Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary Evaluation of two different entrepreneurship training programmes and access to certain types of capital in Colombia. Preliminary results available. Main results forthcoming. A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are thought to be important drivers of growth in developing economies, but entrepreneurs in these countries face many barriers, including poor access to training, finance, and business networks. In Colombia, Fundación Bavaria’s “Destapa Futuro” (Open the Future) program identifies promising enterprises and provides them with a suite of financial, technical, business, and training resources. Researchers found that the trainings did not affect key business outcomes, such as sales and profits, but helped entrepreneurs to expand their business networks.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links http://www.poverty-action.org/project/0446 Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question Do tools such as business training, capital, and mentorship help SMEs overcome barriers to growth? Much of the existing research presents mixed evidence, and this experiment aims to understand how training programmes should be designed and delivered in order to best help entrepreneurs and foster economic growth. Sample Trial population and sample selection The programme used a competitive process to identify entrepreneurs with promising business plans and small startups. The average participant was 36 years old, had 16 years of education, and had four years of experience as an entrepreneur, and were 73% male. To participate, entrepreneurs completed an online application, which included questions on business characteristics, leadership potential, experience in business administration, and potential social impact. From the database of 8,400 applications, 475 candidates, half of them with business plans and the other half with existing startups, were selected and ranked. The pool of 475 entrepreneurs was divided into three groups: - the top 25 entrepreneurs all received the endeavor training (but were not part of the study sample because they were not randomly assigned) - the following 100 entrepreneurs were randomly assigned to receive training from either Endeavor or CFE - the remaining 350 entrepreneurs were randomly assigned to either the CFE training group or the comparison group, which did not receive any training. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Information not yet available. Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description Different trainings given to the treatment groups, Endeavor and CFE. Both included modules on financial management, marketing and business plan development. Endeavor was in-person and highly individualised. CFE used a combination of online learning and in-person classes. The entrepreneurs who completed online homework and participated in forums were eligible for the in-classroom training. After both trainings, the 100 entrepreneurs with the best business plans and course performance were given an additional coaching session before presentations; the best 60 presentations were awarded a prize to fund their business. Half of the winners were randomly assigned to receive cash (ranging from $5600-$56,000) and the other half an in-kind prize. In-kind prizes were based on the entrepreneur's requests and available resources. Finally, 40 winners were also randomly selected to receive mentorships with executives. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Online application with questions on business characteristics, leadership potential, experience in business administration, and potential social impact. Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>Impact on Business Outcomes: Sales, costs, profits, number of employees, starting a new business.</p> Results <p>Impact of training on business outcomes: Neither CFE nor Endeavor training had significant effects on business outcomes including sales, costs, profits, number of employees, or likelihood of starting a company. Endeavor was somewhat beneficial for network expansion for entrepreneurs with existing startups, while the CFE training was more beneficial for entrepreneurs with only business plans. Impact of In-kind versus cash prizes: The type of prize had no effect on business outcomes, thus, in this context cash may be a preferred option because of its logistic ease.</p> Intervention costs Not available. Cost benefit ratio Reference Schoar, A., 2015. 'The Impact of Business Training and Capital for High Potential Entrepreneurs in Colombia'. Innovations for Poverty Action - Project Registry. Citation for use in academic references
