Sunday, May 7, 2017

Important Entrepreneurship Lessons To Take Home From Successful African Entrepreneurs

By Arthur Peterson


Success in entrepreneurship is never easily attainable. The often talked about ingredients for a thriving enterprise are capital and good market. However, there are other contributing factors that are less talked about. A vast majority of successful African entrepreneurs adopted these factors in their journey to business excellence.

As a continent, Africa has got a lot of growth potential for those currently in business and others aspiring to get into it. The sons and daughters of the continent who currently run thriving businesses, like Jason Njoku the Nigerian internet entrepreneur and Zimbabwean technology magnate Strive Masiyiwa, all have stories to behold. The common traits shared by these businesspeople include commitment, passion, paying attention to detail and the power to draw lessons from mistakes.

The story of Jason Njoku is now well known in Africa and beyond. What started as a passion grew into the largest online streaming service in the content. A market that was traditionally the reserve for international conglomerates like the Google owned YouTube now has a respected player.

In many of his interviews with respectable media outlets, he credits the numerous triumphs that have come his way to cultivating his passion for seeing people happy. This passion, he often says, gave him the impetus to build his own service that has grown to once unforeseen heights. Today, he is a well known venture capitalist keen on providing seed capital to budding entrepreneurs.

Commitment, another important entrepreneurial trait, is what propelled Strive Masiyiwa to success. The Zimbabwe national founded Econet Wireless, a telecommunications company with global footprints, and now serves as its chairman. Like his fellow entrepreneurs, he started Econet right from the ground and grew it with commitment despite resistance from a government battling to maintain its monopoly. A five year legal battle against the government of the day never made him quit. It is his committed spirit that spurred his company to tangible growth.

Learning from mistakes is also an important lesson to learn from the most revered businessmen and women in Africa. Gina Din Kariuki, a successful award winning Kenyan management consultant who founded the Gina Din Group knows this all too well. Getting to her level of success took nineteen years of failure and learning to get back up and keep fighting.

Before forming her company and seeing it to success, she did public relations stints for many companies in her homeland. One mistake she has owned to date is her failure to research on market trends and leadership before quitting her job to start her company. Upon quitting, she realized she did not have the corporate structure and support she used to have as an employee.

Out of the blue, she was the one in charge of everything. With her mistakes behind her, she navigated the murky waters of business ownership and made the Gina Din Group a renowned company in Africa. These success stories, among many unmentioned ones, should inspire you to do more. If you follow in their footsteps, you will undoubtedly find your footing.




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