FOCUS: Mujeres Emprendedoras is a 12-week program developed by CISNEROS for Venezuelan women entrepreneurs based in South Florida, looking to validate the scalability of their early-stage ventures.
Building on its training program implemented in Venezuela for over ten years, CISNEROS joined efforts with The Idea Center of Miami Dade College in 2019 to develop a program structure and methodology to bring the initiative to Miami for Venezuelan immigrants.
During the program, participants have the opportunity to embrace a bold entrepreneurial mindset while going through three phases: understanding the problem/customer, discovering their business models and testing hypotheses of their ventures. The learning experience is based on a combination of Design Thinking, Lean Start Up and Business Model Canvas methodologies, and the entrepreneurs are encouraged to leverage the “out-of-the-building” approach and conduct in-person interviews to identify their early adopters and validate their potential customers.
In addition, participants develop a close support system that continues to be there after the program ends. The fifty-six women who have successfully completed the program to date are now part of the FOCUS Community, created in December 2021 in collaboration with Venprendedoras Foundation. The Community provides member news, tips and resources through a newsletter and conducts monthly in-person gatherings for networking and workshops.
Venprendedoras, a global community of Venezuelan women entrepreneurs, was co-created by an alumna from the first FOCUS cohort, and will join CISNEROS as the implementing partner for the 2022 edition of the program, to be offered from August 31st to November 16th.
