The Rootical Times #1
In The Rootical Times we will share regular updates about the progress made with piloting Rootical in Uganda. In the spirit of full transparency, we will be sharing these updates for (potential) financial partners and anyone interested to follow our journey here, publicly, on our website. Enjoy reading and learning along with us!
We. Are. Excited!
Only 5 days to go to the start of our 2023 Rootical cohort. 40 Selected high potential founders will embark on a systemic business building journey with us, starting with an immersive 10-days Food System Leadership bootcamp in Entebbe.
An intensive training in regenerative agri-food business, agroecology and food systems practice.
Together we will create a deep and shared analysis of the Ugandan food system and its key challenges they want to address by building business solutions (hence, “systemic business building”).
TLDR: In short, this is our update.
So, how did we get here?
Earlier this year:
The French Embassy in Uganda confirmed as our third and decisive financial partner.
They joined the DOEN Foundation and Biovision in financing our Ugandan pilot.
We launched our Rootical brand, website, and social media — follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
We published a study about Steward Ownership in Uganda.
In May 2023:
We recruited and onboarded a fantastic team, passionate about Agroecology & Entrepreneurship!
We started recruiting high potential founders
In June 2023 we closed our call for applicants and outperformed our wildest targets:
🤯 775 Unique applicants, entrepreneurs ready to shake up the food system with Rootical
🎯 775 individuals ready to join us on a life transforming Founder journey #traction #value.
🚺 38% Female applicants in our bid to reduce the gender gap in founder teams.
🚀 25% Are aged 36 and above. 49% Are younger than 30 years-old.
🌍 A great geographic spread, with two thirds from outside the greater Kampala area.
💡 78% State their interest in building a business with Rootical based on steward ownership principles
💥 25% Identify as seasoned corporate professionals aiming to build a business of their own.
🔝 1/3 identify as failing-forward entrepreneurs ready to go at it again. The rest are young potentials.
💚 47% Say they have been actively part of the #Agroecology movement in Uganda for quite a while.
In July 2023:
We finalised our selection and confirmed the final 40 to join the 2023 Rootical cohort.
313 Full applications submitted via the Uncap app.
100 Phone interviews of about 20 minutes to select the most promising founder profiles.
We will present them soon (see the About Us section) and you can find more details below.
What did we learn?
The overwhelming number of applications can be seen as an early sign of validation. We’re clearly on to something with our refreshing brand and unique value proposition of “powering Ugandan entrepreneurs to build and own food system shaking, regenerative agri-food businesses”.
It is important to eliminate (or minimise) the human bias in any selection process. We now develop anchored grading systems for everything. Partnering with Uncap was a great decision to automate a huge part of our selection process: it strongly improved the depth, fairness and quality of our selection, while drastically reducing the manual workload. All Uncap’s online assessments are science-based and have been validated with 10,000+ East African entrepreneurs.
The power of networks. We approached nearly 100 partner organisations and influential individuals of which a total of 77 organisations agreed to spread our call for founders with one or more posts, referrals or mentions to their networks via their newsletters, whatsapp groups, social media, and other communication channels. In addition, we organised or participated in 7 information sessions.
Cold outreach. We targeted 1000+ appealing profiles (42% women) via Linkedin and had remarkable results: 14% converted into submitting an initial application. This is a strong tactic to intentionally recruit more women and people from outside of Kampala. Overall, our most impactful recruitment channels were LinkedIn, Personal Referrals, and Whatsapp (indicated by 37%, 33% and 29% of applicants).
Rootical is different. We design and build business from scratch, based on a deep and shared understanding of the key food system challenges and opportunities. Being a Business Builder (or start-up studio) we are currently not in a position to financially support, incubate or accelerate any existing businesses and teams. We look for high potential founders, capable of building a 1 Billion Business in 5 to 7 years’ time (1 Billing UGX = 275 000 USD) with Rootical’s support systems. “This is new, it’s unique,” a friend told us. This message is difficult to convey and needs more emphasis in our communication.
The 2023 Cohort
We provide more information about the profiles of our final 40 high potential founders here. Throughout our recruitment and selection process, we identified and worked with 3 complementary personae in mind. This is the distribution in our 2023 cohort:
42% Harriet (17 individuals, 9 women): a corporate professional with 8+ years of experience in larger organisations and a specific skill set and management experience to lead our startups. She is now ready to venture into building an agribusiness of her own.
40% Rita (16 individuals, 7 women): a failing-forward entrepreneur. She has had an (agri) business before but failed to scale it or for some reason discontinued it. With Rootical’s support systems, she’s ready to go at it again.
18% John (7 individuals, 4 women): a young entrepreneurial, high potential graduate. With a demonstrated passion for regenerative agriculture and/or agribusiness, yet with less track record to show for. They bring the drive, energy, and innovative thinking to our Founder teams.
We aimed for a good spread of different domains of expertise in our cohort: management (25%), agribusiness (23%), agronomy (13%), finance (13%), tech (10%) (including data analysis and ICT), sales (5%), marketing (5%), nutrition (5%) and restauration (3%).
Finally, all our final 40 potential founders have a minimum of 3 years of tangible professional experience: 30% have between 3-5 years of experience; 28% between 5-9 years; and 42% have 10 or more years of entrepreneurial or work experience.
Follow our regular updates via LinkedIn and Twitter and do contact us if our journey and impact is aligned with your vision and/or the vision of your organisation: all hands on deck are needed to build a future-proof food system, in Uganda and beyond.