Youth Business Development and Entrepreneurship Training Program

Youth enterprise programmes are producing business plans in abundance. The businesses themselves are another matter. Most youth entrepreneurship training teaches young people to describe a business idea in a structured format, but does not teach them the operational, financial and market realities of running one. This course trains the youth workers and enterprise practitioners who support young entrepreneurs, giving them the knowledge, coaching skills and programme design capability to support young people from idea to operating business.

The practitioner challenges this course addresses:

• You run a business plan competition, the winners celebrate, and six months later nothing has launched
• You deliver entrepreneurship training using examples that do not reflect your participants' actual market conditions
• You are helping a young person assess a business idea but lack a structured way to evaluate viability honestly without discouraging them
• Young women in your programme face barriers beyond skills, including family opposition and restricted mobility, and you are unsure how to address these
• The young entrepreneurs you supported are struggling alone months after launch with no ongoing support

This course gives practitioners the business knowledge, coaching skills and programme design capability to support young people all the way to a viable, operating business.

What You Will Leave With

A complete youth business development practitioner toolkit.

Why this module matters: Supporting entrepreneurs without understanding their market context produces irrelevant support.

• Understanding the specific market environments young entrepreneurs face
• Assessing business viability: problem-solution fit, market size, margins, founder capability
• Giving honest viability feedback without destroying motivation

Why this module matters: Support that gives advice rather than building capability produces dependency, not capable entrepreneurs.

• Coaching versus mentoring versus advice, and why the distinction matters
• Teaching financial fundamentals: revenue, costs, cash flow, pricing for profit
• Separating business and personal finances, the most important habit to build

Why this module matters: Young entrepreneurs need marketing approaches that reflect their actual market channels and dynamics.

• Customer discovery: teaching entrepreneurs to talk to customers before building products
• Sales skills: pitching, handling objections, closing, following up
• Digital business models: e-commerce, service delivery, digital products

Why this module matters: Young women entrepreneurs face specific barriers, and viable businesses cannot launch without funding access.

• Supporting young women entrepreneurs: specific programme design and coaching approaches
• The finance landscape for young entrepreneurs: microfinance, savings groups, grants, investors
• Preparing entrepreneurs for finance applications

Why this module matters: The support young entrepreneurs need after launch differs from what they need before it, and most programmes stop at launch.

• Post-launch support models: peer networks, alumni mentoring, crisis support
• Programme design: needs assessment, theory of change, curriculum, evaluation
• Personal programme improvement plan

Business Plans Do Not Build Businesses. Practitioners Who Know What They Are Doing Do.

Build the knowledge, coaching skills and programme design capability to support young people from idea to viable business.