The University of Eldoret TAGDev 2.0 Business Development Services (BDS) team successfully conducted a two-day Entrepreneurship Masterclass aimed at equipping young people with practical entrepreneurial skills. The training was held at Sirikwa Hotel and brought together aspiring entrepreneurs eager to start, grow, and strengthen their businesses. In attendance were young business owners who needed a boost in knowledge for their businesses and also those that had business ideas that needed to be polished.
In drawing partnerships , the CEO of (SIYB) Start and Improve Your Business Programme Kenya, Mary Mwangi graced the two day event bringing in her expertise in training and business coaching services to individuals, businesses and organizations in Kenya and East African Region using the SIYB methodology and approaches of the International Labour Organization (ILO) .
Day one of the training opened with an Introduction to Entrepreneurship session, where participants shared their expectations from the masterclass. Key areas of interest included marketing, value addition, and strategies for building thriving businesses.
The session outlined the core objectives of the training, which were to enable participants to appreciate the importance of entrepreneurship, understand common causes of business failure, and identify critical success factors in business.
Entrepreneurship was defined as the ability to recognize opportunities, manage resources, and create ventures that drive change. Participants explored the broader role of entrepreneurs in society, including employment and wealth creation, fostering innovation and competition, reducing imports, improving infrastructure, and raising overall standards of living.
The session also highlighted sobering business survival statistics, noting that out of every 100 businesses started, only about 13 remain operational after five years. This led to an in-depth discussion on the major causes of business failure, such as poor business management, weak marketing strategies, lack of sustainability planning, poor financial management, and failure to separate personal and business finances. Other challenges discussed included intense competition, lack of business specialization, subsistence entrepreneurship, limited digitization, inappropriate financing, and market failures.
To address these challenges, participants were introduced to key interventions such as business diversification, backward and forward integration, capacity building through training and mentorship, improved management skills, and stronger linkages to financial services and markets.
The second session focused on cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset. Participants were encouraged to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset—one that views challenges as opportunities for learning and treats feedback as constructive rather than discouraging.
The session emphasized that successful entrepreneurs think ahead, identify opportunities before they become obvious, and demonstrate leadership and vision. Participants learned the importance of spotting market gaps, leveraging trends and data, staying curious, and continuously learning. Key entrepreneurial traits discussed included passion, creativity, goal orientation, resilience, adaptability, self-motivation, and the ability to manage risk and stress.
The final topic of the day introduced participants to the Business Model Canvas (BMC), a strategic one-page tool used to visualize how a business creates, delivers, and captures value. The session broke down the nine building blocks of the BMC: customer segments, value proposition, channels, customer relationships, revenue streams, key resources, key activities, key partners, and cost structure.
Participants were divided into three groups and tasked with developing and presenting business model canvases for selected enterprises. The groups worked on a dairy farming business, a fast-food enterprise, and an egg production business, applying the concepts learned to real-world business scenarios.
Throughout the two-day masterclass, participants were also trained on business idea generation, business start-up processes, business improvement strategies, record keeping, profit tracking, and financial management. The training combined theory with practical exercises, ensuring that participants left with actionable knowledge to apply in their own ventures.
The Entrepreneurship Masterclass reaffirmed the University of Eldoret TAGDev 2.0 program’s commitment to nurturing innovative, resilient, and business-ready youth capable of contributing to sustainable economic growth.