We Asked – How does your work environment help you in achieving your goals?
What are the key benefits of being in theSPACE for our incubated entities? We asked, they answered. Let’s see what they got to say.
A community of AIESECers with shared values
Ouakhila was the first to react. She is an instagram content creator building a digital follower to promote the rich African culture, specifically Beninese and to advocate for traveling. For more information please click here.
According to her, the people are the key advantage in her surrounding. She highlighted that the fact everyone within theSPACE ecosystem is an AIESEC Alumni helps everyone to connect faster based on our common values. It appears to her that we are more open-minded which contributes to the creation of fresh ideas.
What helps me in theSPACE is the people around me.
Ouakhila Torou, @Ouakhila
She also values the incubation model where she has the chance to interact with international business coaches and personal mentors who are helping her through all stages of entrepreneurial journey from every aspects.
Collaboration is the key
Kevin was second to speak up. He is the CEO of INOV Agence which is an event organiser agency. They are the organiser of the annual Miss Leadership competition where they train young ladies in various leadership skills, and engage them in diverse community projects. The aim is to assist the next generation of female leaders and make them stand equipped in the forefront of fighting social issues in their communities. More information please click here.
He started with acknowledging the infrastructure and how it helps our entrepreneurs with providing office space, fiber internet, meeting room and many other benefits. Similar to Ouakhila, Kevin values the network of people the most and the collaboration between the incubated entities.
The ability to be among people with an entrepreneur mindset is really helpful even if the discussion is not specifically about my business, it helps me grow.
Kevin B Monde, INOV Agence
On a regular basis, the CEOs often debate among each other regarding their own projects which ends up generation of new directions and ideas for everyone. This innovation sprout from being among people with entrepreneurship mindset is one of the key advantages Kevin appreciate in theSPACE environment.
He shared the example of how this collaboration resulted in the digitalisation of Miss Leaderships competition. He claims it was the result of the fellow CEOs and even their employees sitting in office and the interactions with coaches and mentors from the other side of the world.
Exchange of Thoughts
Augustino was the next to offer opinion. He is the CEO of Bookconekt.com, a first digital book store and library of Benin. They also run a social impact project to bring books to public schools without library to rent to youngsters on affordable prices and organise monthly book club for kids. For more info follow this link.
What helps me at theSPACE is mainly through the exchange of thoughts we have with different people from diverse backgrounds.
Augustino Agbemavo, Bookconekt.com
For him, the opportunity to continuously collect inputs from diverse group of people regarding his operation is what the most important. He expressed that theSPACE allows him to interact and exchange thoughts with people from all over the world to iterate the products and services of Bookconekt and to reinvent their business model.
Inspiration
Cedric followed who is the Cofounder of B2B Consult, a consulting agency for beninese enterprises on communication and management practices. They aim to unite the entrepreneur sector and improve the digital marketing of SMEs as the beninese economy is literally at the gates of rapid “e-commerce-alization”. More information is available here.
I get inspiration from the people at theSPACE and to work on my business the international experts also provide a lot of valuable inputs which makes it easier for me to build solid foundations for the growth of our business.
Cedric Akogbeto, B2B Consult
According to him, the key benefit of being in theSPACE environment is the inspiration he receives through fellow incubated entities and the international experts. He also highlighted the importance of gathering inputs from various people to have different perspectives on his business. Cedric appreciated the motivation generated by the interactions between like-minded entrepreneurs who share similar journey of building a business in Benin.
Focus on what matters
Moudilou is the CEO of 41DEVs, a software development company aiming to create digital solutions for businesses where their employees can flourish and their clients have the best possible user experiences. To read more click here.
He valued the most the time which is saved for him by not needing to deal with management of the office. Moudilou has the largest team and had been previously renting an office place before joining theSPACE. He claims that dealing with landlord, managing the monthly payments of utilities and following up with other vendors (etc.) took away valuable time which now he can invest in focusing merely on growing his business.
Secondly, lots of people are around and I have the opportunity to discuss topics with many people, so we are not just in our own heads, but exploring different perspectives. Even informal interactions are useful for us, it builds the morale of my team as well without myself having to invest in organizing further activities to boost the mood of my team. It also helps my team to grow their abilities to relate to other projects and pick up on different perspectives faster which further builds the capacity of my team. All this just because of the environment in the co-working space.
Moudilou Dramane, 41DEVs
In entrepreneurship time is everything. Being the first in an innovation race would make or break a business which is why focusing on what matters really is the key to the improvement of a business. Stripping off activities which could be dealt with by others is what eventually speeds up the process of building competitive advantage.
Open our minds
Auria closed the round of answers for this question. She is the co-founder of Limpieza Services, a sustainable cleaning agency which advocates for the creation of better environment to improve the state of living. They offer cleaning and re-decorating services for both households and businesses on a beninese market, where these services are currently nearly non-existing. They also produce eco-friendly cleaning products. Read more here.
Auria appreciated the people and the inspiration in the environment which theSPACE provides. According to her it is very helpful to be among people who are open to share suggestions and debate on ideas. What is even more useful for her, is the global perspective which is provided by the international experts as it contributes to open up the minds of the AIESECpreneurs in incubation for possibilities they never ever would have thought of themselves. Our experts also help keeping them moving forward according to Auria.
Concerning the training and the assistance with the international business coaches and personal mentors, it is very useful for us, because they open our minds to what we can’t even think of. They also help us to maintain us on the most suitable path to meet our goals.
Auria Assogba, Limpieza Services
We Asked
Is a series of interview with different stakeholders of theSPACE ecosystem. Our team aims to bring to the light some key insights about theSPACE operation and how we are generating value for our AIESECpreneurs (incubated entities), volunteer international AIESEC Alumni Experts and other involved parties.
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