What if there was a way to finance your startup in Bahrain in a fast and easy way? Does that sound too good to be true?
When it comes to helping small businesses get on their feet, Tamkeen Bahrain has been on an endless pursuit towards helping Bahrainis establish themselves in the market and achieve their entrepreneurial goals.
As such, StartUp Bahrain had an exclusive sit down with the Head of Outsourced Projects at Tamkeen, Aisha Albalushi, to discuss their latest initiative, the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Scheme – launched as an effort to aid with the development of startups, as well as provide them with a grant to help finance the creation, design and the initial testing phase of the product they plan to release.
The MVP scheme is an action-plan by Tamkeen that provides startups with high potential for growth, and are serving a gap in the market, with the opportunity to devise a product that can meet the requirements of early adopters (consumers). During our interview with Aisha, we were able to understand what the scheme is about and why it was put in place.
Now more than ever, startups need to stand out and have more than just an idea to offer, so the capability to present a prototype to an investor and the market can assist with attaining the recognition, as well as the necessary support. According to Aisha, “securing early-stage funding is difficult for all startups who usually inject their own equity into developing MVPs. As such, some great ideas sometimes do not come to life due to lack of funding. As a result, we believe that having this program may help some of these ideas come to life”.
The startups that are eligible to register and get access to the program, have to fall under a certain criterion, which includes being:
- Registered Bahraini enterprises
- Operated by Bahraini individuals with virtual commercial registries
- Have no more than one year of operation within the market
- Working on innovation, development, deployment, and commercialization of new products, process, or services are driven technology or intellectual property
- Have a turnover not exceeding BHD 10,000
- Or, have enough value for potential customers or business channel to market
If startups meet all the above requirements then they can apply here to get their minimum viable product ready.
To find out more about Tamkeen, and the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) scheme, visit their website, or check out their Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for the latest updates on Bahrain’s labor fund.
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