Bringing black Pan-African investors, jobs, and soft skills training, and profitability to Ghanaian small businesses is the grand mission of the African Business Community Development Hub.

The organization brings some solutions to challenges facing business incubation in developing countries, especially in Africa. The ABCD Hub, a non-profit organization, offers a series of programmes that provide executive management and development support. The programmes position Ghanaian businesses to be viable in order to attract investors.

Speaking in an interview on the sidelines before the commencement of the ABCD Investment Readiness Program virtual interest meeting, the Executive Director of ABCD Hub, Nataki Kambon explained that although people are endowed with ideas and energy to operate a business, the lack of managerial training, IT skills among others are some of the barriers that prevent such businesses from becoming viable.

She said, "There are so many tools that entrepreneurs don’t know. Even when the tools are known, not knowing how to deploy them correctly costs each Ghanaian business owner 10,000s of cedis in lost earnings that could go to youth job creation, innovation, and scaling.

The ABCD Hub training gives one-on-one support to get Ghanaian business owners prepared to attract investors. It is not just about money, from our training and experience, at the end of the programmes, entrepreneurs realize that it was not just the money they needed. They also needed soft skills, which includes the use of ICT, to look for certain information.

How to start the business, manage the business, how to continue to generate revenue and how to expand so that it becomes an important resource to the community, region and the country''.

The ABCD Hub is an ecosystem where conscientious black stakeholders and vetted viable Black-owned businesses meet to profit together through expanding markets, creating jobs, and sustainably building and improving the everyday lives of the youth, people, communities and economies.

The Executive Director said participants will receive management and development support from foreign and domestic experts, solid strategic planning and investment readiness to support them to reach the next level to scale, create jobs for the youth, and get to the enterprise level.

According to Nataki, most businesses fail as a result of their inability to access the expertise of launch experts which has enormous benefits compared to struggling alone and guessing about short and medium-term plans. Guessing as a management strategy makes it difficult to set and achieve goals in the business.

''Why do you plan for five, ten, twenty years? In my professional opinion, plans should be made for fifty years so that businesses don't get stuck when changes they didn't anticipate come their way. I am not saying, short and medium plans are not relevant, but businesses should equally make long term plans in order not to get stuck in case of eventualities that the business may face,'' she added.

Businesses can register now to participate in the first pitch event slated for 5th June 2021 in Accra as it qualifies the first class of 2021 for the Hub’s Business Development Institute’s Investment Readiness Program.

She noted that the event is expected to attract about 50 attendees in person (observing COVID-19 protocols) and over 200 participants online, connecting important stakeholders involved in Ghana’s small business ecosystem.

Nataki also mentioned that Hub graduates can qualify for funding from eager conscientious black investors from the USA, Canada, and the black diaspora globally who want to feel connected to Africa. They want to give back through helping to build Ghana through investment. The team of judges at the pitch event includes professionals from across the globe who will select businesses for the program.

As part of activities lined up prior to the pitching, the event includes a briefing session to be held on Saturday 22nd May 2021 (in-person and virtual) to provide more information on the Investment Readiness Program. After which applications will be opened for the pitching event to be held on Saturday 5th June 2021.

As a small business consulting organization, ABCD Hub has helped a range of clients from commercial contractors, tech firms, retailers, medical facilities, professionals, among others to launch, operate, and scale up their businesses.