Start-up/ SMEs training need of the hour to beat corona blues
Sri Lanka’s start-up landscape is buoyant despite growing pains being inevitable (though expected) but sometimes, they can still come as a surprise which is why it is important to be prepared.
To solve this gap in the start-up space, Think Solutions, a Singapore incorporated company, is now expanding into Sri Lanka to offer core skills and knowledge programmes to support new start-ups and innovative small and medium enterprises. “Businesses need a growth mindset and leaders who are highly resilient and at Think Solutions, we measure and help companies to build new mindsets,” Fred Then, Chief Thinker & Coach at Think Solutions LLP told the Business Times in a zoom interview recently.
What makes a company successful is the people’s mindset, he stressed noting that this is a tool to figure out what works best and how to introduce/upscale their businesses. The faster you overcome these hurdles, the smaller the chance a business fails, and to do that in a targeted fashion, we have introduced growth focus mentoring, Mr. Then, also an Author, Educator, and Imagineer, pointed out.
He added that it is like a bad joke when companies don’t understand the product/market fit. This results in start-ups or small and medium enterprises introducing a poor product to the market. “The product/market fit is a fundamental building block. There are some great start-up companies, but their product/market fit is not good as there is a bias by the engineers who designed the product believing that it is the best idea. What they need to understand is that customers will buy/use their product only if there is a need,” Mr. Then explained.
The Think Solutions concept was introduced to Sri Lanka in 2016 by Channa Fernando, entrepreneur and ex-banker. He said these mentoring programmes have been run successfully in West Asia and now in Vietnam.
“What essentially makes a company successful is its people’s mindset. Shifting their mindset will fix the pain points in the companies enabling them to create jobs and revenue,” Mr. Then said. Noting that many small and medium business enterprises are struggling because of the COVID-19 situation, Mr. Then said that about 40 percent of these businesses in Asia closed owing to the pandemic because they couldn’t turn around faster amidst properly sales, development, staffing, skills shortage, and funding issues. “These aren’t afterthoughts. Many companies copy the Silicon Valley model and while it is high material the success rate is only 3 percent which is considerably low,” he said.
“Anyone selling a product, or a service should attend these programmes,” Prajeeth Balasubramanian, Project Chairman Council for Start-ups under the National Agenda of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce noted.