smepeaks and TheNEST launch BBG 2019 Conference for SMEs and budding entrepreneurs looking to build billion-dollar African-themed companies

It’s the 21st century. African businesses are sprouting faster than ever. The continent is becoming more attractive and the whole world is not only placing a keen interest but betting big on its young entrepreneurial populace. Foreign investment companies are also itching for a bite of the continent’s opportunities.

Amazing as these sound, there are still looming problems.

Young businesses in Africa have a high mortality rate. Indigenous entrepreneurs lack realtime information, resources and exposure to make informed business decisions. Data intelligence is shallow. And critical business steps are often taken based on assumptions.

The Solution?

Businesses in today’s world require realtime information and smart technological tools to crush barriers, make remarkable impact, establish firm business structures and systems that can easily be replicated globally, break new business grounds and smile big to the bank at the end of the day.

All of these we hope to achieve through a newly launched initiative BreakingBusinessGrounds (BBG), a quarterly event with its 2019 edition themed, “Show Me How”.

BBG 2019 is making its debut with the aim to equip business owners and entrepreneurs with credible information, valid data, resources, tools and opportunities to scale their companies.

This innovation is brought to you by two giant partners —smepeaks and TheNest— both having a common interest to create plain grounds that facilitates the acceleration of African-themed businesses.

Launched in 2018, smepeak a leading online tech-media company leveraging storytelling to inform, and support the growth of emerging businesses across Africa while building a repository of verifiable and credible market and consumer data for access.

TheNEST is a community that fosters innovation for technology startups, helping them to thrive by encouraging experimentation, research, and adoption of new and emerging technologies for cutting-edge product development and entrepreneurship.

Together, these forces will pull their resources and network to ensure that African entrepreneurs are practically equipped with the “How” to establish globally reputable local brands from little or nothing.

At BBG 2019, critical matters ranging from legal considerations, business documentation,  taxation, team building, technical considerations, business financing, investment, market penetration and dominance, fundraising, marketing and sales etc., would be extensively explored.

BBG will see hundreds of business owners, startup founders, tech enthusiasts, stakeholders, budding entrepreneurs, small businesses and corporates come together to dialogue and proffer solutions to looming and impending challenges plaguing thousands of African businesses and stunting the global scale of a million others.

Event Peaks

SHOW ME HOW 

BBG 2019 maiden edition will offer a practical breakout session where participants proceed on personal interaction with the experts. The aim of this session is to gain hands-on knowledge, business building blocks and insights into the following areas:

• Legal considerations:

Concerns and mind-boggling questions ranging from — Should I incorporate my business from the start? Should  I sign an agreement from the get-go with my founding team? Must I place a lawyer on retainer? What legal structures should I put in place before going to raise investment? What legal potholes could puncture my business? How do I deal with intellectual property matters, trademarks and copyright laws locally and globally? What are the idea protection laws in my industry? — and more will be explored.

• Fundraising:

Fundraising/business financing tends to be the common denominator in every business kind. That’s why this aspect can’t be exempted at the BreakingBusinessGrounds (BBG 2019) Conference. You’d learn the right approach to fundraising, how to position for grant applications, investment considerations, equity structuring and whether or not to explore loans. You can’t afford to miss this, in a nutshell.

• Team and business structuring:

The saying that “people build the business” dates back to the very origin of business, and still holds true to date. But getting the right people that’d buy into your vision, be happy to work it out and stick with you to the end is almost a mirage for many entrepreneurs. We recognise this as a challenge, so you’re not alone. The good news is, there are ways around this dilemma. Otherwise, international brands like Coca-cola or Netflix wouldn’t exist today. Join hundreds of other smart entrepreneurs to learn the “How“.

• Accounting, documentation and taxation:

Does the word “Book Keeping” give you goosebumps or a phobia? It doesn’t matter how bookkeeping, financial documentation and accounting makes you feel, you definitely NEED it. And we can not stress that enough. Under BBG 2019, “Show Me How” will demystify the perceived complications about Business Accounting. You’d realise, it’s not as hard as you think, but it’s not as simple either. You’d also be learning how to be in the good books of the Taxman –more often than not, they’re friendlier than the police. There’s just a part you need to play.

• Marketing and Sales:

While other aspects of businesses are amazing, it gets frustrating if sales aren’t coming in or money isn’t piling up. Having engaged thousands of SMEs in the past 17 months, one predominant problem we’ve discovered is, many businesses owners are oblivious to the right marketing and sales funnel peculiar to their business kinds.

For instance, if you’re offering a real estate maintenance service, you probably need to seek offline partnerships and affiliations with fast-selling real estate companies and agents. There’s only so much you can do with Twitter Ads. This is the exact reverse if your business provides after-birth solutions to pregnant moms or targets young men who love to get custom haircut home-delivery services. Instagram might just do the magic.

We’ve said enough for now.  Be at BBG to learn what works for which business.

• Best execution practices:

Have you seen an “amazing” idea pack up in just a few months or years after launch? Well, we’ve seen a lot. And there’s going to be a lot more.

Scary as that sounds, it’s actually the reality. Many startups and SMEs fail because they lack the right execution practices. You probably have heard this popular reiteration that “ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is the key“. Little wonder veteran investors are very keen on ideas execution and the executing team. You have the idea, come learn how to ensure it becomes a reality without growing stale in your hands at the BBG 2019.

• Scaling globally:

We’d reveal something to you here about scaling businesses. One crucial roadblock to the scaling of many African companies is the absence of a tested, structured and systemised playbook through which the business is easily replicated, multiplied and re-engineered across the world.

A business playbook is more like a manual or guide that’s been proven/tested, critically analysed for errors and an almost-perfect system that the brand can easily run with anywhere else. It’s the same scenario that applies to the franchise business model… — to be continued at BBG 2019.

What more can we say?

The “Show Me How” session is an intensive on that spans an hour. It gives you the leverage to get out your troubling questions, clear your uncertainties and gain exposure to the rudimental elements your business really needs to work.

PANEL SESSION – SHOW ME THE MONEY

Back to money talks. “Show Me the Money” is another interactive session to be championed by a group of panellists. Speakers include renowned investors, financial institution representatives, and financial advisory service providers.

Here, participants get to understand the right and wrong raise fundraising practises, hot to raise funds for their business at any stage and most importantly put the money to use, for revenue, growth and development’s sake. A round of Q&A follows suit immediately.

SEASONED SPEAKERS 

smepeaks and TheNest are determined to make BreakingBusinessGrounds 2019 as intensive and impactful as it could be. As such, we’re enlisting only verified and credible speakers and experts having multi-sectoral experience, and with proven track-records.

They range from backgrounds in business structuring, strategy consulting, compliance, financing, investment, technology, accounting, marketing, structuring, and sales.

WHO CAN ATTEND AND HOW?

SMEs: at the core, the programme is designed for small and medium scale enterprises looking to launch groundbreaking businesses right from Africa.

Business owners: if you own a business run by you or others, do not miss BBG for anything.

Startup founders: got a startup or about launching one? There’s so much you can glean from just a few hours.

Tech Enthusiasts: are you as zealous as us about emerging businesses leveraging technology to scale? Let’s meet up at BBG

Stakeholders:  here’s a platform to truly connect and interact with businesses first hand. Hearing from the horses’ mouth makes you posit and give inferences more accurately. Be at BBG, we can’t stress the need to connect enough.

Budding entrepreneurs: you’re not an entrepreneur yet, but you got plans to be one; also, you’ve heard really scary stories about entrepreneurship and you’re quite confused. You should be at BBG.

Corporates: got services that SMEs and startups could leverage to accelerate growth? YOu should be present. But beyond your attendance, let’s talk.

You: It’s simple. You’re invited.

WHEN AND WHERE WILL IT TAKE PLACE?

BreakingBusinessGrounds 2019 hold on Friday,  November 22, 2019, between the hours of 2 pm to 6 pm at TheNest Innovation Park, 1, Hughes Avenue,  Alagomeji, Yaba, Lagos.

SPECIAL SHOWCASE SESSION 

In between sessions and activities at the BBG, we’re giving opportunities to SMEs having interesting products to showcase to the audience present. This can lead to one of many outcomes; generate interested customers and make sales, forge potential partnerships and alliances, or attract a keen investor.

You can showcase just anything you do, so long you believe in it. But first, you’d have to convince us.

WANT TO PARTNER OR SPONSOR? 
We believe the journey of a thousand miles begins with opening up and collaborating. If you have the same energy, passion and are just as interested in uplifting millions of African businesses, dial in as a partner or sponsor.

SPECIAL FEATURE – KARAOKE!!! 

Yes! All work and no relaxation makes the mind “stiff“. We’ve got a planned post-event Karaoke session for you right at the Rooftop of  TheNest, right after BBG 2019 ends at 6:30 pm.

We can’t wait to see you!

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