Visit to Diourbel and Thiés

Today, we paid a visit to the women GIE based in Diourbel and Deendey couture to discuss products that WOW will probably neeed, particularly bracelets and bags. for that occasion, we invited Seni from Entreprise Bracelets because she was working in partnership with that GIE.
We left the office at 7o'clock am to attain Diourbel around 10o'clock.Once there we discussed the products we were asking for, they had exhited some samples of bracelets with many different designes and colours. At end of our discussion, they agreed to make us bracelets with a suitable design and according to the Wow main colours... we also asked to make some bracelets mixing these colours.
We left there at midday and called on Dendey couture. We got to thiès around 1o'clock p.m, finding Mouminou, the Dendey couture owner a bit ill. After salamecs, we explained her the reason for our visit. She made us certain she would be able to make bags according to our needs and wants.But unfortunately, she hadn't any sample of bay because it was not her main product. She promised to call us soon to give the right prices and costs related to the bags producing.
After taking lunch, we left there to attain at 6o'clock p.m. Seni ensured us she would to the office on friday bringing necklaces.
Amara

Feasibility Considerations

After a long and productive talk with Linda yesterday the team was busy at work today on two important tasks: a plan for the anticipated WOW Business Center and staffing considerations for the next 6 months. We were asked to steer our efforts to these areas after having encountered some difficulty performing a feasibility study for one WOW’s portfolio companies, Benn Loxo in the city of Joal.

Because we spent a fair amount of time preparing this feasibility study – and we believe these kind of studies should increasingly provide the foundation for WOW’s due diligence process – I thought I would touch on this a bit in this blog post. Benn Loxo is a women’s cooperative that processes a diversity of seafood products native to the Joal region. These include a variety of fish and shellfish that are dried, salted and smoked through artisanal methods. The waters around Joal are among the most fish-abundant in West Africa and this draws considerable attention from local and international traders. Women have traditionally processed and traded these products, but because they are rarely organized into cooperatives they tend to be exploited by outside buyers who at times force them to sell their products for as little as 100 CFA/kilo ($0.25/kilo). Benn Loxo – which means “one arm” in Wolof – was begun to strengthen the ability of Joal’s women to collectively bargain with buyers and generate better returns on their labor. At 157 members strong, the cooperative has the potential to do just that.

Recently the cooperative’s founder Fatoumata Ndiaye Lo provided WOW with an urgent funding request for 3 million CFA (approximately $7,500) to provide working capital to take advantage of the brief and lucrative octopus fishing season. While their concept was reasonable, WOW couldn’t act on it as quickly as Benn Loxo required because they were unable to provide any proof that this endeavor would be financially successful. Beyond this short-term project the cooperative has more ambitious plans to set up a central fish processing facility where the women could work as an organized unit (as opposed to their current loosely-organized structure), but have been unable to show that their objectives are attainable or feasible. This is in fact an obstacle to many of WOW’s portfolio companies, one that we are working hard to remedy. For this reason we took the initiative to prepare a feasibility study for Benn Loxo, but after speaking with Fatoumata it became clear that the cooperative was still in their preparatory stages and could not provide all of the necessary information to perform such a study.

Benn Loxo is not alone in its urgent requests for funding. One of WOW’s best organized and most promising portfolio companies – Marché.com – is seeking working capital to expand its operations and has good plan to carry this out. However, as our colleague Malick puts it, “these considerations are not simple,” and as WOW’s principle investment analyst he knows better than most. Malick explained that before WOW can disburse a new round of funding we need to put a new and better system in place to allow us to efficiently and responsibly respond to each requests. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this is one of the responsibilities that the Summer Interns have taken on and we hope to make a solid contribution to such systems before the summer is out! Until next time,

~Christian

Meeting with Ludo for the website implementation

As per guidance from Linda, we kicked off work on the WOW Investments website. Ludo came to the WOW office and we had a three hour meeting with him during which we discussed various topics
- The layout of the website. We provided him with a detailed document which could potentially act as his site map as he begins designing.
- Website colors. We asked Ludo to work with the three WOW colours as the base; with blue being the potential focus for WOW investments. Linda sent us documents that have the three different color palettes – each focusing on either blue, orange or pink. We forwarded this to Ludo.
- Interactive and engaging website. We talked with Ludo about how we want the website to be interactive and engaging. This could be done by blogs, photographs, videos and allowing users to possibly add content as well. So that the website can ‘connect’ with those that have not been to Senegal, we explained that we would like to use a lot of images and pictures. Linda sent us pics from her previous visits to Senegal. Ludo will get back to us if the quality of the images is sufficient for the website.
- Using flash or not. Ludo explained the disadvantages of using Flash and how the Google crawler can have difficulties finding keywords. We told him that we will discuss this further with Linda and get back to him.
All in all, the meeting was very successful and we were able to make good progress. We will give him the green flag soon to start building sample pages for us and the US advisors to give feedback on.
Linda is going to discuss the website further with Caroline and get back to use regarding domain names we own and content for the different pages.
Karishma

Thursday at the office...

The team has decided to stay at the office and there were neither meeting nor visit on our daily program. We have planned to think about the WOW next steps and one of the most important points we discussed today were the website. As far as I am concerned, I focused on the Mountaga Tall business plan because Sadio, the CEO has called in the morning, saying she would need it the afternoon. She finally come and recover it around midday. After that, we spent most of our time on drafting the way we should work it out.

Linda called in the afternoon and we have all discussed and agreed on some parts of the design and the content of the website. We have planned to meet Ludovic Lima, the computer scientist who is in charge to set up our website tmorrow at 10 o'clock am.

Amara

Visit to Tissafric

We have decided today to pay a visit for the first time to Tissafric, a company specialized in woven fabrics. Tissafric makes up the WOW new company fortofolio. That is special for Karishma because it is her first company visit.

We went there in the morning and we have had a two hours meeting with the CEO Mrs Traoré. She exposed us the company needs in term of financing and her expectations from WOW activities. She made us know all problems that is encountering Tissafric and how she is planning to work with WOW.

In the afternoon, Linda has called at office so as to make sure we are at the level of comprehension. We have also finalize things we have to do for next days. She said she would call again tomorrow to give some directions to work out the WOW website.

Amara

New team, new challenges

Today is a particular day for us and the office is a bit empty. Laurent and Sachiko left Dakar on Friday, Rose and Aicha must go abroad to carry on with their studies and now it just remains Malick, Christian and I. But fortunately, a new trainee has joined us. Her name is Karishma BAIJAL and she come from India but is studying in US.

We are preparing our last meeting with Linda bacause she is leaving today. And it seems to be very important to know what to do for the next months.

She finally arrive at the WOW office around 12 o'clock. After two hours meeting, she left to prepare her trip. But before leaving, she has defined some goals that will be listed below:

- the elaboration of a web site

- the creation of a business center

-the development of company portofolio

And she wants us to thing about the human ressources that will be needed and the WOW products to develop.

these are the new goals that the new team we have to achieve.

Amara

OUR INTERSHIP END

The morning is a bit difficult today after a very full day yesterday and we arrive at the office late.
There is not fortunately lot of work and we have already finished the company reports and proposed due diligences to WOW. We felt we have already honored our contract. We didn't plan to meet Linda today and she seemed to very busy. Besides, she has gone to ASNAP (an agency specialized in community development) with Christian to try and built a partnership.
After having lunch, Rose, Aicha and I got to Oxfam GB in order to receive the rest of our wage.
At our return to the office, we have finalized the remaining work.
We finally left round 6 o'clock pm, wishing Laurent and Sachiko a nice trip. They are going to leave tomorrow.
So, this is the end of our 45 days internship.
Amara

Meeting with Linda

We have finally received and welcome Linda today at the WOW office around midday. After greetings and others "salamalecs", we have started discussing about companies and wrapinp-up our intership activities. At this step, it was question to talk about the amounts loaned to the current companies portofolio and its impact on their activities. After that, we thought together about the due diligences and the draft of standerdized process that WOW should adopt in order to get its activities more efficient.

After two hours meeting, Linda left, giving us an appointment to the restaurant nammed "La Fourchette" for a dinner.

At 9 o'clock pm, we have all met to the restaurant. After discussing for hours and taking the dinner, we have left around 11 o'clock pm, thinking about tomorrow, the last day of our intership program.

Amara

Linda has arrived

Linda, one of WOW's founders is visiting us in Dakar this week.

She is an extremely busy person in San Francisco, and here in Dakar as well. Today, she quickly visited WOW office in the morning and left for 6 meetings in the afternoon... We plan to welcome her tomorrow again to discuss our findings and wrap-up our internship program.

All the teams are finishing the company reports, while working on establishing the draft of standerdized process of WOW's investment activities. After one cycle of investments with trials and errors, now it is important for WOW to start formulating the "standerdized" process.

We are working well, inspired by hot Beijing Olympic games.


-Sachiko

completing due diligence process

Hi everybody, last post for me; 

Today, we complete our work started the last friday in the due diligence process. we gather all the ideas we had after visiting and studying all the portfolio company and came out with a standard model of Wow's process since the recruitment of companies to the final stages of the follow up.

We all hope that our little contribution will help Wow and the partners.

We're looking forward to see Linda and present to her what we came out with after six weeks of internship that had been a real pleasure.

Rose

The WOW Team on Due Diligence

Greetings,

After another hot weekend in Dakar the Summer Intern team will meet again tomorrow morning to put our heads together on the important topic of creating a due diligence process to help improve the impact and mitigate the risks of WOW’s investments. During these short 5 weeks some of our most important and engaging work has come in brainstorm sessions with each of us giving out contributions. While working in teams has allowed us to focus on specific companies and their particular strengths, needs, and problems, it is also productive (and fun) to put our heads together. With Laurent at the white board taking down ideas and helping to steer our discussions, we have come to some important understandings that should help WOW to continue its current success.

Sadly, this is our last week together as a team, with Sachiko and Laurent scheduled to leave on Friday. But it is also one of the more important weeks we’ll work together as we will be joined by Linda, a WOW founder, and work closely with her and Suparna, WOW’s CEO, on a range of topics. This will provide an opportunity for the team to give feedback on our experience and report on what we recognize as the achievements and challenges ahead. One of the more important considerations at hand is adapting WOW’s due diligence process in order to make its investments and services to portfolio companies more effective. The team’s experience from the last few weeks has given us value impressions that allow us to identify best (and worst) practices and thereby provide suitable input to the topic of due diligence.

We expect that this week of meetings will give us the chance to bring our recent experience to the fore and demonstrate the positive results of WOW’s Summer Intern Program. We also look forward to a nice dinner out with Linda, hopefully accompanied by some good Senegalese music!

Until next time,

~Christian

TissAfric and the "Manjaks"...

Friday morning started with a productive working session, where we focused on the due diligence process. Based on our interviews and company reviews so far, we identified a few critical steps that should be performed to ensure successful investment projects. Forecasting, definition of priorities and timeline with the entrepreneurs are among those steps. Other subjects of discussion remain for Monday. For example, how to handle unachievable objectives with an entrepreneur, or recover from a misuse of investment.

The afternoon gave us the opportunity to meet Mrs Traore from TrissAfric, an individual enterprise who produces innovative "pagnes tissés" and transform them into clothes, accessories, home furniture... She's looking to grow her business and is planning to invest in a a showroom to exhibit and sell her products. This interview allowed us to learn more about the "Manjaks",  who are naturally talented weavers from Mali, and with whom she has been working during her 13-year experience in this business.

Here comes our last weekend in Senegal for Sachiko and me, time flies.

~Laurent

salut les amis

Cette journée de jeudi, les stagiaires ont principalement travaillé au bureau de WOW sur la finalisation des rapports des premières entreprises et ont discuté longuement sur les nouvelles compagnies. Le matin aussi Laurent, Sachiko et Malick ont éffectué un déplacement à Hann Maristes ou ils devaient rencontrer les managers de Maïmouna Diop et Ibrahima Gueye et Oumou kalsoum Ndoye de Marché.Com. L’objectif était de discuter pour Restaurant Maye des perspectives de développement et de la pertinence de trouver un nouvel endroit pour le Restaurant. La rencontre avec Marché.Com n’a pu se tenir car Ibrahima devait livrer des commandes de produits, l’entretien étant reprogrammé pour le lendemain. Dans l’après midi Laurent a reçu Mme khady Cissé Gueye pour un autre entretien concernant toujours l’activité de « les Délices de la mer ». Et durant tout le reste de l’après midi les stagiaires ont continué à peaufiner les informations reçues afin de finaliser les rapports sur les nouvelles compagnies

Malick

Wednesday 6th at WOW office: General meeting for "Projet Boutique" cooperative and Bio Essence originality

hello,

This day was crowded of activities because first, there was between 8.00 am and 1.00 pm "projet boutique" meeting and second we met with "Entreprise Bracelets" and "Bio Essence" runners. After the first meeting which consisted of electing somebody president of the cooperative there was an apetising big meal cooked by "Chez May".

At 3.pm we exchange again with Sini Mboup, Bracelets' owner in order to find a way to better set up an accounting and forecasting frame because she really needs help.

Mame khary Gueye, Bio Essence's manager came to WOW office at 4.30 pm. She is a very amasing woman because she speaks fluent english, she got important degrees in Europe and USA, travelled all around the world and is 32 years old. In fact, she worked at big fims such as Paribas, Cap Gemini and now run a company with $1,000,000 capital.

Nevertheless, she is more focused on exportation because she benefit from many administrative facilities and therefore has to export 80% of her production.

Good vision in terms of quality and strategy is her strength.

-Aicha

Meeting with Dendey couture's manager

Today, we have worked by group on our respective report during all the moring. I was dealing with the SOPRA report, a company that is asking for 3,000,000 as financing while other groups were focusing on new companies fortofolio.

About 2 o'clock pm, Mouminou Niang has come and seen us just to discuss with us the problems she had met after receiving the WOW financing. She has started by explaining us the circumstances in which she had got the funds and how she had failed in her project. After that, she has made us know the long way she had taken to get out from her difficult situation and to succed in reimbursing the loan.

She has left about 5 o'clock asking for another financing after paying back the current loan she had already received from WOW. Amara

New company analysis

This morning, we had a meeting to talk about how we can work on new companies. One of our missions is to evaluate the new companies to invest. Up to this point, we have mostly focused on current portfolio companies, and now is the time to start looking at new ones.

We started by evaluating the process of WOW so far since the first investment of last year. Was our due-diligence process rigorous enough? If not, how should we do differently this year? Have we followed up the invested companies well enough so far?

After our brain storming session, we modified the evaluation form, and each team took two new companies to work on during last two weeks of this internship.

By the way, interns of last summer put "WACIF I" in the header of every report, but nobody this year knows what it stands for... Any idea?

-Sachiko

Presenting our reports

This friday was dedicated to the finalization and presentation of our reports.
We spent the morning at wow office discussing about our reports while Christian and Amara where in a meeting with the manager of the GIE benn loxo to complete some informations they needed.

In the afternoon, after having a lunch at wow's office, we went to oxfam to meet Suparna and talk with her about the work each group did with the portfolio companies. During that meeting we had the opportunity to discuss with Linda, one of the four founders of wow, about our reports and some of her expectations for this internship.

Next week we'll work on the new portfolio companies; looking forward!

Rose