Our alumni are spread all across the globe making impacts on their startup ecosystems. To acknowledge all of our wonderful alumni and the accomplishments in their career, we spotlight and host them here. Flip through our incredible alumni and learn more about how DEEPSEA has impacted their career journeys.
Daniel Bukenya Yiga on how DEEPSEA changed his way of thinking
Meet our alumnus, Daniel Bukenya Yiga, Managing Director at Goldstone Enterprise Consulting and Training Ltd., who shares his story on how DEEPSEA changed his way of thinking about running a business.
“While working at Standard Chartered Bank in Uganda, I encountered a number of small and growing businesses that needed funding. More often than not, they did not articulate their financing needs well, did not have robust business processes and structures in place but somehow managed to run their businesses purely on oomph and will. This became more pronounced when I moved to GroFin Uganda, where I experienced more of the same. So I started referring a number of those clients to business consultants to support them in key business areas such as accounting, business plan writing, strategy development, financial projections, etc. “
The consistency in poor quality work presented by those enterprises pointed to a systemic issue of low-quality business development services in the market targeting small and growing businesses. This compelled Daniel to start Goldstone Enterprise Consulting and Training. Daniel eventually got to appreciate the fact that most of the enterprise support outfits are young and are typically anchored by mid-career professionals with little exposure to practical entrepreneurship. He also noticed that there is a need for them to be networked and stop working in silos to the detriment of their clients.
“Joining the DEEP Startup Ecosystem Accelerator provided a eureka moment for me. I got to understand that Business Enterprise Service organizations can work in a network and achieve more as a team other than the previous posture of working in silos and perceiving each other as rivals. I got to understand the link between my work and the impact it has on business survival, gender equity, and poverty alleviation, socially in Uganda’s context.
I changed the way of doing business – we are now more intentional in our strategy to plug in a component of our service delivery that focuses on women entrepreneurs who have been disproportionately left out of the entrepreneurial realm due to cultural legacies and other factors. Furthermore, we are now more articulate about what we are doing and will do in the future.”
Don’t miss to join our first all virtual DEEP Ecosystem Conference that will bring together over 100 ecosystem leaders from across the globe to tackle current challengess and the tailor-made DEEP Startup Ecosystem Accelerator Program (DEEPSEA) to develop your innovative projects. Find out more here: https://www.startupheatmap.eu/deepsea-programs/