In a world where more than 60% of workers are stuck in insecure and informal jobs, the focus on Good Jobs has never been more critical.
A Good Job is one that is safe, secure (contracted), and pays a living wage. The evidence is clear, with a Good Job entire families move sustainably out of poverty, able to invest in health, housing, education and the long term.
So how do we create more Good Jobs?
We believe there is huge potential in the S of SMEs. These are established businesses in traditional sectors typically employing 5-50 people with the potential to grow and become the engine of Good Jobs.
Unfortunately, most investors dismiss these businesses due to their perceived risks stemming from informal practices and inadequate financial records.
This is a huge missed opportunity. But how big?
In sub-Saharan Africa we estimate this segment of SMEs can absorb $250 billion of investment and create 100 million “Good Jobs”…
At Balloon, we have a solution. Instead of saying ‘no’, we collaborate with these businesses to fix their core management risks. We are pioneering a new asset class that bundles investment with highly efficient business support in 1 product. The business support de-risks each investment, and so makes an unviable segment, viable.
Given the scale of the problem, tackling this challenge single-handedly is impossible.
Therefore, our ultimate goal is to catalyze the formation of a new market, where others adopt this asset class (investment + support), and we crowd others in to collaboratively create 100 million Good Jobs.
Today, on this journey we’re thrilled to announce the open-sourcing of our Post Investment Playbook – a comprehensive, step-by-step guide that outlines our approach with businesses. This document contains 5 years of learning and experimentation, and gives others the tools to offer SMEs highly efficient and effective business support.
This resource, licensed under Creative Commons, means other institutions can adapt, utilize, enhance, and ultimately join us in unlocking this S of SMEs.
As we continue to learn and evolve, our commitment to openness remains unwavering. We will keep sharing our key tools and resources, in the hope of making it easy for others to join us.