As we are approaching the end of the Idea Marathon Incubation program, SmartLab & Ennovate Hub conducted a final mentorship session for the incubated startups on the 29th of June, 2019. The first mentorship session was conducted early May 13th, 2019 working on the business design in addition to their MVP on a 1-on-1 basis. This time the focus was to mentor them in areas that will facilitate the growth of their businesses and in the end, get traction as they graduate. The mentorship session involved acquiring mentors from different industry experts to speak to them about the selected topics which are Marketing & Finance. Participants got skills on how to market their products with all key aspects of marketing that include sales & generating revenue, developing a marketing strategy, SEO but also how to raise funds & manage their finances, financial Investment, Business Management and how to keep records. 

The session is geared towards  Demo Day where the successful startups to reach that stage will get a chance to showcase their business concepts, prototypes and their ASKS to scale their startups to the next level where 3 top winners will be selected to go to the next stage. It will bring together some key players in the innovation ecosystem in Tanzania, that will provide feedback, ideas, and opportunities that will inspire growth for the startups. The Demo Day is scheduled to take place on 20th July 2019 at SmartLab premises.

Participants joined the idea marathon program with ideas and were trained to create MVPs, validate their solutions by talking to users and developing viable business models. After the Idea marathon program, the potential startups still need help to scale their businesses and Smart Lab will do an acceleration for the top 3 startups by providing its resources and experience - product development, marketing, mentorship, etc. This is an intended partnership between Smart Lab and the startups with equity and revenue sharing.