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Who Are The Insiders?

Hi there,

I'm John-Paul Iwuoha, and I'll be your host during your membership as an Insider.

I specialize in solving business problems that relate to strategy, sales, systems, and finance. Since 2013, I have worked with over 400 clients in 16+ countries who are at different stages of starting and growing their businesses in a wide range of industries, from agribusiness to banking, tech, fashion, real-estate, and several others.

My work, opinion pieces and articles have been featured in several local and international media, including CNN, The Huffington Post, Business Day, and LinkedIn Pulse. In 2018, I was named by LinkedIn as one of the global Top Voices on Startups and Entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is best played as a team sport. That’s why entrepreneurs who collaborate are more likely to be successful than those who don’t. I created the Insiders membership program for people like you who want to learn, grow, and belong to a community that can keep you focused, motivated and accountable, and help solve your biggest business problems.

The Insiders Program works like a gym membership. Every month, we focus on solving serious business challenges such as raising capital, making more sales and growing the business, choosing the right business idea and startup strategy, developing strong systems that can help run a business, and the best methods for finding, hiring and keeping people who can help build our businesses.

In the rest of this page, you will find out if you're a good fit for the program, and learn everything you need to make the decision to join the Insiders membership program.

You can choose either a Standard membership or a Premium membership to meet your personal needs and business goals.

I can’t wait to welcome you inside our special community.

See you inside!

Here's what other entrepreneurs are saying about the program...

The 5 Big Business Problems We Focus On

There are five big business problems we focus on in the Insiders Private Program.

If you're facing one or more of these challenges, you are going to benefit a lot from your investment and membership in the Insiders' program.

One of the most popular courses inside our course library is the Roadmap Program, an advanced, step-by-step course that shows you everything you to need to make your business investment-ready in 12 weeks or less.

Whether you're trying to raise funds from investors to start a new business, grow an existing business, or turnaround a failing one, this extensive course gives you access to all the important tools and resources you need to package your business for investment.

The Roadmap program includes our curated database of investor information that you can use to start reaching out to potential investors.

The program also provides valuable insights and guidance on important aspects of dealing with investors and closing deals, such as business valuation, financial analysis, how to develop investment proposals and craft a compelling pitch, how to negotiate with investors and avoid legal traps, and how to engage with potential investors until the deal is closed.

Finding and keeping customers, and making more sales, is a major area of interest for our members.

There are several different factors that enable a business to make consistent and profitable sales in a way that enhances the customer base, profitability and size of the business.

We have distilled these factors into the 7 Pillars of Successful Selling. They are: Market, Audience, Offer, Messaging, Medium (or Channel), Process, and KPIs. If a business is not making as much sales as it wants, it's likely one or more of these 7 Pillars is defective and needs to be fixed.

The Art & Science of Sales is our advanced flagship course that focuses on each of these 7 Pillars and teaches the important concepts and strategies an entrepreneur can use to test for the commercial viability of a product, launch a product or service into a market for the first time, or turn around the poor sales performance of an existing product.

If you are having trouble finding, attracting, or keeping customers in your business, this course will help you troubleshoot the problem and prepare a new game plan that will boost sales in your business.

Starting a business can be hard. Growing a business is harder. But nothing will test your patience and sanity more than orchestrating all the moving parts that are required to run a business.

And as the business grows, this problem gets worse. As a result, for a business to grow beyond the personal capacity and supervision of the owner, you will need strong systems that enable your business to run as an independent unit.

The Art & Science of Business Systems is our advanced course that focuses on developing strong and smart systems that can help to organise a business in a way that makes it easier to run and achieve consistent and predictable results.

Strong and effective business systems follow a similar framework of seven hard and soft components that help to structure and organise a business. They are Processes, Enablers, Controls, Metrics, Leadership, People, and Culture.

This advanced course will show you the important clues to look for, and how to start setting up systems that will help your business to grow, expand, become more efficient. And most importantly, you will get your life back and have the freedom to live a more balanced life.

The startup phase is the riskiest part of the journey for most businesses. The evidence is clear: up to 6 in 10 new businesses are likely to fail within the first two years.

Yes, there is a lot of passion, creativity, sacrifice and hard work that goes into starting a business, but if you're going to beat the odds, you will need more than that.

That's why our advanced startup course is a favourite among our members who are starting, or trying to start, a business. The course breaks down the key aspects of starting a business so you can tell if you're on the right path before you invest (or waste) your precious money, time and effort on a business that may not stand a chance.

Inside the course, you will learn how to size the level of demand in a market, how to test the viability of your business idea or product before you launch it, how to choose the right business model for your business, and how to check the vital signs of progress for a new business so you don't keep wasting time and money on a loser.

At some point on your journey, you will need human help to support and grow your business.

Some businesses need employees earlier than others. It could be one or two employees, or a full-blown team. No matter how you start your business, there always comes a time you will need help to handle rising orders and serve your growing customer base.

You will also need help on the production side to create products or provide services. Or you may need help with one, some, or all of the boring aspects of the business you need to hire specialists for -- such as accounting, admin, taxes, purchasing, sales, etc.

Our advanced course on building teams will show you how to find, attract, hire and keep capable people who can help to support and grow your business.

Knowing how to deal with people is one of the most valuable skills an entrepreneur can have. Humans can give you significant leverage in your business, but they can also be self-interested and unpredictable. This advanced course will help you understand the key human motivations and how to use that knowledge to influence people to join and stay on your team.

An Interesting Case Study

When Mohamed Qamsa (middle) joined our program in 2018, he was struggling to engage potential investors and having a hard time raising seed capital for his business, Safari Meals.

Safari Meals, based in Mogadishu (Somalia), is an online food ordering platform that brings together restaurants and consumers in a way that maximizes both restaurant sales and consumer convenience.

Available via web, mobile app and a telephone hotline, his business targets office workers, students, elders, individuals, or couples who do not have time to prepare food at home and want food that is fast, affordable, and convenient.

Despite his belief in the potential of his business, he would get negative feedback from potential investors regarding his revenue model, lack of traction, a small customer base, and concerns about the competitive landscape of my business.

After completing the Roadmap, which is the course that focuses on raising capital in the Insiders Program, he beat dozens of other businesses to win the first prize in a business competition organized by Innovation Ventures.

It’s not just about the prize money. What's more important is the strong validation, market awareness, media exposure, and potential for follow-on funding that comes with winning the first prize in a major competition.

So, here's an excerpt of the email Mohamed sent to John-Paul (in March 2020) after winning the prize:

"Dear John-Paul,

I cannot thank you enough for your mentorship over the years, you have been such an integral part of my career as an entrepreneur. I hope to inspire others as you inspired me.

This is Mohamed Qamsa from Somalia, I took your Roadmap coaching program, and that time I was struggling to raise capital, it was an eye-opening and a life-changing experience for me. After I implemented the knowledge and insights that I gained through the program, the miracle has just happened for me.

I was fortunate to participate in a business competition and won the first prize of the competition which comes with a $10,000 seed investment for one of my businesses (Safari Meals).

I learn something new every day from Smallstarter. Thank you for providing such strong content in the entrepreneurship world. I'm also looking forward to be a part of your special program (the Insider membership), to learn and grow more.

You have been an inspiration. As an entrepreneur, your achievements have been remarkable and I'm grateful to have you as my mentor."

The 5 Key Benefits of Becoming An Insider

As a member of the Insiders Program, you will be entitled to the following monthly benefits that are designed to ensure you get good value and a significant return on your investment of time, effort and money in the program:

If it hasn't happened to you before, you probably have no idea how much time, money and mistakes a good piece of advice can save you.

Whether you're about to enter the wrong business, sign a potentially damaging deal with an investor, set an unfavourable price for your new product, or hire somebody that will be disastrous to your business, the right advice from a person who's been there before can save you a lot of pain, worry, and money.

As a member of the Insiders program, you won't just have access to John-Paul's expertise and experience with over 400 clients. You will also learn from the experiences of other people in the group who have walked the road you're about to walk, or who have been burned by the same bad decision or action you're about to take.

Building a business is so absorbing and time-consuming that many entrepreneurs have little room or time to constantly improve and refresh their knowledge and skills.

The world of business is always changing, and no matter how much you know (or think you know), you will never know it all. Every other day, new ideas and improved strategies enter the business world. And if you don't make a conscious effort to keep yourself updated, your knowledge and skills are going to become outdated very fast, and you may lose your shirt to a well-informed and better-skilled competitor.

That's why we take courses and training lessons very seriously in the Insiders program. Every month, we focus on new and important business topics that are designed to improve or refresh your knowledge and skills.

As a member of the program, you can access our large library of courses and lessons, and pick and choose what you want to learn, based on the business challenge or problem you need to deal with. The best part, this flexibility allows you to stay focused on your business while you learn on the side.

Every entrepreneur should have access to a toolbox that can take care of small nuisances and headaches, and lighten the burden of starting or growing a business.

Whether you need to quickly develop a sales proposal, or draft a partnership agreement or term sheet for an investment deal, or you need to create a service level agreement (SLA) or employment contract, you will find everything you need inside our tools and resources section.

There’s no point stressing yourself and trying to recreate the wheel when you can benefit from templates, samples and frameworks that can make your work easier, faster, and more enjoyable.

Building valuable relationships is the secret to success in business. That’s why successful entrepreneurs approach business as a team sport.

Still, despite the advantages of networking and collaborating with other entrepreneurs, many entrepreneurs work in silos and suffer in silence and isolation.

Membership in the Insiders program provides a unique opportunity to belong to a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who are working hard and supporting one another to succeed in business.

And because we have members from different industries and countries who are at different stages of starting and growing their business, our discussion forum is never short of rich ideas, perspectives, and conversations.

You never know what you might learn, or what partnership opportunities can come up when you belong to a community of people who are progressing in the same direction.

For one hour every month, premium members can schedule a date and time for a one-on-one strategy session with John-Paul over Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, or telephone.

The strategy sessions are focused on one or more specific problems or areas of your business you need to fix quickly to get results.

Whether you’re trying to enter a new market, raise capital, significantly grow your business, or turnaround a failing venture, the strategy sessions are designed to critically analyze the problem, brainstorm possible solutions, and develop an action plan that will yield the desired results.

By participating in the strategy sessions, you will get real-time feedback, personalized support, and be able to track your progress with an experienced business consultant who has done the same for hundreds of clients.

If you’re looking for a more private, confidential and personalised experience that will keep you motivated, accountable, and focused on results, the strategy sessions, which are exclusive to premium members, is exactly what you need.

Here's What Our Private Forum Looks Like

The private members’ area is intuitively designed for desktop, tablet, and mobile users.

You can start a thread or conversation, and post questions or contributions in the discussion forum of any topic you’re interested in (sales, startup, raising capital, etc.).

You can also like and comment on other people’s posts, send private messages and chat with any member, and access the course library from inside the private area.

Here’s what the Insiders’ members’ area looks like:

And Here's Our Course Library...

Our course library includes several mini-courses, intensive programs, and single lessons that are focused on specific aspects of starting and growing a business.

The courses are designed to be binge-worthy, interactive and fun. And with a vibrant comments section below each lesson, you can ask any questions you want and get the answers you’re looking for.

Here are the courses that come with your membership in the Insiders Program: