YouWIN! Shed More Light on YouWIN 3 Selection and YouWIN! 4

YouWIN held Onboarding event for Mentors in the third edition of the YouWiN! Mentoring Program (YouWiN! 3) held in Lagos on 12^th Oct., 2014 at Best Western Hotel. The event was organized to bring all YouWIN3 mentors together and to share tips and how the mentorship programme can be very successful. Many questions were asked bothering on the YouWIN! Programme, selection criteria, factors that make you winner etc and other info/tips shared too.

YouWIN! Mentoring programme is a voluntary programme to provide an avenue where all awardees are given mentorship on how to succeed doing business in Nigeria as an awardee. All mentors are not paid so that we will only have those that truly have genuine interest in mentoring and helping awardees overcome their challenges.

On that day, a lot were discussed and I want to share some of the important information and tips shared on that day. YouWIN! Officials were there to answer all the questions asked.

I will start with:

• Selection process/criteria

Question was asked on how YouWIN select winners and we were made to understand that YouWIN decided to introduce panel of judges/ presentation because they discovered that most of the awardees were only interested in getting the whole N10m even when the business need less. So with the interview, they will ask you to defend how you want to spend the money and what you want to spend it on, in most cases they discovered that most applicants need less than 5m and not 10m. But some applicant will still maintain that they want N10m

Another reason for bring the interview was to determine if the applicant was the one that wrote the business plan or have good knowledge of the business. They only wanted the best idea to scale through. We have seen cases where some people write for fictitious names just to get the money and abscond.

YouWIN also emphasized on making your business very unique and bring innovation. They said since the programme is all about innovation, you applicant should try and bring one innovation into the idea

• Transparency
  Question was asked on the transparency of the selection process and YouWIN made us to understand that they can’t say there is no favouritism or is 100% on merit, but to some extent is very transparent and on merit. They have quality check to ensure the best idea made but can’t say the interviewers recommendations were not without favouritism.
• More Member of the Same Family
  A question was asked that can members of the same family apply and receive YouWIN grant, and the answer was yes, more member of the same family can be awardee as long as they are Nigerians by birth and meet other requirements. The programme is to create jobs and if they can create jobs YouWIN don’t have problem with that.
• Some Applicants Employing the Services of Consultant
  This particular question of some applicants employing the services of consultants to write a business plan for them and the answer made me somehow surprised. I was surprised in the sense that during YouWIN3 application process, YouWIn sent message that some applicants are paying people to write for them that they will not tolerate that. We were told that since the programme is aimed at creating sustainable jobs and anyone with genuine interest and ability to manage the business successful are at liberty to employ the services of consultant to write. I realized that everyone can’t be a good writer. You may have good knowledge of your business but creating a winning business plan can be a big challenge. If you are not an accountant, coming up with well analysed cashflow, competitive etc can also be a big challenge.
• On YouWIN! 4
  This is the part that got my interest more. Question were asked on the sustainability of the programme and if there will be YouWIN4 and we were told that for now they can’t say vividly if there will be YouWIN 4 but they told us from all indications available to them, there should be YouWIN4 but let’s keep our fingers across.For me am very sure that there will be YouWIN! 4. Don’t forget in May 2014 I share info that YouWIN has increased the number of awardees to 1500 and made YouWIN! a yearly programme. The information I heard then also was that it was going to be zonal screening. So 1500 final awardees released and zonal interview conducted made me to believe that YouWIN4 will hold and the information then was from credible source.November when there would be presidential award/dinner for YouWIN3 will determine if the programme will be yearly because president will announce. We were told in September to register for product exhibition for past awardees.

If you feel you want to start preparing now, I will make available my YouWIN! Success Guide 1 and 2 for both first round and 2^nd round YouWIN3 were all the questions treated, tips, technique etc shared on how to write a winning business plan. You can lay your hand on this success guides and start preparing ahead. Feel free to contact me on 07031542324 or BBM: 275E28F6. My new product “HOW TO GET LOANS WITHOUT COLLATERAL IN NIGERIA” is also added to make it 3 products.

I will keep you posted on YouWIN and other programme available from time to time.

 

Have you applied for your fellowship programme? What challenge are you having? Let’s talk…

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