2020 TPrize Challenge
MicroMentor—Expert mentoring for COVID-19-affected MSMEs
You guys are real life hero of this situation hats of you guys https://www.nox.plu s/
In response to What is your solution?
I find number 3 ( Partner with lending organizations (MFIs, CDFIs, etc.) to deliver cash flow assistance alongside mentoring) very important indeed. I wish you could have said more about it... so that we understand the mentoring does solve real problems such as shortage of cash-flow.
Thank you for your comments Martha! As researchers increasingly recognize the relationship between access to social capital and access to financial capital, MicroMentor is helping to build more bridges. To provide more context, we’ve partnered with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in order to narrow the gap faced by women and young people aiming to access financial capital in Morocco. This agreement was prompted by the bank, which witnessed higher business performance and loan repayment rates when business owners received mentoring and coaching services.
Additionally, MicroMentor partners with the Association for Enterprise Opportunity’s MyWayToCredit platform in the USA. In this partnership, credit-challenged small business owners come to this platform to seek mentoring and/or alternative funding via Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs).
Due to our prior experience, we can cultivate similar relationships with financial institutions to provide access to financial resources to regional entrepreneurs.
In response to Describe what makes your solution innovative.
You have told us how you get 40% of the income. How about the other 60%?
Our main financing strategy will continue to focus on finding and partnering with donors who share MicroMentor’s vision of providing mentoring as a viable tool to address and solve challenges entrepreneurs face in all stages of their business journey. Our portfolio of partners includes solid granters such as Mastercard, Bacardi, and Argidius. We continuously look for catalytic investments that help us scale.
In response to What is your business model?
It is not very clear to me how the business model work. I read it several times and still it is not clear...
MicroMentor earns revenue (covering 40% of the annual budget) through its sales of SAAS product (software as a service), namely custom mentoring packages. Corporations, government entities, financial service providers, and other economic development focused nonprofits buy MicroMentor’s technology and service packages to provide their stakeholders with a customized online mentoring experience. An abbreviated overview of what a MicroMentor package with a service contract of 1+ years is detailed below:
· MicroMentor Technology
o Annual licensing fee to access and maintain the MicroMentor platform
o Custom landing pages
o Co-branded or fully white labeled experience
o Custom community permissions
o Custom feature development, including API integrations
· MicroMentor Services
o Program set up, including our human-centered Discovery and Design process
o Stakeholder specific trainings including, the Mentoring Masterclass for corporate volunteer mentors, onboarding and topic specific webinars for entrepreneurs, Training of Trainers workshop for program staff
o Marketing services including, communication templates and digital marketing services
o Program management and user support services
o Monitoring and evaluation services
The earned revenue from our SAAS product is reinvested into MicroMentor’s operations and technology development. This diverse revenue stream plays a key role in contributing a steady and scalable source of financial sustainability for the MicroMentor program as a whole.
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