Harrison White
The 13th edition of Give a Day, hosted at the Cambodiana Hotel, brought together prominent figures from Cambodia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, exploring growth and expansion opportunities for Entrepreneurial Support Organizations(ESOs). Over 40 attendees were present, with Sara Usinger, Project Leader at Swisscontact, delivering a keynote on the organization’s new tool to help ESOs optimize their operations.
Usinger, a seasoned expert in the startup world, has been actively supporting and developing entrepreneurial ecosystems globally. Her extensive experience includes co-founding Iran’s first professional startup accelerator and building an impact accelerator in Switzerland.
Swisscontact’s ESOs New Assessment Tool
Introducing the Entrepreneurial Support Organizations tool, Usinger emphasized its potential to help ESOs understand their strengths and weaknesses while facilitating their growth. She explained, “To achieve success, ESOs need to focus on continuity and reliability, long-term commitment, continuous access to services and support, access to mentors and potential partners, community, cooperation between individual actors, alignment of services, and accessibility of the ecosystem.”
Read more: 12th Give a Day – Challenges and Opportunities of Investing in Cambodian Startups
As vital components of entrepreneurial ecosystems, ESOs provide crucial support for successful community development. They create environments in which entrepreneurs can thrive by offering space, connections, input, support, and feedback. Additionally, ESOs serve as access points for external actors like investors, corporates, donors, and aspiring founders, fostering trust and promoting entrepreneurship as a viable opportunity.
Swisscontact’s ESO Readiness Tool allows ESOs to assess themselves in eight critical areas, including team, problem and vision, services/programs, pipeline/selection, ecosystem, operations, financial model, and impact. The self-assessment process, facilitated by the Abaca ESO tool (created by Village Capital), enables ESOs to identify their strengths and weaknesses and recognize essential steps for leveling up.
Strengths & Weaknesses of Cambodia’s ESO Ecosystem
During the breakout session, participants acknowledged the importance of growing collaboration among stakeholders in the ecosystem. They highlighted that the relatively small size of Cambodia’s startup sector allows for greater flexibility and opportunity, while the absence of larger established companies in the market creates room for startups to thrive.
However, challenges were also discussed, with one of the main issues being the misalignment between the expectations of ESOs and the vision of startups. The group observed, “Ecosystems in Cambodia face several challenges, including a lack of revenue, founders’ reluctance to pay for programs or services, limited funding for long-term projects or new approaches, and under-recognition of ESOs as key drivers of startup ecosystems.”
Another challenge identified was the lack of proper financial records and business registration among startups, which complicates matters when it comes to borrowing capital from banks that typically require collateral.
Participants also focused on the structure of paid programs for startups, emphasizing the need for instilling focus and commitment. Usinger suggested that while private investors can provide a financial runway, ESOs should ensure that startups have specific key performance indicators (KPIs) before receiving grants. By doing so, ESOs can foster collaboration with the private sector, providing initial funding and enabling private investment once startups meet certain key metrics, thus reducing risks for private investors.
To make programs attractive to investors, ESOs must help startups become self-sustainable, particularly those focusing on socially or environmentally responsible metrics. Ensuring these startups have a viable medium or long-term financial business model is crucial. The group explained, “By offering programs that address these concerns and support startups in achieving sustainability, ESOs can make a significant impact on the overall startup ecosystem in Phnom Penh and Cambodia more broadly.”
How to Measure Success of the Ecosystem
According to Usinger, the success of ecosystems and ecosystem actors should be measured by the success of the startups they support. Indicators of success include an increase in people interested in entrepreneurship, startups scaling and increasing revenue and profit, startups raising funding, startup exits, and active investors. She stressed the importance of continuous improvement in these areas to achieve overall success for both ESOs and the startups they support.
Read more: Cambodia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem strengthening is underway with CAMESCO 2022
The Give a Day initiative aims to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem by fostering trust-based relationships among system actors, addressing common challenges, enhancing collaboration to improve support for entrepreneurs, sharing expertise, and creating a community that promotes friendship, mentorship, and cooperation. Monthly meetings provide a routine and space for ESOs to learn about each other’s work, differentiate their programs, and collaborate through demand-oriented discussions, presentations, and peer exchange workshops.
Give a Day is part of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building Project (EEB), jointly funded by Khmer Enterprise and implemented by Swisscontact. In addition to monthly meetings, the initiative includes a quarterly Ecosystem Builders Network (EBN) event that focuses on mapping the six pillars of Isenberg’s Model of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. The outputs from both instruments will be consolidated and presented for discussion during the CAMESCO event.
