The Technical Assistance Facility (TAF) of S3P Industry finishes on December 31st 2021. During the last months of this support, TAF has organized some webinars to present a practical Toolbox which translates the lessons learnt from TAF support into ready-to-use tools.

This TAF toolbox contains five tools highlighting the topics most commonly addressed during the support: #1 inter-regional and collaborative governance, #2 undertaking market research, #3 determining your target funding mix, #4 defining your offer and #5 basics of financial planning. Moreover, for each tool, practical examples from project support are presented in form of case studies.

On October 28th, TAF organized a webinar about two of the five tools: defining the offer and determining your target funding mix. TAF beneficiaries of accompanying case studies were also sharing their experiences and lessons learnt.

Funding mix is based on finding the optimal mix of financing—the capital structure that results in maximum value— as a key challenge to face in starting and operating a business. These are the five key steps to take into account:

1. Align funding streams with the goal setting

2. Validate assumptions with the financial (experts) intermediaries.

3. Get closer to potential investors (public, private) by involving them in your business activities.

4. Identify the proper legal entity/special purpose vehicle (SPV), that is the legal form enabling the management of the different types of funds that will support the investment/business case.

About the second part of the webinar, defining the offer provides a description that summarizes your offering and why it is desirable to customers or clients, ideally stated in a way that differentiates your product or service from its competitors. TAF has summarized these key steps:

1. Define the Unique Value Proposition (UVP) of your offering: benefits, how your products/services address their needs and solve their problems, and the unique features that differentiate your offer from competitors.

2. Identify early adopters and distribution channels.

3. Make first estimation of the business case cost structure.

4. Validate your business model (are you creating value?).

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TAF has announced its final conference which will take place on 18th November. Register here by 17th November.

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