dutch Impact Journeys connects Dutch professionals with entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Together they improve companies that can make a difference.

In February 2014, we organized the first dutch Impact Jour-ney to Nepal. A business challenge focussed on making Ne-pali entrepreneurs investor-ready.

IMPACT NEPAL 2014

dutchIMPACT. JOURNEYS

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NEPAL 2014Although Nepal has long been a Western donor darling, it still is one of the world’s least developed nations. Luckily, more and more pe-ople understand now that countries do not develop sustainable eco-nomies with funds or grants of NGO’s and foundations. We at dutch  believe that good entrepreneurship and social business can deliver growth and development.  Especially in a traditional trading nation like Nepal, interestingly situated between China and India, there are growth opportunities abound.

To develop an interesting business challenge in Nepal, we teamed up with impact investment fund One to Watch. One to Watch invests in promising Nepalese small and medium sized enterprises. Howe-ver, for One to Watch it is a challenge to make these companies in-vestment-ready. And that’s exactly where we came in.

The 12 participants of the first dutch Impact Journey got together with 16 business owners to discuss the challenges they face, rewrite business plans, consult on how to get an investment and learn about entrepreneurship. In addition, we provided One to Watch with useful feedback and interesting insights into the companies we visited. As a result, One to Watch started serious talks with a number of busines-ses they are willing to invest in. The companies we visited are active in the energy sector, waste management, agriculture, health care and the hospitality industry.

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The 12 Dutch participants

ONE TO WATCH

Entrepreneurs are the engine for economic development. Economic deve-lopment is the most effective way to lift millions out of poverty. Nepal is loc-ked between world's fastest growing economies India and China. One to Watch believes the time is right to invest in promising entrepreneurs in Ne-pal.

One to Watch is asset manager for western investors that are interested in investing in Nepal. Their mission is to link these investors to entrepre-neurs, aimed at accelerating growth that results both in financial and social impact.

One to Watch supports investors to overcome the biggest hurdles in inves-ting in Nepal by sourcing deals, negotiating deals, and monitoring the in-vestments. We do so with a team of experts in the Netherlands and in Ne-pal.

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Willem Grimminck & Niraj Khanal, One to Watch

We worked together with 16 entrepreneurs in Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal's major cities. Read more about their companies, the challenge they are facing and how we could help them to make an impact.

CASES

HEALTH AT HOMEBishal Dhakal founded Health at Home, an innovative home care company in Nepal. Bishal has the ambition to expand his service throughout the country and abroad.

Challenge

Health at Home employs 60 nurses working for an average of 25 cli-ents per month. To give more Nepalese access to the services of He-alth at Home, more nurses should be empowered to grow their own network of patients. But reaching patients is not an easy task: hospi-tals often do not want to refer discharged patients to Health at Home because of credibility issues. Another challenge is to find skilled em-ployees who can take over marketing activities and get the organiza-tion professionally up-and-running. The company is now too depen-dent on Bishal himself.

Impact

The conclusion that Health at Home should be a frugal organization to support the concept of a network organization was quickly made. Bishal was very interested in our idea to appoint an older, more expe-rienced doctor in his board to give the company more credibility. Other than that, Bishal had very clear ideas on what is needed to ma-ke Health at Home a mature organization. We spent two days iden-tifying the components for which he needs an investment. We sepa-rated the ‘nice to haves’ from the ‘must haves’. One to Watch is now going to invest €50,000 in different phases, which must be spend on marketing activities and operational support.

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Employees at the Health at Home office

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Bhuwan KC, Ecoprise

MUSTANG COFFEEP.K. Lama is the founder and owner of Mus-tang Coffee. As a pioneer in the Nepali coffee business, he aspires to increase production from 400 tons to 6000 tons in 10 years time.

Challenge

In order to increase production, Nepal needs more coffee farmers. The transition towards coffee production has a lead-time of 4 years. Because of this ‘income gap’, not many far-mers are interested. P.K. is searching for fi-nancing to train farmers and bridge their ‘in-come gaps’.

Impact

During the process of interviewing and visi-ting all different elements of P.K’s busines-ses, we learned that his ambitions were sky high and extensive. In order to realize these plans, focus needed to be applied. Together with P.K., we prioritized the different projects and determined the point of focus. Using this, P.K. was able to submit a concrete invest-ment proposal to One to Watch within days.

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Thomas Zeegers, Dutch participant

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ORGANIC MOUNTAIN FLAVORSUSTAINABLE AND SELF-SUFFICIENT WAREHOUSE

HAMRO KARESHA BARIHamro Karesha Bari is the company of vegetable farmer Ramsharan Shar-ma, located in Lele. Together with his colleague farmers, Ramsharan initia-tes professionalization and scaling throughout the vegetable value chain.

Challenge

Using a cooperation of farmers, a new business sells vegetables directly to retailers and consumers and cuts out the middleman. By doing this, far-mers’ revenues increase and consumer prices decrease. In concept, the idea seems feasible. However, there is no business plan yet.  The investment re-quirement had to be determined.

Impact

After reviewing and assessing Ramaharans’ business idea, we used the Business Model Canvas to demonstrate the most important elements of a business plan. In our advice sessions, we focused on determining financial parameters (cost structure and revenue streams), the investment require-ment and its use of proceeds. By doing this, we made sure that Ramsha-ran’s business plan would match the needs and wishes of potential impact investors.

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Ramsharan Sharma, his family and the dutch experts Renee and Thomas

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Maarten van der Schaaf, dutch participant

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POWER TO TOWERSaurav Dhakal (35) is the initiator of Power to Tower, a project that aims to develop 62 micro-hydro electricity plants in combination with tele-com towers in rural areas within the next ten years.

Challenge

A communication expert by profession and a networker by heart, Sau-rav knows how to get in touch with the right people. However, as long as the project lacks a solid business plan, his prospective partners will not come on board and put their weight behind it. A convincing busi-ness plan and an action plan are his main priorities.

Impact

On day one, we discussed with Saurav and his prospective technologi-cal partner Bir Bahadur Ghale, the potential of micro hydro in rural are-as. The next day we focussed on the business plan of Power to Tower, Suarav’s own role and the role of the specific partners in the project. To-gether, we came up with the idea to set up a revolving investment fund in which communities, investors, telecom operators and the construc-tion company participate. Also, we made a To Do-list to structure all the tasks that need to be done to launch the pilot project.

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Maarten van der Schaaf, dutch participant

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WORLDGANIC FARMBIODYNAMIC FARMING AND WALDORF EDUCATION

THE BAZAARThe Bazaar is an organic food retailer and a cooperative of farmers around the city of Pokhara. With their sustainable food network, Tulsi Giri (1985) and his partner want to contribute to a sustainable economy and engage youth in the Nepali agricultural sector.

Challenge

Tulsi had tried different concepts in organic food before he founded The Bazaar. Learning by doing has been his strategy since 2008. Alt-hough the concept of The Bazaar seems complete, the business model is financially not sustainable yet. There is a need for efficient logistics and a profitable warehouse, as well as better planning by the farmers.

Impact

Tulsi gave us insights in the company and showed us around different shops and one organic farm. During day two, we took a deep dive into the numbers. We found that the current governance structure was part of the negative business case and advised Tulsi to separate the educatio-nal part and the model farm to a separate entity. Sales should be the first focus! We introduced ‘selling before buying’: make accurate stocktaking at restaurants and the B2C shops before purchasing the goods from the farmers, and adjust the logistical planning to this demand. This also ma-kes the necessity for storage (and investment into a warehouse) not real-ly necessary on the short term.

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Tulsi Giri, founder The Bazaar

Analyzing the governance structure of The Bazaar at the rooftop of the office.

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BAJEKO SEKUWABajeko Sekuwa means ‘Grandfather’s Barbecue’. This restaurant chain owes its name from the grandfather of owner Chetan Bhandari, who started as a street vendor. Now, the restaurant has 5 outlets and wants to grow to 50 out-lets.

Challenge

Bajeko Sewuka is famous in Kathmandu for its typical Nepalese food. As many Nepali live and work in South-East Asia and the Middle East, owner Chetan Bhandari and operational director Sushil Khadka want to open out-lets in these countries through a franchise concept. They also want to set up a goat farm to gain control over their own supply chain. However, they

haven’t done extensive research and lack the knowledge of how to imple-ment these plans into a good business plan.

Impact

During the two days with Chetan and Sushil, we had breakfast, lunch and dinner at all five restaurants. While enjoying the Nepali Sekuwa, we helped them in defining the plans for the franchise concept: what kind of agree-ment do they want to make, who is having which responsibilities and which level of control do they want to have? We also came up with some ideas for a marketing plan and a better use of social media, which is necessary for their growth plans.

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Renee van Haaren, Dutch participant

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GAUTAM ASSOCIATESParash Raj Gautam (1984) recently set up a diversified farm in Pokhara, which includes a chicken breeding facility. He has many expansion plans for the farm.

Challenge

As Parash does not have an agricultural background, he needs technical advice on how to run a professional chicken farm. In addition he’s looking for an investor to scale up his chicken production.

Impact

Parash showed us around on his farm and asked us if we could advice him on how he could improve the chicken breeding facility. We discussed sever-al options to improve insulation in order to keep the chickens warm, save natural gas and energy costs. We further inspired him to experiment with organic practices. We also discussed the variety of other plans he has for the expansion of the farm and advised him to calculate how the land can most effectively be used.

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GHAM POWERLARGE SCALE SOLAR PROJECTS

The journey for the dutch experts in Nepal ended with a trek-king through the Nepali Himalaya. We spent five days in the Annapurna area. A real physical challenge!

TREKKING

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Luc Brugman, Dutch participant

POON HILL, 3210M.

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Anil Chitrakar, on Nepal’s future

WE HAD A BLAST! THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION.

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www.dutchimpactjourneys.com