Project Potential - Incubator Director

Project Potential is creating en ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation to solve the youth unemployment crisis in rural India. We plan to incubate 10,000 entrepreneurs across rural India in the next 5 years.

Through this position, you would be responsible for heading our incubator. You would be leading a team, which would be scouting for early stage entrepreneurs, providing them with training, connecting them to mentors, helping them access funding, and exploring new markets for their products.

Attitudes:

- A strong belief in human potential and in developing an entrepreneurial mindset

- A growth mindset to deal with failure and to continue experimenting and learning

- Flexibility and resilience to deal with the unexpected

- A belief in building a culture of teamwork and team learning to support one another

Responsibilities:

Set overall strategy for the incubator, which includes, but is not limited to:

- Working with scouting and selection team to ensure coherence between target audience, communication, those we ultimately select, and what we offer them through our incubator

- Working with training team to identify training needs, partners, and delivery systems

- Creating a database of mentors (generalists and specialists) and crafting an appealing value proposition so that they also want to support our Udhyamis

- Building all required partnerships to support Udhyamis with building their organizations; creating strong business plans that they can then execute; getting access to required funds; and receiving support in accessing new markets. These would be both private and public partners.

- Working with our team to ensure that all Udhyamis get some media coverage and that their families are also engaged (we've identified reputation and family support as two important parts of our value proposition)

- Working with HR (once we hire someone for this position, haha!) to ensure the right team is in place and gets the training required to execute this program

- Coordinate with team building the pipeline for the next set of entrepreneurs through programs like Udhyam Shiksha Program to ensure that our learnings from the incubator are integrated into these programs as well

Knowledge:

- Deep self-awareness and knowledge of one's own journey and purpose

- Understanding of the design thinking process to identify needs and design accordingly for them

- Knowledge of basic business and start-ups

Other requirements:

- Minimum 4 years of work experience in a start-up/incubator/rural livelihoods organization

- Hindi fluency; English fluency also preferred

Commitment:

This is a three-month trial period, which has the possibility of converting into a fulltime position. This role requires the facilitator to spend time on the ground in Bihar. Before beginning the program, there would be a one week orientation program as well.