Access denied
Apparently Neo didn’t make it through to the Enablis “pre-finalists” stage. I say “apparently” because… well, I’ll get to that.
The sizzle
So yeah, that sucks. But it’s fine, there’s a reason for it. After giving it a bit of thought I’ll take the positive and move on.
Here are a couple of the things I’ll take out of it:
- One of the main reasons I entered was to help me work through the business plan and business model. These will keep evolving but it certainly motivated me to get it done and think through some of the big picture stuff. Although I won’t be discussing it with the judges it still worked out okay. Mission accomplished on this main objective then.
- I intentionally limited my entry to a fairly high-level description, so I knew my chances were low to begin with. Lesson – don’t hold back.
- So far the very few people [whom I hold in high esteem] that I have discussed this with have all given positive feedback about the idea. This is the first ‘no’ [so to speak] – and that’s good in itself, meaning there must be specifics I need to look at [just wish they would be open to correspondence for those looking for feedback].
- Although funding would probably come in useful, it’s unlikely that the funding partners to this competition would offer the best solution. Not all funding is created equal, and this has reminded me to consider what would give the business it’s best chance at success.
- I had heard rumours from a few places that previous winners have had less than good experience with the process. I’m not sure how true it is, but now I don’t have to worry about it.
Sure there is some downside to not making it through but I’m not going to dwell on it.
As for the X-box… my boy will have to make do with PS2 for a while.
The fizzle
For completeness here are my closing comments on the experience.
The end process has been similar to the other frustrations I experienced.
I received this e-mail last Monday [2/11/09]:
“Dear Launchpad 2009 Entrants
The phase 2 adjudication took place last week and we are sorting the list of 100 finalists at the moment to prepare the relevant notifications.
We will send out an email to all entrants to announce the finalists during the course of this week so keep checking your email!
Finalists will be contacted by phone and will also receive a notification via email with detailed instructions containing information about the final adjudication event on 18 November.
Good luck to all of you and thanks for your entry!
Warm regards
The Launchpad Team”
When I hadn’t heard anything by Friday I assumed that I hadn’t made it through and sent a request for the finalists listing as promised in their e-mail [6/11/09].
The reply:
“We sent out the finalists notifications a little while ago – if you did not get one then you have not made the finals.”
I mailed back saying this must be the case, but I just wanted the finalists list as they promised to us in the e-mail.
The second reply [9/11/09]:
“If you have not received an email informing you that you are a pre-finalist yet, it means that you are not a finalist. Another email will be sent out to all the other entrants in due course.”
Still no listing of finalists received as they promised.
The crux
So I’m sorry – I was hoping to put up a listing of the finalists, or at least link to it. Seems that this information is only given on a need to know basis, and apparently you and I don’t need to know [!]
To the organisers I would say there is a huge opportunity here to get South Africans behind entrepreneurs and new businesses – to really market the potential and celebrate the successes and potential successes. Please make better use of it!!! Why is there so little information available about this and previous years?
Just look at this press release for the Kenyan Enablis competition – their approach: “The Top 100 shortlisted entrants will be published in the Daily Nation tomorrow where Kenyan communities will be able to see who will be moving into the next round of the business plan competition.“
[This is why I'm carrying on about the finalists listing - those names need to be out there. Why? Okay, go ahead - name two finalists from any of the past three or four years. Can you? I can't]
Think about all these crazy reality shows, many a total waste of time – but look at the buzz and excitement they generate. Surely something like this could also garner some huge support, and possibly provide a marketing slingshot for the young businesses to boot!
I was hoping to open up the story a bit by writing about it here, but that stops now. Hopefully in future there will be more publicity around it. It will encourage other young entrepreneurs, and that’s one thing our society [community] sorely needs. C’mon FNB Enablis! Take the challenge!
And to all those still in the competition, whoever you are, good luck!
Photo – “A blue lock for George” by Darwin Bell via flickr
Update: I received an e-mail this evening [9/11/09] saying I hadn’t made it to the finals and they don’t give feedback on applications. I suppose that’s fair enough considering how many they receive, but I can’t help wondering if there isn’t another way to do it. Anyway, the e-mail then asks me to keep my details up to date on their system so they can spam, I mean e-mail me all their updates.
Still no details of those finalists though. Hmmm.
You can see follow my progress with Project Neo here.
Other posts you might enjoy
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Email this post to a friend
