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Learning from the Experience of Business Plan Competition |
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In its 24-month life span, the Business Start-up Center Zenica has carried out two Business Plan Competitions. The Business Plan Competition in 2007 targeted students; they created thirteen businesses from scratch with low initial investment. The Business Start-up Center in Zenica reported substantial growth and distributed micro-credit financing. The corresponding return on investment was easily measurable. For the Competition in 2008 we opened our doors for start-up companies that had been registered over the previous 12 months, understanding that such businesses already have a customer base and recognisable market product and are thereby able to create faster growth. In order to level the playing field for complete starter businesses, we introduced additional pre-requisites, namely, innovative approaches to business and additional employment.
In total, 29 existing and not-yet-existing businesses were offered the use of our funds. While preparing for lending, we considered loosening restrictions on additional guarantees. Simultaneously we started to investigate the actual usage of funds lent through asset procurement plans, checking credit histories. It was discovered that 13 submissions sought to strengthen networking capital, rather than to introduce new product lines. Some loans were even used for repayment of existing credits, capitalizing on the 6-month grace period.
We immediately stopped granting credit to such businesses, i.e. ‘throwing good money at bad investments and debt repayments’. But, more importantly, we concluded that covering two unique markets- new start-ups and existing businesses-- forces us to develop unique approaches. Even misuse of our support can, to some extent, be considered an entrepreneurial way of thinking, and thereby our mission is not to reject, but to modify entrepreneurs’ capability into win-win situations.
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Learning From the Experience of International Summer University Macedonia |
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After the completion of International Summer University Macedonia 2008, SPARK hoped to ensure funding and cooperation with local partners for the summer of 2009. Unfortunately, a number of deadlines were not met. Sufficient capacity to run the project independently was not shown by local partners. This obliged the Dutch Embassy in Skopje to terminate the funding. Although SPARK works to develop close cooperation with local partners and maintains the long-term objective of transferring projects into sustainable structures, this collaboration was unable to produce such results.
The last edition of ISUM took place in 2008 and the project has ended.
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 SPARK believes in sharing experiences and in discussing how to learn from unintended mistakes. Development organisations, in particular, can gain much from such a dialogue due to their continuous engagement with complex, unclear or unexpected situations.
Despite good intentions things may often not go as planned, sometimes resulting in an outright failure. Inevitably such a failure may be aggravating for an organisation, but it should not have to result in embarrassment or denial. Lessons need to be learned. Only by engaging in a constructive dialogue about mistakes made, is it possible to prevent similar mistakes in the future. Not all mistakes are negative for an organisation. Even if the expected outcome has not been achieved, the attempt made by an organisation may result in other unexpected positive outcomes. A mistake can therefore turn out to be a brilliant mistake.
Inspired by the above-mentioned idea, SPARK has decided to share its Brilliant Mistakes, hoping that they would inspire people and organisations to see failure and success as two sides of the same coin.
Brilliant Mistake 1: International Summer University Macedonia
Brilliant Mistake 2: Business Plan Competition at BSC Zenica
Look for more information about Brilliant Failures on the website: www.briljantemislukkingen.nl/awardOS.
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 SPARK sponsored a debate on development aid in the Balkans at the Balkan Snapshots Film Festival. The debate presented a critical view and a fresh outlook on development aid in the Balkans, questioned and evaluated the role of large international actors and development actors in this region.
In addition, lectures about visa issues for young people and an update on academia in the Balkans was shown from 30 October till 1 November 2009.
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