02 Jun 2019

Alumni of Stanford go.to.market Ms Tuduetso Tebape has praised De Beers sponsored certificate programme for spurring the growth of her business.

Stanford go.to.market is an intensive six-day certificate programme which teaches participants that are starting a new venture or leading a project in larger organisation, practical business skills.

Participants learn to refine their business ideas and how to best pitch the ideas.

The programme was designed for entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists, engineers and students with business ideas who are currently developing their strategies and plans.

Ms Tebape’s company a green cosmetics manufacturing company, Nubian Seed, manufactures organic products all made using indigenous African botanical ingredients to make natural and organic butters, carrier oils, essential oils, clays and soaps.

Like a lot of entrepreneurs, frustration is what spurred the 37-year-old to start the business.

The business started, she said, in 2016 when she and her co-founder could not find any natural products and decided to buy and sell them.

She further said although the business grew in leaps and bounds gradually she found herself lacking in business acumen.

“Yes I was an entrepreneur and risk taker but I lacked financial management and needed more knowledge to help grow my business,” she said

Ms Tebape and other entrepreneurs were the first 20 cohorts hosted in Botswana under the Stanford programme for a week last year.

“The graduate Professors who came were the same ones who are part of the Stanford Seed Programme.

The sessions were intense but I am still applying the knowledge I learnt from the course, so it was a privilege to be part of the programme,” she said.

Ms Tebape also said taking part in the course has motivated her to consider expanding her business to become a sustainable model where she would work with the communities she sources raw material from.

She revealed that long-term  plans include  working closer and empowering the communities whilst developing her green beauty value chain.

“I would definitely recommend the course for someone doing a start-up like me. Knowledge is something that is very hard to pay for and through DeBeers it was for free,” she said.

The Go-to-Market programme runs parallel with the Stanford Seed programme and seeks to foster business leaders in emerging economies and Stanford students to share experiences of working together to create impact for their companies and regions.

According to De Beers social investment manager, Mr Wanetsha Mosinyi, following on from the signing of the three-year agreement between De Beers and Stanford University in June 2017, a rigorous application review process took place in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia for the SEED Transformation Programme.

It resulted in 20 companies; 16 from Botswana and two  each from Namibia and South Africa being selected to form the De Beers Stanford Southern African Cohort.

The Cohort participated in the 2018 SEED transformation programme, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya and Accra, Ghana.

Seed’s first Cohort included several industries such as retail, services, healthcare, ICT and manufacturing.

Every year Stanford Seed will recruit 20 businesses from the De Beers’ producer countries being Botswana, South Africa and Namibia to attend the transformation programme.

This year the company will take another 20 companies with 10 being from Botswana for the seed programme as well as host 50 Go-to-Market cohorts. ENDS