A Narrative Report by Mettå
The Creative DNA Incubator program 2020 for Kenyan Fashion Designers & Fashionpreneurs, comprised a six-week Bootcamp with support of 11 entrepreneurs’ ambitions to grow their businesses by tackling growth-stage challenges such as attracting the right customers, scaling to new markets, finding partners and securing investment.
Prior to the kickoff, selected potential applicants were from British Council Creative enterprise alumni and Mettā’s Fashion Product Lab alumni. This resulted in 22 applications, who were shortlisted to 11 finalists with metrics agreed upon with all the business support partners.
The Kick-Off was on 24th February 2020, in presence of the British Council team, all business support partners who were Fashion Scout UK and Mettā Nairobi, and all 11 participants.
The program has so far had 11 sessions with 5 more sessions planned for weeks to come, bringing the total planned session to 16. Which included sit-in workshops, Virtual sessions, and mentorship sittings. The topics covered ranged from Personal branding and Business development to Retail Merchandising and Supply & distribution. Separate from the workshops, the participants have 3 coaching sessions in the period of 6 weeks, with each participant paired with the best suit coach.
The cohort will have the opportunity to access and interact with a global network of fashion experts, mentors, corporate clients, and partners as well as explore the high-growth markets of London through a one-week study tour.
As part of the program, two networking events planned to enable the participants, network, engage and learn from other peers in the creative space, as the other event was geared towards pop up a showcase for participants to highlight their brands and potentially have sales from the event.
The cohort will have the opportunity to access and interact with a global network of fashion experts, mentors, corporate clients, and partners as well as explore the high-growth markets of London through a one-week study tour. Throughout the program, the fashion businesses will be assessed on their progress and potential and at the end of the six weeks, five entrepreneurs will each be awarded KES 655,000 (£5,000) in seed grant funding,
The incubator will culminate with participants showcasing their work to an audience of diverse industry key players and partners, at the same time, announce the five businesses to receive the seed grant funding.
All the fashion businesses will have additional business support from the Mettā team and fashion scout for the next 4 months after the culmination of the incubator.
