Group photo with the invited speakers and the participants
Shafique Hussain, CEO of Start-Up Hub with Nilam Sari, Owner and Marketing Director of Baba Rafi Enterprise (Indonesia)
In conjunction with TAIB 25th Anniversary, Perbadanan Tabung Amanah Islam Brunei (TAIB) has been conducting workshops for their 54 participants for the past two weeks. In collaboration with Darussalam Enterprise and Start Up Hub, the workshops aims to train and educate the participants on building business proposals and pitching to potential investors. It also ensures the participants have the ability to build and sustain their potential business ideas.
Yesterday, 16th January 2017, the participants are treated to an inspirational day at the D&T Auditorium. Moderated by Shafique Hussain, CEO of Start-Up Hub, the participants are able to learn from successful entrepreneurs: Nilam Sari (Indonesia)- Owner and Marketing Director of Baba Rafi Enterprise, Josan Astrid (Philippines)- Creative Director of Astrea Software Development and Shawn Hoon (Brunei)- Editor and Publisher of Inspire Magazine.
The TAIB 25th Anniversary Entrepreneurship program ends on the 18th January 2017.
Speaking to Effendi bin Hj Said; “What we aim with conducting this inspirational day is to give the participants more confidence in their business journey. Not only will they have the chance to listen to the journey from successful entrepreneurs, we hope that this will give them more ideas that can be added to their business plans in order to make their business development more sustainable with the current market.”
Nilam Sari speaking to the participants yesterday
Some of the participants during the talk
Shawn Hoon, Editor and Publisher of Inspire Magazine
Josan Astrid, Creative Director of Astrea Software Development (the Philippines)
Effendi bin Hj Said, Head of Business Banking of Perbadanan TAIB asking a question or two
Some Q&A from participants
NAME: Raizah bin Muhd Zaini
BUSINESS: RIZ KITCHEN
What made you join the T25 Program?
As local business, there is always so much to learn especially in this thriving generation and current economic situation. This business is my passion. I lover serving good food to other people, so I want to make my business a strong and sustainable one.
What did you learn from the program?
The program really gave me new insights on business management. Having plans and projections and the constant monitoring of my business. It definitely adds to my knowledge in making my business model grow and become sustainable.
How did the Inspiration Day help you in what you’ve learned over the past two weeks?
I can definitely relate to the experience of the speakers, especially Nilam Sari of Baba Rafi Enterprise since it’s also from the food and beverage industry, She showed me that in business, there are times of failure but what is important is to keep motivating yourself to succeed. There is so much to take away from the talk and I’ll definitely doing more research and homework even after the workshops.
NAME: Cheong Yee Kuan
YKS Crafts Paradise (Jewellery Making)
Why did you choose this business?
I love wearing jewelleries and I love customizing them. I see a gap in customising and repairs and since I have the skills, I decided to take it up.
How did the T25 Entrepreneurship workshop help you?
The whole workshop totally open up my eyes. The most important thing is I thought I knew what it takes to run my company. When I joined the workshop there are still a lot of things I thought I knew, but I never knew. The coachers share everything they knew and everything is so transparent and I learned so much from them.
How do you feel after attending the two-week workshop and then today’s inspiration day?
I am totally inspired. I love how they shared their journey- not just their successes but also their failures. It definitely gave me the confidence to move forward and make this business and my passion a success.
NAME: Saedah binti Hasnal
BUSINESS: bruvera.com
Why did you decide to join the T25 Entrepreneurship Program?
When talking about business, it never really was in my plan. I never thought, growing up, that I am going to open a business. But after graduating, and attending workshops and bootcamps, I started getting really interested in starting up my own business.
How did the T25 Entrepreneurship workshop help you?
It definitely helped me a lot. It really is targeted towards people who are just starting out. So it’s step-by-step and very beneficial for us start ups. The way of coaching as well goes in detail as to what we need to know to begin and then go into more detail about making it sustainable.
How do you feel after attending the two-week workshop?
I felt it was very beneficial. I did not want to miss this and I am glad I didn’t. Everyday I go to the classes and meet people who are on the same boat as me, with the same goal and I learned so much from the coaches as well as interactions with people from the class. T25 Entrepreneurship program provided me with this platform to expand my business and network and the coaches from Startup Hub really helped build my confidence.
NAME: Shafique Hussain CEO OF START-UP HUB
How did this collaboration came about?
Well, TAIB in conjunction with their 25th Anniversary had initiated this program and came to DARe who later recommended that we came in as coaches to the participants.
How was the selection process?
First of all, our goal collectively is to diversify the economy. So we’re glad that we have a wide variety of businesses applying for the grant from agriculture, retail to web development and many more.
What was your approach in coaching the participants?
Our goal is to ensure that the participants came out of the course with the essentials needed to start up a business. You can’t learn everything in two weeks, but our approach is to give them the basics and continue to monitor their progress even after the program ends.
What did you notice from the participants after two weeks of workshop?
We’ve definitely seen their mind shift. If you go back to the first part of it, we started with personal development and self-reflection cause it is the first step and after that comes the business knowledge. From what we’ve seen, we see a lot of them progress in terms of approach and their awareness of various aspects of their business.
What do you hope the participants take back from the Inspiration Day speakers?
I think what they need to know is in business it takes a lot of patience and perseverance. And to have focus; we as humans sometimes lack focus. We lose focus easily- for instance we lack interested in ideas and especially losing focus due to failure. We notice a lot of startups, once they fail they just give up. We hope that this inspiration day will help shift their mind set to persevere in their respective businesses.