ENTREPRENEURSHIP - Afrikan Heroes

Entrepreneurship and Loneliness ,Finding connection when you feel alone

December 17, 2020

By Reid Hoffman

It’s lonely at the top. It’s even lonelier to be an entrepreneur. But you don’t have to go through this struggle alone.

In this essay, which is based on a Greymatter podcast episode I recorded with my Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh, I discuss why it’s so lonely to be an entrepreneur, how I dealt with this challenge through both success (LinkedIn) and failure (SocialNet), and how entrepreneurs can find allies and aid in their struggle against loneliness.

WHY IT’S SO LONELY TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR

You’ve convinced an entire community to jump off the cliff with you.

People often conflate the loneliness of being a CEO with the loneliness of being an entrepreneur. While both are lonely journeys, the entrepreneur’s journey is even lonelier than that of the CEO.

It’s lonely being CEO. You have to make and take responsibility for the toughest decisions, and being a boss makes it difficult to also be a friend to others in the organization. This is one of the reasons why CEO groups like YPO exist – to give CEOs a social group of peers who understand their challenges.

But it’s even lonelier being an entrepreneur. The founder’s journey is even more intense and challenging. I often say that starting a company is like throwing yourself off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down. That’s terrifying enough. But even more terrifying is the fact that you’ve convinced an entire community of people you care about to throw themselves off the cliff with you. This includes people who choose to jump, like your co-founders, your employees, your investors, as well as those whom you’re dragging along for the ride, like your family and the families of your employees.

And as you’re all in free fall, with the rocks looming below, everyone is looking at you and saying, “You convinced us that this was a good idea, and that it’s going to work, so we’re here with you.” Meanwhile, no matter how confident you are, you also know, on some level, that the vast majority of startups fail, and that the default outcome is that you and all the people who trusted you are going to end up smashing into the ground.

Ouch.

Things will get stressful, and you’ll find yourself in the shadow of the valley of death, wondering whether you’ll make it. Any rational person in that position would feel fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but founders can’t afford to spread those feelings to the other people in the organization. Even if you have co-founders to share the burden, it’s still a heavy one.

FACING LONELINESS AT SOCIALNET

My first startup, SocialNet, was a lonely and stressful journey, and I still feel some of its effects today. I’m still dieting to lose some of the weight I gained as an entrepreneur. I think I was one of those entrepreneurs to whom food was a stress relief. (It didn’t help that since meals are often a part of recruiting and sales, I was eating out three meals per day.)

One of the main factors that made my SocialNet journey so challenging was that so many different aspects of it were new and unknown, from the product category (at the time, there was no such thing as social networking) to the fact that it was the first startup for many of the team members, including me. As a result, I ended up spending a lot of time and emotional energy trying to persuade people to join me, and then once they had joined, to keep them from leaving.

Each day, I faced the challenge of not even knowing what the next day’s stresses would be. It affected the rest of my life, and my situation became even lonelier when I broke up with my girlfriend at the time.

Ultimately, the company failed. I tried to learn what I could from the experience, and do better the next time.

LINKEDIN: LESSONS IN MANAGING LONELINESS

The second company I founded was LinkedIn. My LinkedIn experience was substantially better than my SocialNet experience. I started the company with some people from SocialNet and some people from PayPal (where I was part of the founding team and which I had helped go public and be acquired by eBay). We had much more startup experience, and understood in advance that the journey would be a difficult one over uneven ground. And from an emotional perspective, we understood that providing positive energy for each other along the way would be a key factor to help us succeed.

One of the ways I managed the loneliness of entrepreneurship was finding more well-prepared partners for the journey. We all knew that we were jumping off a cliff together, and unlike SocialNet, the team had realistic expectations about the risks they were taking, rather than simply saying, “Sounds good to me, Reid!”

Yet even at LinkedIn, we had those valley of the shadow of death moments when we thought, “Why did we think this was ever going to work?” At one point, I was driving to the airport to represent LinkedIn at an important conference, when one of my key executives called me up and said, “This is just too stressful, I’m out.” That was a lonely and stressful moment for me, since I couldn’t ask anyone else to solve the problem. So I told the executive, “I’m not going to get on my flight. I’m going to turn around and come to your house, and we are going to talk this through.”

This kind of thing happens at 99% of startups, and can happen even after your company is “successful.” Airbnb just held a highly successful IPO, but as Brian Chesky related on television afterwards, during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, he thought the pandemic might destroy the entire travel industry, including his company. Fortunately, he and the rest of the team realized that they had amazing employees and an amazing community of hosts, and they found a way to successfully pivot the business.

When you’re facing a situation like Brian’s, or even the one I faced with my wayward executive, there’s no one you can go to throw a fit, or say, “I’m out.” As the entrepreneur and leader, you have to absorb the impact.

And you will feel lonely, day after day. Seriously, seriously lonely. Your people don’t want you to explain your balanced investment thesis, lay out your strategy, and explain how you’re managing the risk factors. They just want you to say, “We’re going to win.”

I worried many times that if I confessed my fear, uncertainty, and doubt, that I’d be undercutting my chances of success. After all, doesn’t everyone extol the virtues of grit, persistence, and never giving up?

Actually, no. There are people who can embrace chaos and handle uncertainty, who understand that you can have reasonable doubts, yet still commit. One lesson I learned was to surround myself with people with whom I could talk frankly about the challenges of the journey, including the loneliness and fear, without their interpreting my candor as a lack of grit or conviction.

You don’t want to surround yourself with blindly fearless people, or blind optimists. You are facing a daunting challenge, and you need realists on your side. But you need realists who are confident that they have the ability to navigate that challenge, and will join the journey knowing that failure *is* possible.

Entrepreneurs should proactively build trusted bridges with folks (including investors and board members) who will embark on your journey with eyes wide open, helping you watch out for obstacles, rather than fearfully closing their eyes and relying on you to keep watch alone. They can contribute some of the essential persistence and chutzpah the organization needs. As Daniel Lubetzky, the founder of KIND, said on Masters of Scale, you need grit and wit so that you’re not just pounding your head against a wall, thinking that if you try hard enough, you’re bound to succeed.

Life is a team sport, not an individual sport. If you can get the right team on board, you don’t have to do it alone.

FRIENDS AND FAMILY

You need the support of friends and family, but for most entrepreneurs, friends actually matter more.

A lucky few might come from a family of entrepreneurs, but the rest of us need to rely on entrepreneurial friends for peer support.

Your loved ones are going to support you, but if they have no idea what it’s like to lead a startup, and don’t understand what you’re experiencing, their sympathy can only go so far.

One of the things that I probably should’ve done more before my entrepreneurial journey was to spend time with my friends who were entrepreneurs. This is one area where I collaborated with Peter Thiel. I had been talking with him for nearly two years about my experiences at SocialNet. At the end of many days, and the end of every week, I’d tell Peter about the craziness of being an entrepreneur, and all the things I wish I had known earlier. So when he and Max Levchin decided to start the company (Fieldlink!) that eventually became PayPal, both he and Max went to their best entrepreneurial friend and asked them to join the board. Peter asked me, and Max asked Scott Banister.

Another approach is to join a community like Endeavor or the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) where you can learn from your peers. One of the classic counterintuitive rules of entrepreneurs from Blitzscaling is “Let Fires Burn”. Startups always have more problems than time and resources to solve them. If you try to put them all out, you’ll fail, and you’ll also burn out. The art is to let less important fires burn, while extinguishing the ones which are an immediate and deadly threat. But how do you know that you’re prioritizing the right fires? When you’re part of an entrepreneurial peer group, you can ask, “Am I prioritizing the right fires? Is there a better sequence of operations I should follow?”

These aren’t the kinds of questions that most of us can ask our parents or other loved ones. Your parent can tell you, “I give you my unconditional love and belief,” but what you really need is advice on which term sheet to choose.

SEEKING HELP

Don’t hesitate to look outside your organization to get help managing the loneliness of entrepreneurship. If you find yourself depressed, seek the help of mental health professionals. If you simply feel the need for moral support, turn to your spiritual leaders or your mentors. I sometimes hear entrepreneurs refuse to seek help because they “don’t want to be a burden.” Seeking help doesn’t mean you’re dumping your burden on someone else (unless you do so constantly, and without taking responsibility). Reaching out to someone else for help can actually be a gift; you’re showing that person that you trust them enough to make yourself vulnerable. Talk with people who are sources of wisdom, strength, and perspective.

I also believe that one of the techniques that is underused in Silicon Valley is engaging a team coach. Executive coaching is important and valuable, but companies succeed or fail as a team, not as individuals. One of the things I took away from Trillion Dollar Coach, which Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle wrote about the late, great Bill Campbell, is the power of a coach who works with the entire executive team.

I never got a chance to work with Bill Campbell, though I did meet him a few times. But I did get a chance to work extensively with Fred Kofman, whose books Conscious Business and The Meaning Revolution have been a part of my journey. I sometimes describe Fred as a priest of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, because he focuses on meaning and brings spirituality to capitalism. Like team coaching, the focus on meaning helps the entire team sustain itself emotionally through the challenges of entrepreneurship.

Another place to get help is in the form of content, like the books listed above. A lot of people think about entrepreneurship content in terms of hard skills and tactics. How do I drive viral growth? What is the secret to better SEO? These hard skills are important, but entrepreneurs can benefit from softer learnings as well.

For example, one of the things I’ve come to appreciate as a result of hosting Masters of Scale is that emotional connection can be as important as hard skills. The power of the podcasting format is the way it can provide emotional sustenance to so many listeners through the intimate connection of hearing a human voice in your ear, talking about the same kinds of challenges and problems they face in their own lives, with an optimistic message from those who have made it through similar challenges.

Entrepreneurs need to hear that “yes, they can,” that hope is rational, that their hero’s journey can have a happy ending, and that their success can be their big contribution to the world. They need to understand that their dogged efforts are noble, not foolish, and that there are others who are also trying to build a better future together.

CONCLUSION

2020 has been unprecedented in so many ways. We’ve had physical disasters like the Covid-19 pandemic and widespread wildfires, and we’ve had political fires all over the world. These difficult times of stress, fear, doubt, suffering, and yes, loneliness make the entrepreneurial journey incredibly challenging. But those difficult times are also a chance to show your heroism.

Even if you’re struggling, like most of us are, you can show yourself, your team, and the rest of the world, “Yes, I’m navigating these challenges. Yes, I’m rebuilding from the devastating blow of Covid-19 and economic shutdown. Yes, you can get through this too.”

One of the best metaphors for entrepreneurship is pioneering. But pioneering doesn’t mean setting out into the wilderness alone. It means bringing people together into a wagon train, helping each other get started, and supporting each other through the long and arduous journey.

Thanks to the miracle of global science and collaboration, we have multiple Covid-19 vaccines that are rolling out around the world. The new challenge we face in 2021 is to recover and rebuild from the disasters of 2020, and part of what we’ll desperately need is entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs to build new industries and create new jobs.

If you’re one of those entrepreneurs, this is your chance to express your leadership and heroism. But you can’t and shouldn’t go it alone. Rely on your allies, rely on your friends, rely on your colleagues, rely on your mentors, and rely on the people who are close to you. Entrepreneurship is a team sport; let’s make 2021 a winning year.

Reid Hoffman is the founder of LinkedIn

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

AWIEF Calls On Nigerian And Malawian Women-Owned Startups To Apply To Its Green Energy Startup Incubator

July 14, 2020

The Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) (http://www.AWIEForum.org) has launched a new initiative “Enterprise Development for Women-Owned Ventures in Green Energy” and is pleased to announce the call for applications for a Startup Incubator in Malawi and Nigeria.

The 12-month programme is funded by the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) (https://AWDF.org/) and will support 70 women involved in renewable and green energy production in two African countries — Malawi and Nigeria. The programme offers two components to be implemented in two phases one after another:

Startup Incubator: 30 women in each country (60 in total) supported in designing, refining and launching their renewable and green energy business ideas.
Accelerator: 10 established renewable and green energy women-owned/led ventures (5 from each country) will receive entrepreneurial training and preparation for investment-readiness. The programme offers opportunity of accessing venture finance.

This call for application is for the Startup Incubator programme.

The Startup Incubator is for individuals or teams from Malawi and Nigeria who have an idea for renewable and green energy business solutions to one of the key social and environmental challenges. The Startup Incubator programme is aimed at helping women turn their renewable and green energy enterprise idea into a product or service that customers want to buy. The winning individuals or teams will receive training and support on turning their ideas into reality.

Startup Incubator offers the participants:

Incubator Modules including Pitch Training
Mentorship support
Expert Guidance and Tailored Support to make your business idea a reality
Networking and Peer Learning opportunity with like-minded entrepreneurs
The best pitches will receive an opportunity to pitch their business idea at the AWIEF Annual Conference (Dec 2–3, 2020; physical + virtual) — Africa’s number 1 women entrepreneurship conference for dialogue on issues of business — in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF)

Who is eligible:

Women over 18 years of age resident in Malawi or Nigeria, and fluent in English
Business Venture Sector Focus in Renewable & Green Energy Sector including: Solar, wind, water (hydro), biomass, biogas, biofuel, and other green energy solutions including concepts for sustainable energy-technologies for cooking
Business venture to be incorporated and operated in Malawi or Nigeria
Program participants committed to working 20+ hours a week on their venture during September and October, 2020
Applicants can apply as individuals or a team with a maximum of 3 members.

To submit applications for the Startup Incubator, please follow this link: https://bit.ly/3j0T4Az

Applications close on 15th August 2020 at 23:59 GMT.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF).

Media Contact:
Email: info@awieforum.org

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.

Fostering jobs, entrepreneurship, and capacity development for African youth: the time for disruption is now!

December 6, 2019

Dr. Hanan Morsy, Director, Macroeconomic Forecasting and Research at the African Development Bank Group

By Hanan Morsy

“There is no greater asset to Africa than its youth,” a statement that has been repeatedly proclaimed, but the continent still has a long way to go. Despite robust economic growth over the past two decades, a 1 percent increase in growth between 2000–14 was associated with only 0.41 percent growth in employment. This figure suggests that employment stood at less than 1.8 percent a year, far below the nearly 3 percent annual growth in the labor force. If this trend continues, 100 million people will join the multitudes of the unemployed in Africa by 2030.

With this in mind, researchers, youth representatives, business leaders, and policymakers have joined over 350 stakeholders in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to significantly move the needle on youth empowerment.

The annual African Economic Conference (AEC), is jointly organized by the African Development Bank , the Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Development Programme, to discuss pertinent issues affecting the continent.

The 2019 AEC is held in Egypt and hosted by the Bank on the theme; “Jobs, entrepreneurship and capacity development for African youth” and runs from 2-4 December.

Turning the youth bulge into opportunities has been the focus of the African Development Bank’s game-changing approach to job creation, entrepreneurship, and capacity development. In recognition of the crucial role that entrepreneurship plays in the creation of high-quality jobs, the Bank developed its Jobs for Youth in Africa (JfYA) Strategy (2016-2025). The Strategy aims to create 25 million jobs for African youth over the next decade as well as equipping 50 million youth with a mix of hard and soft skills to increase their employability and their entrepreneurial success rate.

The impact is already being felt. Since its launch in 2016, over $20 billion has been invested by the Bank across 318 projects. These investments are directly making a difference in the African youth skills, entrepreneurship, business development, and job creation.

In parallel and working closely with its partners, the Bank is helping strengthen entrepreneurship ecosystems in Africa. The flagship Youth Entrepreneurship and Innovation Multi-Donor Trust Fund (YEI MDTF) program provides interventions that equip the African youth, women-led start-ups, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with skills and financial support to run bankable businesses.

The program also assists regional member countries (RMCs) in their implementation of economic and social reforms toward job creation.

In just one short year, the Trust Fund’s resources leapfrogged from USD4.4 million (in 2017) to almost USD40 million (in 2018). By providing technical assistance through enterprise support organizations and financial institutions, the Fund is anticipated to reach more than 480 youth-led startups in Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Togo, and Zimbabwe.

The Bank has also been very active on the education front, supporting higher education institutions to deliver innovative training curricula that are adapted to the changing demand of the labor market and the private sector. Academic incubators—also known as innovation centers of excellence, have been established.

One great example of success is the African Institutions of Science and Technology (AIST) Program, whose mission is to deliver quality postgraduate education and build collaborative research capacity in various fields of Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation (SETI). With funding from the Bank, a total of 1,477 PhD and MSc students have graduated, out of which 676 are women. Additionally, a total of 35 partnerships have been brokered with the private sector to enhance the quality and relevance of research.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has also been acknowledged by the Bank as one of the main drivers of human capital development alongside enhanced basic education that generates knowledge and skills more broadly. As such, the Bank’s TVET project in Tanzania, has bolstered TVET and teacher education with an investment amounting to $52 million. The expected outputs include expanded infrastructure of 13 institutions targeting about 8,000 trainees, expanded and extensive use of ICT in instruction at 53 institutions, and increased capacity for teaching, policy formulation, planning, and quality assurance.

The insights and thoughts provided by other African stakeholders, youth representatives, and political leaders on the debate on youth jobs, skills, and entrepreneurship capacities during the AEC 2019 are immensely important in helping the continent move forward.

Now, more than ever, we must listen to the voices of the African youth.

* Dr. Hanan Morsy is Director, Macroeconomic Forecasting and Research at the African Development Bank Group

Kelechi Deca

Ghanaian Entrepreneur Launches First Online Cosmetics Shop

November 19, 2019

A young award winning Ghanaian entrepreneur has launched what he called the country’s first online cosmetics shop aimed at ensuring that top quality cosmetics products are available at the click of a mouse. David Marfo who won four awards at the Avon Presidential recognition program in the United States early this year, launched what many described as “Ghana’s first online cosmetics and perfumery shop.”

Mr. Marfo who is one of the youngest entrepreneurs in Ghana says that the country is ready for such cutting edge innovative customer experience noting that the Ghanaian market should leverage on Digital Innovations to reach the perfume market more easily. He is of the view that a cursory look at the growth of convenient mobile payment methods and the need for convenience points to the fact that Ghanaians expect more from cosmetics companies.

The online shop, www.shopavongh.com is expected to meet some anticipated client’s needs which Mr. Marfo believes has always been there. According to him, the days of driving and shop hopping just to get your favorite and quality perfume brand is over. With just a tap or click, one can browse through his entire catalog of Avon cosmetics and pay using Mobile Money (MTN), Vodafone Cash, Airtel/TIGO Money or Visa/Mastercard. He further stated that Ghanaians should head over to www.shopavongh.com/shop and order their cosmetic products online for fantastic discounts from now till early January.

Kelechi Deca

4 Lessons in Entrepreneurship from a Nigerian Entrepreneur

November 3, 2019

Frontier markets — developing countries that are more developed than the least developing countries, but are too small, risky, or illiquid to be considered emerging markets — are high-risk, high-reward opportunities for today’s young tech entrepreneurs. Among such frontiers, global analysts have proclaimed time and again that Africa is the future. Dynamics in economic growth, demographics, and connectivity make this obvious — and Nigeria sits at the intersection of all three trends. Nigeria has been an innovation hub for Sub-Saharan Africa and a hotbed of entrepreneurship and young talent.

The challenges facing an entrepreneur in a country like Nigeria are incredibly steep and require an uncommon level of savvy and adaptation. While building and scaling my company, I faced difficulties which included accessing capital and talent, sorting through unpredictable regulatory crises, and solving for market size and a fragmented customer base. I learned to rely on my strengths of being able to study markets and the local culture and be able to keep adapting the product offering based on user feedback to bypass the inevitable roadblocks in an entrepreneur’s path to success.

What to do when capital is scarce

In frontier markets, as elsewhere, it all starts with capital — a lack of which can stop a good idea in its tracks. For startup founders in Nigeria, finding capital to fund their vision can be difficult, if not impossible. Because my co-founders and I were MIT graduate students, we were able to leverage our network while at school in the U.S. before heading back to Lagos. We got into TechStars, a startup accelerator in New York, and established our business with the help of accomplished entrepreneurs and mentors there before returning home to Nigeria. With capital markets much less developed in a place like Nigeria, my co-founder and I always recommend that peers seek entry into a top-tier global startup accelerator in Europe, the U.S., or Asia.

Finding good talent can be an uphill battle

Access to talent presents a similar challenge, due to a shortage of top-quality tertiary education in frontier markets. Only 6% of prospective students receive some tertiary education in sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 80% in developed countries. This shortage is even more dire in the computer science (CS) field — CS departments on the continent are under-funded and unable to accommodate the number of students who wish to enroll. Facing this challenge, my co-founders and I hired our first technical team members from MIT. When we launched in Lagos, we recruited local talent through referrals from friends in the tech ecosystem and through LinkedIn. We couldn’t afford to pay the market rate at the beginning, so we learned to sell our company’s mission — of making mobility safe, affordable, and accessible to 1 million Africans — to attract great talent.

Cultivating relationships is critical

Sure, engineering talent is crucial to the success of a start-up, but in frontier markets like Nigeria, soft skills like communication and adaptability are even more critical to deal with regulatory challenges. For many African startups, regulatory challenges will present an existential threat at some point in the early stage of a business. Bureaucratic bottlenecks are commonplace, tax requirements spread across multiple jurisdictions, and regulations can change at the drop of a hat. In an environment that lacks a predictable regulatory process, founders have to stay on their toes.

In July this year, for example, my co-founder and I heard reports that the Lagos state government was proposing a new regulation for bike-hailing startups. In anticipation of such events, I have been cultivating good working relationships with relevant government officials over the past four years. My relationships with regulators have given me access to information around potential reforms as well as the opportunity to influence those reforms. My co-founder and I built relationships with regulators around the common goal that Nigerian consumers should be able to access higher-quality transportation in an affordable way — which gives us credibility and access to crucial information.

For startup founders in frontier markets, engaging regulators is a survival skill and a chance to influence long-term prospects for sustainable growth. The opportunity to participate in such conversations is one of the greatest honors of operating a start-up in a frontier market.

Consider scalability and price

Market size and fragmentation present, for some frontier start-ups, a fundamental limitation that must be baked in at the concept stage. In our case, we had to engineer a technical product with unique pricing challenges and market barriers in mind.

For example, while disposable income in sub-Saharan Africa is among the lowest in the world, our product is intended for mass-market consumption across the continent. We’ve had to tailor our pricing and services to maximize exposure to the greatest number of low-income consumers, which limits our margins. Our company had to be scalable from day one in order to be profitable, a challenge that many founders in developed markets don’t encounter until further down the line. Further complicating things, Africa is not a homogenous market. Barriers abound — from cross-border payments to multiple languages within a single community to differing cultural attitudes around transportation. The only way to work around these barriers is to live within them — entrepreneurs like us rely on strong communities, wide networks, and authentic relationships in order to navigate such a fragmented system.

Our experience has left us with the certainty that market immersion is as essential to successful entrepreneurship in a place like Africa as is access to capital and talent. Building a product that is really in demand, that people will connect with across boundaries, and that consumers can adopt at scale requires an intuitive sense of the market. Founders who are serious about frontier markets must go there themselves, be in constant contact with customers, suppliers, and regulators, and gain immersion in the culture. The rest will flow from there.

Adetayo Bamiduro is the CEO and co-founder of Max.ng, a bike-hailing startup in Nigeria. He founded MAX at MIT and built up the initial team at MIT throughout the fall of 2014, bringing on graduate students and undergraduate software engineers from across MIT. He developed a full business model and a minimum viable product, launched in Nigeria, and has successfully raised over $9m in funding to scale across West Africa.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world

The Role the Media Plays in Supporting Female Entrepreneurship in Africa

October 30, 2019

By Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard

I’ve long believed Africa is a hive of entrepreneurial activity. That’s why events like the Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) are so important to help inspire and encourage our continent’s next generation of innovators and business leaders.

What’s exciting about the situation in Africa, is the impact women are making in a traditionally male-dominated environment. A 2018 report by the World Bank found that Africa stands alone in having more new female entrepreneurs than male. The MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurship has also listed two African countries, Uganda (34.8%) and Botswana (34.6%), as having the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs globally.

But it is also true to say that women face more challenges than their male counterparts. Boardrooms in Africa – and indeed all over the world – tend to be slower to reward female-led initiatives. Getting your foot in the door is harder, and investment is more difficult to secure. That same World Bank study found capital in male-owned start-ups was six times greater than in those run by women.

Entrepreneurship is hard enough without these unnecessary barriers – and my own experiences have given me a vested interest in trying to break them down.

12 years ago, I was working as a European correspondent for an African news website Gabonews. I was a journalist. I’d studied law. It never really crossed my mind to try and build a multinational company from the ground up. But then I realised that there was a massive untapped market for a press release distribution service in Africa. A way for journalists to access Africa-related corporate news content easily and securely. And that, in essence, is what entrepreneurship really is: It’s about identifying a unique opportunity, and then turning it into reality.

APO Group started out in my living room – literally – and during the first years I had to be the IT manager, the sales consultant, the PA, HR, Finance, Marketing – everything. I had to learn it all from scratch.

But I’ve never stopped learning. The past 12 years have been a constant education. When I started, I could barely speak a word of English, but I realized quickly that it was critical to the success of the business, so I made it a priority.

In my experience, creating and developing a company is one of the most difficult things a human being can do. It requires a huge amount of time and energy, a lot of sacrifice, a healthy lifestyle and many other ingredients too.

It goes without saying, you will also need a huge slice of luck!

If you can survive those first few years, Africa is a continent that can reward you greatly. It is a place where entrepreneurial spirit has always abounded, even if startups have, in the past, lacked the support, financing or international exposure to move to the next level of global recognition.

Life might be tough for many in Africa, but its people are resilient. They understand the value of hard work. I’ve always thought that if you can make it in Africa, you can make it anywhere.

Events like AWIEF are showing that our collective passion for diversity and equality is driving success and helping entrepreneurs turn their dreams into reality. Remember: Africa is a perfect showcase for rich cultural diversity, as well as a hotbed of ideas and innovation. We are a continent of 54 countries. The birthplace of humanity. It is in our blood to try new things and to push the boundaries.

I’m proud to say our own attitude to diversity and equality has always been a vital part of APO Group’s success. Five of the nine members of our senior leadership team are women – and all are from different countries. We have built our company culture on fairness and flexibility. We do not want to be a company where employees are forced to choose between their careers and their families.

We are also in the privileged position of being able to harness the power of media to support entrepreneurship in all its forms – and women in business in particular.

As an official sponsor of AWIEF, APO Group is delighted to be coordinating the APO Group African Women in Media Award which is designed to recognise, celebrate and empower female African journalists who support female entrepreneurship in Africa.

The media industry has had its own challenges to overcome in the drive towards equality. Newsrooms have been traditionally male-dominated, but female journalism students now outnumber male all over the world, and the next step is for these changes to materialise at a senior level, with increased numbers of women in leadership positions.

We hope the APO Group African Women in Media Award inspires more women to follow their passion for journalism and encourages them to persevere in their careers despite the obstacles.

All nascent business ideas need journalists to support them. A positive mention in the media can mean the difference between success and failure for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

AWIEF is the perfect platform for women in the media to get behind women in business by championing the best ideas, technologies and innovations. And the fact that women typically invest 90% of their earnings back into their families and communities mirrors APO Group’s own dedication to making sure African people thrive both at a local and a national level.

Our CEO, Lionel Reina, allows APO Group to further bridge the divide between business and media. He has been an important figure in helping future business leaders as they go through the early part of their careers. As a company board member for DAZZIL for example, Lionel’s aim is to inspire the next generation of talented tech entrepreneurs offering new technologies to the broadcast industry in Africa.

Even the biggest media companies and PR Agencies tend to promote their executive talent from within, meaning they remain unfamiliar with the cut-and-thrust of the commercial sector. Lionel is a business veteran, uniquely qualified to advise APO Group’s clients on their communication strategies in Africa and the Middle East.

For more than a decade, he was CEO for Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Orange Business Services, the B2B division of French telecoms giant Orange – a remit that covered more than 80 countries. He was also Middle East Director in the Gulf region for Accenture. So, when Lionel talks to entrepreneurs and startups, he truly has the inside track to success.

Since I brought Lionel in and stepped aside from CEO duties at APO Group in December 2018, it has given me a chance to follow my own passions for helping entrepreneurship in Africa. I’ve spent a lot of time visiting different countries, meeting new people and giving talks on how the media and business worlds can work better together.

I have particularly enjoyed the conferences I’ve hosted for young journalism students in Senegal, Uganda, Zambia and Ethiopia. It is the start of a continent-wide initiative to help promote entrepreneurship to the next generation of young Africans. I’ve tried to challenge their preconceptions and encouraged them to think big. In many of them, I see myself at their age: inquisitive, passionate – perhaps a little naive – but extremely well-placed to achieve entrepreneurial success.

Because now is the perfect time to strike. With a decent idea, a strong journalistic ethos and a little bit of luck, there is no limit to what you can achieve. And Africa might just be the perfect place to do it!

Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard is the founder & Chairman, African Press Organization (APO).

Kelechi Deca

APO Group African Women in Media Award to Recognise Support of Female Journalists for Women’s Entrepreneurship in Africa

July 2, 2019

A USD 2,500 cash prize, an all-expenses paid trip to a prestigious International Women’s Forum, and online courses from one of the most respected international universities

One of Africa’s biggest media group, APO Group, will present its inaugural APO Group African Women in Media Award set to recognize, celebrate and empower African women journalists who support female entrepreneurship in Africa.

The Award will be bestowed to the winner at the 5th Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum’s (AWIEF) Conference, Exhibition and Awards hosted at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), 29-30 October 2019, with the theme ‘Enhancing impact: digitalization, investment, and intra-African trade’.

AWIEF’s prestigious annual event is a platform that sees global thought leaders, industry experts, policymakers, academics, development organizations, and investors gather to dialogue, connect, network, share, collaborate and transact in a combined effort to boost Africa’s entrepreneurship ecosystem for women.

According to Lionel Reina, CEO of APO Group, “We are extremely excited for the opportunity to highlight the work of female journalists sharing the stories of women entrepreneurs in Africa. The APO Group African Women in Media Award is part of our commitment to supporting the development of journalism on the continent. We are delighted to present this award with AWIEF in Cape Town as we celebrate women in journalism and entrepreneurship.”

Entries for APO Group African Women in Media Award must offer valuable insights into African female entrepreneurs while appealing to a global audience.

The award is open to African woman journalists and bloggers, whether directly employed or freelancers, working in the continent of Africa who have produced a story that has been broadcast or published in English, French, Portuguese or Arabic in the form of a printed publication, a television feature, a radio story, a website or a blog whose primary audience is based in Africa.

Stories must have been broadcast or published between 1st January and 15th September 2019.

Stories are judged on content, writing, analysis, creativity, human interest, and community impact.

All stories must be submitted in electronic format:
– Print: upload the scan(s) of the published article;
– Radio: upload the SoundCloud link;
– Website: upload the URL; and/or
– TV: upload the YouTube link.

TV material must first be uploaded to YouTube (www.YouTube.com) and radio material to SoundCloud (SoundCloud.com).

If one is not a member of these sites, one will need to sign up in order to upload the video or radio material. Once one has obtained the link, one must enter it in this online entry form when inputting one’s story details.

The online entry form is available here: http://bit.ly/APOaward

The deadline for entries is 15th September 2019. The finalists will be announced on 1st October 2019 while the winner will be announced on Wednesday, 30 October 2019.

Kelechi Deca

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/Afrikanheroes/

6 Reasons Every Startup Must Read Daily

April 23, 2019

Startups are newly founded companies that are just beginning to develop, just as toddlers need six classes of food to develop strong immune systems so do startups with reading as one of the nutrients required for their necessary growth.

Reading is always attributed to students and academia but rarely attributed to startups. Reading is referred to as one of the basic tools of success in life because it increases your confidence and makes you fit for the tasks ahead. An average startup needs to read at least once a week to survive challenges of life.

The importance of reading cannot be overemphasized especially for the
growth of startups; reading gives startups the wings to fly and necessary techniques to have a soft landing.

An average startup needs to read at least once a week to survive challenges of life.

Often, as easy as reading sounds, it is one of the most difficult tasks to carry out but it becomes quite easy when the reasons for reading are valid and the reasons include:

Constant learning
New Ideas
Business Skills
Global Competition
Inspiration and Motivation
Building Relationships

Constant Learning

Learning is a daily activity that can be achieved through reading. Reading frequently enables startups to learn how to solve problems and think critically in the most dynamic way. Learning via reading helps startups to learn from the experience of others most especially experiences from businesses which have grown from being startups to successful business empires. Reading gives startups blueprints of businesses they aspire to go into.

New Ideas

Reading helps to connect more ideas on what you already know to some ideas on your mind to give birth (bring to reality) new products or services. Reading helps to validate most ideas of startups; many ideas startups develop aside from some original seed ideas give startups abilities to climb the ladder of success and growth speedily.

Business Skills

The ability for startups to open their gates to business is good; the acquiring of business skills and improvement of previous business skills are more important and they can mostly be gotten through reading. The acquisition of these skills increase the longevity of startups.

Global Competition

Given that startups start operating from their local markets, most startups have the vision to operate in the global market and become global competitors.

Startups can do investigations about the feasibility of conquering a foreign market without going over themselves.

Inspiration and Motivation

Starting and running startups daily is not a walk in the park. The trials, difficulties, and mistakes a startup goes through are huge; only a startup that reads daily can overcome.

Reading gives you an insight into what other startups went through and what they are still going through. It inspires startups to wield through the storm and motivates them to do exploits even with their present challenges.

Building Relationships

Hard work, dedication and long hours are good traits in startups but the ability for startups to build and sustain relationships with different human resources that contribute positively to them is key for the survival of any business and this can be achieved through reading.

Reading is wealth. No doubt, different challenges of business could be solved through reading. Constant reading keeps startups steps away from liquidation.

Chisom Okeke

Chisom Okeke, popularly known as “Somly” is a graduate of Accounting from the University of Benin, Benin City. She is a phenomenal writer and an “Agripreneur” whose focus is to change the narrative of the agricultural sector by providing timely agricultural information and opportunities available in the agricultural sector. She is also a virtual assistant and the anchor of Somly Writes. You can connect with her via Social Media, Facebook – Okeke Chisom; Instagram – okeke_somly; Twitter – somly

World Bank Invests $200M to Promote Entrepreneurship Projects in Egypt

April 21, 2019

Small and medium scale businesses in Egypt now have more access to credit, following the World Bank’s commitment of over $200-million to support the next generation of reforms in Egypt aimed at creating more opportunities for young people and women, according to a statement published by the website of the bank.

The project, tagged ‘Catalyzing Entrepreneurship for Job Creation ’ will focus on expanding the amount and access to credit for small and medium enterprises, which have proven to be a major source of growth and job creation in Egypt. The project is also designed to address the major obstacles that young people and women face when launching new businesses.

Targets of the Project:

This project targets women and youth-led businesses, first-time borrowers, and small businesses in less developed regions across Egypt.
It will also fund coaching opportunities for new businesses through the entrepreneurial life cycle to build the necessary skills and capacity for success.
Since Egypt’s financial system is dominated by banks lending primarily to mature businesses, the project aims to channel 145 million dollars mainly through non-bank financial institutions offering loans to small businesses.
The project will also aim to increase the supply of seed, early-stage, and venture capital going to riskier and innovative start-ups and young small and medium enterprises with high potential for growth and job creation.
Most importantly, the project will invest 50 million dollars in privately managed risk capital intermediaries, such as angel funds, accelerators, VC funds, and investment companies.

How To Access The Funds

To be able to access the World Bank funds, an applicant would have to submit a proposal to the World Bank country office in Egypt.
International players are particularly encouraged to apply. The funds will be distributed through a transparent and competitive selection process.
The aim is to leverage the technical capacity and know-how of the private sector in investing these funds.

Related: How International Organisations Are Helping Startups in Africa

The World Bank’s Investment in Egypt So Far

To date the World Bank’s investment in Egypt has created about 300,000 jobs, benefiting approximately 70,000 women and 56,000 youths.
The World Bank has a diverse package of support to Egypt focused on expanding social protection and social inclusion to all citizens, improving competitiveness and infrastructure in less developed parts of Egypt, developing a digital development strategy for the jobs of tomorrow, leveraging private sector investments for infrastructure, and reforms in the education and health sector to help build human capital.
The World Bank currently has a portfolio of 16 projects in Egypt with a total commitment of $6.69 billion.
The new program builds on the success of the ongoing ‘’Promoting Innovation for Inclusive Financial Access’’ project which provides small and medium businesses with access to finance and promotes private sector job creation across Egypt.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organisations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.

Afrikan Heroes

Tag: ENTREPRENEURSHIP