Business

03/11/2018by user

A self-made Man: The Phoenix Rising from his ashes is not a Legend anymore.

Azzam Soualmia, Founder of Swiver, a plateform that provides TPE with business planning tasks in just a few clicks is the epitome of success.

At the age of 18, Azzam settled in Tunisia with a bac, no relevant work experience, humble language skills and a strong desire to work in sales. With no money in his pocket and no place to go to, Azzam began to work in a concrete (Béton) factory in exchange for food and shelter. A period of time later, the owner went bankrupt. Years later, Azzam Bought the concrete mixer of his old boss in order to create in a workshop of homemade charcoal. At that time, Azzam started to lose focus as to the inflow and outflow of money. As a result, he looked for an ERP solution [Enterprise Resource Planning], but none took into account Tunisian standards, and they were expensive and complicated to use for a small business. So, he made a tailor-made software according to his criteria with the help of a friend. Even if his friend withdrew, Azzam has never doubted the potential of his product and hired a new developer to refine the solution.

After only three months, 1,200 customers use the free trial version and 45 pay the 600 dinars annual cost that the paid version. Convinced of his project, Azzam participated then in the Bloomasters competition. Although he failed to win at that competition, the B@Labs, the incubation program of the largest Tunisian bank, BIAT, identified the solution and contacted the entrepreneur to integrate his program.

Then, Azzam Soualmia met Hichem Radoine, the twenty-years of experience expert in accounting in France. Hichem, agreed to become the general director of Swiver.

Hichem Redoine and Azzam Soualmia, CEO and Founder of Swiver

Now, 5,000 customers within two years with a fundraising of more than 500 million dinars from the CARTE Group is just outstanding.

“Swiver saves us a lot of time and I recommend all PMEs to settle for this application as it will help them manage important tasks such as manage payments, the customer portfolio or purchases to suppliers. It is such a pleasure that at Work Zone, we are providing a simple formula for our coworkers as to use swiver to manage their small businesses” Says Seifelddine Tarhouni, CEO of the Workzone Coworking space

Seif eddine Tarhouni, CEO and Co-Founder of the Workzone Coworking Space

Business

03/11/2018by user

Choosing the best Pricing Model

Which pricing model best suits a business model depends among other factors upon the level of product awareness amongst the target customers.

For consumer a simple pricing model and the opportunity to test the product or service before its purchase is very important.

Freemium model:

The freemium model provides a basic product or service for free but charges a premium for value-added features. This pricing model is attractive for risk averse consumers because it allows them to test a product or service without risk. If they if they find it valuable they have the option to purchase more advanced features.

Transaction model:

In this pricing model, the user is charged a fee per transaction. Unlike in a subscription model where consumers pay regardless of their use, the transaction model reduces the risk for consumers because they only pay for what they use.

The mobile operators revolutionized the pricing model for telephone service by switching from a contract-based monthly subscription model to a pre-paid pricing model on a ‘pay as you go’ basis. This model continues to be largely responsible for the rapid growth of mobile services among low-income consumers. A variation of the transaction model is the revenue-share model, where instead of a per-transaction fee, a percentage of overall revenues is charged. This applies only for B2B transactions though.

Market maker model:

This model is usually driven by an established, big company, with a presence in the target market it can take the financial risk of creating a new product and is looking to increase loyalty amongst its existing client base. This model reduces risk for companies by utilizing existing resources to launch a new product that will ultimately benefit their original product. This is not the space for small entrepreneurial companies. This model has the following features:

It introduces a new product to a market by using the company’s brand recognition so that it “makes” the market for a product that previously as not available in the market.
It leverages off an existing product/service.
It offers loyal customers free products but with the option of value-added services through a transaction (pricing) model.

How to choose the best pricing model?

If… then choose the following pricing model…and consider the following approach:

If you need to prove the benefits of the product/ service

And/or

If basic information feature can be offered for free and thus attract new customers, while higher value or transaction- related services can be charged.

… choose the freemium model and consider the following approach:

Evaluate how much time your customers need to appreciate the benefits of your product (such as a day, week or month) in order to determine the optimal timeframe for a free trial.
Resarch whether third parties might be willing to pay for or subsidize the service/product on behalf of the customer.
Evaluate whether you can offer new customers free support for installing new products or services in order to lower the entry barrier and costs of switching.

If consumers already undrestand the benefits of the service and just want to access it…

And/or

if you can provide your service on a pay-per-use basis…

And/or

if there are any innovative business models that allow your high-value product to be supplied on a per use basis to save customer investment cost-for example, by allowing it to be rented or by having another business offer its use..

…choose the Transaction Model and consider the following approach:

Consider the appropriatte “use” units (for axample, time-based, per user, per transaction etc) to build your pricing on.
If you offer a B2B product/service, avaluate whether it makes business sense to accept a small percentage of the revenue of your client as payment in order to build trust and demonstrate that you tie your clients’ success to yours.
Consider if you can retreive your product in case of nonpayment or faud.

if you are not a market maker yourself (that is you do not have an existing persence in the market with other products or services) but would like to introduce a new service or product on a large scale…

…then choose the following pricing model and consider the following approach:

Identify which complementary partners could ‘make’ your product or services as a part of their offerings. since this kind of partnership creates large dependencies be sure to closely evaluate potential parners and carefully consider:

Size of overlap of target markets
Degree of consumer trust in partner brand
Marketing capabilities of partner
Distribution model and reach of partner

Once a partner has been found, you will need to negotiate what revenue share your company is willing to invest in the partnership. collect sufficient information to ensure that you have a realistic view of your negociation power.

Written by: Ibtihel Hamraoui

Business

03/11/2018by user

An engine of economic development

The universities become an engine of economic development and venture creation in our country.

Work Zone Keynotes: Psychology of entrepreneurship

In these few years, our universities faced a great student involvement in the Tunisian entrepreneurship ecosystem. . We are witnessing a lot of community partnerships, and a boom in the academic leadership as well as an openness to new ideas.

Many students take courses and trainings every year in entrepreneurship and innovation to catch the entrepreneurial spirit and develop their skills and tools to launch their start-ups.

The number of business programs, university wide programs, campus incubators such as ESPRIT incubator, ESSECT ENSIT BUSINESS INCUBATOR… and support for student entrepreneurs has grown.

Moreover, entrepreneurship has become a major concern to both scholars and policymakers because of its significant role in the Tunisian economic and social transformation.

As a matter of fact, and as a coworking space, we choose to be part of this transformation and helping students to be a future effective entrepreneurs, by extending our partnership with university clubs and by sponsoring their business challenges, bootcamps and hackathons.

Partnership with INNOVEN Junior Entreprise

Working with communities like INNOVEN Junior Entereprise, startup weekend Manouba, Ektebli:INSAT Press, SecuriNets, National Information Technology Day… is a step forward to engage more students in entrepreneurial activities.

“The beginning is always NOW.” ― Roy T. Bennett

However, we should understand that entrepreneurship activities, trainings and courses alone cannot transform these students into real entrepreneurs. Thus, the need for understanding the entrepreneurial behaviour and psychology of these students is on the top of our concerns. That’s why, since our inauguration we have focused on the psychology of entrepreneurs, self-growth and self-esteem.

Written by: Ibtihel Hamraoui Web and Partnerships Officer

Edited by: Tricky Safa Communications Manager

Business

03/11/2018by user

Entrepreneurial Bootcamp 2.0 — We Are Change

It is a fact that, since the revolution, the Tunisian startup scene has expanded : Talented young university graduates are launching startup companies, creating an impressive wave of civic entrepreneurship throughout the country. In fact, Despite the challenges, Tunisan young people are dreaming and working on being successful entrepreneurs and Tunisian startups are now growing in number.

**“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.”**

One of the challenges facing the Tunisian youth is the issue of skills : there is a mismatch between the education the system provides and the skills needed for the job market. This means that university graduates’ acquired skills might not be conducive to the needs of the current day market, which requires a mindset of independence and entrepreneurship.

In this context, the Work Zone co-working space, aiming at providing opportunities for knowledge exchange and for networking among aspiring entrepreneurs, collaborated with the INNOVEN Junior Entreprise which organised the Entrepreneurial Bootcamp 2.0 within the Université libre de Tunis (ULT) in which students gathered and were exposed to lectures, conferences, inspiring talks, success stories from guest speakers, soft skills and business coaching, workshops and a competition to pitch their ideas.

In this second edition of the Entrepreneurial Camp, Mr Marouen Hadhri, Mr Khaled Khechine, Mr Mahdi Mkaouar, Mr Mahmoud Belghith and Mrs Marwa Ghazweni shared their exceptional experiences with the participants. Then, a training session on ‘’l’éveil de l’énergie créative’’ was carried out by Coach Insaf Amor. And finally a workshop on “Stress management and public speaking” was led by Mr. Mahdi Mkaouar followed by another workshop dealing with the “ Elevator Pitch” presented by Mr Marouen Hadhri.

The Camp ended on a positive note, as the winner “ Rania Ochi”, A student at the Ecole Supérieure Privée d’Ingénierie et de Technologies — ESPRIT, in the final challenge was given a month-Pass in the Work Zone co-working space. This initiative is part of the this co-working space engagement and commitment to encouraging young dreamers.