growing startups. The actual tool itself is really something of worth and at the same time it has a lot of value. Personally I need to test it and try it with a number of startups but I already see the value of it. I would like to thank Berytech for taking the initiative to get the ecosystem partners together and try to work as one team on this these are things that are really lacking in the ecosystem.” – Mirna Shidrawi, Amideast Entrepreneur Institute

To learn more about this tool and other Berytech workshops, trainings and programs follow us on Facebook and Twitter or send us an email on info@berytech.org

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