YANHAD: THE REVITALIZATION OF THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM IN IRAQ

Mustafa Dawood

On December 9, 2019 , Iraq’s former prime minister, Haider Al Abadi, announced the defeat of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the liberation of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq. The four-year domination of ISIS has resulted in massive destruction in the infrastructure, and acute economical damage, driving thousands out of their jobs. Expertise France, funded by the European Union and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, designed a two-year program aligned with Iraq’s Reconstruction and Development Framework to support the Iraqi authorities in tackling some of the underlying social and economic drivers, starting with youth unemployment. The program consists of three main components:

1. Supporting the students of Mosul and Nineveh Universities.

2. Empowering Iraqi Civil Society Organizations.

3. Encouraging Youth entrepreneurship through a network of accessible business incubators/accelerators programs for enterprises.

To implement the third component of YANHAD, Expertise France partnered with The Station Foundation for Entrepreneurship, opening its second branch in Mosul.

YANHAD is designed to facilitate start-up transition from ideation to growth stage through designing a pre-accelerator program to work with early-stage start-ups, providing tailored support services to facilitate business creation, The primary function of incubator and accelerator in the Yanhad program is to provide tailored and integrated business development support to entrepreneurs and young businesses in a ‘one-stopshop’ modality.

Iman Al Jaff Entrepreneurship and Communicatio Expert at Expertise France

In April 2020, The Station and Expertise France signed the contract to initiate the implementation of Component Three. The Station, as the biggest youth hub in Iraq, with a widespread community of youth, has focused more on helping youth with ideas to establish their businesses. The Station has designed six projects with two phases: A three months Pre-Incubation starting with an Ideation phase, where 60 – 80 young graduates/students get selected based on the feasibility of their ideas, to go through a three days’ bootcamp to refine and rearticulate their business ideas in preparation for the market study, where they will conduct a quantitative and qualitative assessment on the target market of their business concept, and modify their business models accordingly. This will be followed by a workshop on B2B/B2C marketing, CRM, social media marketing, finance of start-ups, and presentation skills.

The second phase was the Incubator, which was more specific to the 10 start-ups selected out of the Pre- Incubation. Each of these start-ups had a dedicated mentor providing them with one-to-one consultation over six months to help them develop their Go to Market strategy and generate revenue.

In addition to that, in June 2020, the American University in Sulaymaniyah (AUIS) started the Takween Accelerator, with a board of international experts. The accelerator targeted mature start-ups that were generating revenue, taking them through two phases, the 6 weeks pre-accelerator was designed as a filter, to address the issue of lack of start-ups with steady revenue, through working with 10 to 20 start-ups with signs of revenue to assess their potential and help them stabilize their revenue stream. The accelerator is 12 weeks long, targeting 5 to 10 from the pre-accelerator start-ups. Through international and local mentors, Takween Accelerator aims to develop their capacity in business management, active problem solving, operations, marketing, and finance through one-on-one mentoring and several coaching sessions. Takween Accelerator aims to generate growth-ready start-ups, and then support the best three with grants ranging from 15 to 30 thousand dollars.

The integration between The Station and Takween was pretty good, at The Station we designed the idea, established the basis of the business, and launched the first operation until we needed more advanced training and financing, and this is what Takween provided.

Mustafa Basil Co-Founder of Wasla

Implementation of the YANHAD program happened to start at the same time as COVID-19 broke out in Iraq, this has limited The Station from conducting physical events, resulting in delays in implementation, and postponing the opening of the Mosul Branch till September of the same year. Nevertheless, during the curfew, The Station conducted two online live sessions with local and international business experts, reaching more than 64 thousand views in one month. This served as the perfect teaser for the pre-incubation, which started in Baghdad in July 2020. The same social media campaign before opening the Mosul branch played a crucial role in establishing the community. Through the six pre-incubation cohorts in both Baghdad and Mosul, 475 youth enrolled in the program, and 167 completed the pre-incubation cohorts. These cohorts helped in creating 32 start-ups that remain in business to this day.

Following the pre-incubation, The Station has launched the mentorship, with 9 local experts delivering business, marketing, and financial consultation not only to the graduates of the pre-incubation but to 81 start-ups from both Baghdad and Mosul The mentorship has had a remarkable impact on the start-ups It enabled 35 startups to achieve a significant increase in revenue, especially through helping them conduct better market analysis, and securing long-term contracts.

YANHAD was a remarkable impact on the growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Iraq, in terms of reach and accessibility, YANHAD has offered an opportunity for growth to hundreds of Iraqi youth in different areas of the country, and in terms of start-up diversity, YANHAD has helped in enriching the ecosystem with new multi-sector start-ups, and in terms of integration, YANHAD was the first program with an incubator and an accelerator, sponsoring the journey of an entrepreneur from awareness to growth.

The Mentorship program benefited a wide range of different sectors of start-ups in the country by having professional mentors supervise the development of these start-ups on a one-to-one basis. This direct focused approach helped in customizing the mentorship process. Customization helped start-ups acquire only the needed skills and superpowers they needed without the generalization that takes place in other wider ranged programs. The outcomes were clear and measured.

Ali Al Hilli Marketing and Communication Director at Miswag

Ahmed Qassim was only 17 years old when he joined the Yanhad Pre-Incubation at The Station in 2020, Ahmed had a brief experience working with travel agencies, which has equipped him with knowledge and skills in the sector. Later on, he worked as a freelancer, providing ticketing services to different agencies in Baghdad. COVID-19 has impacted Ahmed’s work, putting him out of business for almost three months. Before joining Yanhad, Ahmed did not know entrepreneurship and did not know how to establish a startup. Through a Facebook sponsored advert, Ahmed applied for the Pre-Incubation at The Station, he was accepted, and was one of the most committed and fastest learning participants. In his proof of concept, Ahmed achieved a 1 million dinars’ sales, which qualified his start-up (Safr Agency) to win the third position on the final pitching day. Now, Safr Agency has 23 employees and is seeking seed funding.

Before YANHAD's pre-incubation, I didn’t know anything about entrepreneurship, and I didn’t know how to establish my business, YANHAD didn’t only introduce me to entrepreneurship and helped me build the basis for my business, it helped me to become part of a community that enabled me and my business.

Ahmed Qassim Founder of Safr Agency

For The Station, YANHAD has presented a different opportunity to learn and improve the design of its programs and the services that we provide to start-ups and SMEs. First, The Station has been able to significantly develop the design of its pre-incubation program to be more aligned with the needs of Iraqi youth, based on the experience and lessons learned collected from YANHAD, the new design for theIncubator, The Station’s new incubation program, has more research in the ideation phase, more focus on prototyping and product/service development, and more sector-specific mentorship. Working with a large number of start-ups and SMEs has helped The Station to define the main characteristic difference between the two, helping The Station develop tailor-made programs for each. Moreover, YANHAD helped The Station to define its outreach strategy, and how to build new communities with specific attention to their unique culture and entirely different needs.

YANHAD was the largest program implemented in Iraq so far on entrepreneurship, and it helped to vitalize and expand the entrepreneurial community in Iraq across new cities, helping new start-ups to emerge, and thousands of people started working on their business ideas. The lessons learned from YANHAD will shape the new phase of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Iraq.