iStart Liberia Launches

Sinapis Network Partner Innohub Supports 90 Entrepreneurs in Liberia

In line with its commitment to supporting start-up growth in the Liberian ecosystem, Innohub has completed its first iStart Liberia program, an exciting 6-week virtual business boot camp for idea and early-stage entrepreneurs. The program served entrepreneurs seeking to validate their business models and engage with key players in the developing Liberian entrepreneurial ecosystem. It also met a joint goal that Innohub and Sinapis have shared since 2019 — finding new inroads for serving entrepreneurs in Liberia.

A total of 90 entrepreneurs from across Liberia between the ages of 18 and 40 enrolled in the business boot camp. Their dynamic sessions worked on turning good ideas into viable products by learning skills that included business modeling, accounting, customer relationship practices, and business pitching. At the wrap-up of the iStart program, entrepreneurs took part in a virtual pitch competition, which led to Innohub awarding 1000 EUR each to two winners — Finda Harriet Caillendee and Phoebe Z. Suomie. Caillendee is the CEO of HHH Foods, a business focused on making plantain-based healthy and nutritious cereals for babies. Suomie is the CEO of LifeInMe Empire, which produces quality and affordable hair growth oils. “This program has improved my knowledge and provided me with tools to maintain and manage ongoing relationships with my customers, for whom the business exists,” Suomie shared, saying it also “put in place an effective method of tracking sales and all expenses of the business, as well as (taught us) how to make use of social media platforms.”

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CEO and founder of Innohub, Nelson Amo, shared why this initiative is so important:

“iStart Liberia is an entry point through which Innohub has identified early-stage ventures and entrepreneurs that demonstrate the potential to scale, create jobs and positively contribute to the prosperity and development of Liberia. Such businesses have been selected to receive further support beyond the iStart phase to enable them to pursue their growth objectives.”

Innohub is a business accelerator and impact investment platform in Ghana that helps small and growing businesses (SGBs) with high growth and impact potential to become investment ready, sustainable, and scalable to achieve profitability and social impact. Together with the support of Sinapis, Innohub ran several entrepreneurship accelerator programs in Liberia in 2018-2019. Passionate about serving entrepreneurs in the hardest places, Innohub has been looking for the right opportunities in Liberia to continue to offer training for local entrepreneurs. Amo expressed Innohub’s profound gratitude to iStart Liberia’s program partners AfriLabs, CO.STARTERS, and Sinapis for their part in the initiative's successful launch.

To hear Innohub founder and CEO Nelson Amo speak to the critical importance of small and growing businesses to communities, watch  here:

Since its founding in 2010, Sinapis has equipped over 8,000 men and women with the knowledge and relationship tools to launch and grow Kingdom businesses in emerging and frontier market countries. In 2017, Innohub became Sinapis’ first network partner outside of Kenya. To learn more about Sinapis’ partnerships today in eight countries across the globe, visit Sinapis Partnerships.