The African Woman Event hosted by Startup Grind Port Harcourt held on the 21st of April 2018 at Nostalgea Cuisine & Bakery in Port Harcourt.

There were so many positives from the event which was hosted in honour of women entrepreneurs in Port Harcourt. Surprisingly, we also had participation from outside Port Harcourt, amazing stuff! It was a time of in depth learning, real life experiences, inspiration and fun.

So many high points from the event, it’s difficult to highlight a few.

The Saturday morning was so bright with the sun rising early and illuminating the city for the beautiful event. The location of the venue was almost perfect, carved out of the hustle and bustle of Port Harcourt city, yet very easily accessible. The atmosphere was lit up already as guests trickled into the cosy ambience of the training room at Nostalgea Cuisine. Attendees quickly connected with each other and were sharing deep insights, ideas and contacts… blending unconsciously with the Startup Grind ideology as the Chapter Director, Nnamdi would later point out.

After the opening prayers, Nnamdi welcomed everyone and took a moment to give a brief introduction of Startup Grind as a global community and the reason for the special event themed - The business, challenges, potentials and victory strategies of the African Woman.

Straight into the business of the day, Nnamdi took out time to share his knowledge in business through a session on “Business Modelling”. Responses from the audience were used to explain the Business model as a small scalable prototype of the operational structure of a business. He stated that, one major factor towards the sustainability of any business is its business model and the ability of an entrepreneur to develop a solid business model at an early stage will make such business survive through uncertainties in the market. In his words, “You must build a sustainable organization to help solve real-world problems and provide value to constituents (customers) over time”. He used case studies of several known businesses to explain the different components of the business model canvas (BMC).

It was then time to engage the guest speaker/chief host, Mrs. Ajoke Enebeli, the CEO of Nostalgea cuisine whose profile is loaded with accolades from her various involvements in education, charity, business and religion.