FAQs for Entrepreneurs

If you are not yet a member of Ghana Innovation Hub, you can register by clicking on the button “Start here” in the top right of you’re the homepage of your portal. You will be asked to choose a role, please select “Entrepreneur”. You will be taken to a form where you can fill in some details about you and your business. After having clicked “join”, you will find your entrepreneur profile and your business summary by clicking on your name at the top right of the screen. You can continue editing your profile and summary, to make it as complete as possible.

If you already have a member profile on the Ghana Innovation Hub (or any other b4dev portal), you can create your entrepreneur profile by clicking on the button “Choose a role” in the upper right section of the homepage of CRRP. After you have created your Entrepreneur profile, you can continue and create your business summary by clicking on the button “Create your business”.

There are no up-front fees required for submission. The registration and creation of a business summary on our platform are free of charge, including a business plan and financial plan. However, this may change in the future.

After completing a business summary, we advise you to upload documents like full business plan, financial plan and contracts to provide as much information about the business as possible. We provide templates for a full business plan and financial plan that can be really helpful in this process. Once a business summary is created, you can look for a mentor on the platform that can provide feedback for you to improve your business plan. To increase your chances of finding a match with investors or mentors, you are welcome to join multiple relevant portals. You might be contacted by our investor matchmaking team if there is interest for your business or an investor may contact you directly.

Depending on the stage of the business, a company can be added to a business summary. If a company has been formally registered for a business idea, we recommend you to add the company with it’s details and link it to your business summary.  The more detailed information you give about your business, the bigger your chances are of finding  a match with investors. Adding a company increases the trustworthiness and sustainability of a business plan.

Visitors that are not yet a member of your portal are only able to view the name, location and summary of your member profile. Of a business summary, visitors are able to view the name, industry, country, the stage of business and the date it was created.

Members of your portal are able to view all information in your member- and entrepreneur profile and in your business summary. However, they cannot access any document you have attached to your summary, such as full business plans, financial plans etc.

Mentors and investors to which you have granted full access to your business plan, will be able to view all information in your plan, including all supporting documents.

Administrators of your portal always have full access of all details in your profile and business summary, including all supporting documents.

We do not directly provide funds, or any sort of financing. Our goal is to help entrepreneurs with a start-up or an established business find finances for their initiative, by presenting their formalized business plan to accredited investors.

We can never give any guarantees that we will find entrepreneurs an investor. The process of finding an interested investor is long and costs time, effort and commitment until it delivers some results. Bringing together an entrepreneur and investor can almost be as challenging as arranging a marriage. It is a matter of matching demand and supply, under the right circumstances. However, it is definitely an opportunity worth trying!

B4dev does not provide feedback to entrepreneurs on their business plans. If you feel your business plan is of sufficient quality, please contact CRRP’s administrator using your messenger inbox on the portal.  If they consider that your plan is feasible and that investors in their network may be interested in financing it, they will get in touch with you regarding further steps.

You can find an overview of all mentors in your portal using the search tool: please click on the magnifying glass in the search bar in the top menu of your portal. This will take you to the search page. You can filter on ‘Mentor’ using the filter section on the right of your screen, under ‘Type’. This will give you an overview of all registered mentors. You can click on the name of the mentor, which will take you to the mentor profile. Here, you can check if the experience and expertise match the needs of you and your business. If it does, you can send the mentor a mentoring request by clicking on the purple button “Request mentoring”. You will receive a notification when the mentor has accepted or rejected your request. Pending mentoring requests are gathered in your Mentor Dashboard.

Both entrepreneurs and mentors can initiate to connect with each other. We advise entrepreneurs and mentors to only connect if the mentor has the expertise and interests a business needs.

When a mentor is interested in helping you improve your business summary, he or she can send you an offer for mentoring. You will receive a notification of such a request in your e-mail. If you accept the offer, the mentor will gain access to your full business plan, including all supporting documents.

You can find your mentor request by logging into Ghana Innovation Hub. Once you are logged in, click on ‘Dashboards’ in the top menu, then on ‘Mentor’. You will find the request under “Respond to a mentoring request”. You can click on the name of the coach who is offering to be your mentor, in order to view his/her profile and mentor profile. You can either accept or reject the request from you Mentor Dashboard.

Investors are anonymous on the platform, they are visible as regular members to others on the platform. Investors need to be the initiators of the contact with entrepreneurs. If an investor is interested in a business, full access to attached documents may be requested.

Members are responsible for checking the trustworthiness of others, before granting them with access to documents like a full business plan or financial plan. This can be done by checking CVs, references and social networks like LinkedIn. Please read the Terms of service found in the footer to be aware of rights and obligations when accessing and using the portal.

Investors registered in the bidx platform are not restricted to specific locations. They could be from any country. However, since most of the existing portals in the platform are country focused, it is probable that investors registered are from that country (local investment) or with a strong interest in a particular country.

When an investor is interested in your business summary, he or she can request full access to your business plan, including all supporting documents. You will receive a notification of such a request in your e-mail.

You can find your full access request by logging into Ghana Innovation Hub. Once you are logged in, click on ‘Dashboards’ in the top menu, then on ‘Entrepreneur’. You will find the request under the tab “Interested investors”. You can click on the name of the investor who is requesting full access to your business plan, in order to view his/her profile. You can either accept or reject the request from you Entrepreneur Dashboard.

In principle, there is no minimum or maximum amount of finance you can ask for: the system accepts any value under one billion US Dollars as ‘finance needed’. However, different bidx portals may establish different participation requirements when it comes to financing need. You will find this information on the specific portals, or you can contact the portal administrator in question.

If you would like to delete your account, please send a message to info@ghanainnovationhub.com.

If you forgot your password, please click on the link “Forgot your password? Click here to recover.” in the login screen of your portal. You will receive an email with a link on which you need to click to reset your password.