Zimbabwe’s richest man, Strive Masiyiwa just announced his company, Econet Wireless of Zimbabwe would be spearheading the first IPO for the largest telecom company in Botswana, Mascom. This is after it acquired 60% of Mascom’s stocks, in what was a landmark deal for the businessman.

It does not seem any other African businessmen have been able to complete this feat, owning two largest telecom companies in two different countries at the same time. While focus is mostly pinned on Masiyiwa whenever he makes his next big moves, little attention goes to the other side of a man who would not have amounted to much in life. Here, we focus on a few things you may not have previously known about the man.

The Environment Shapes How People’s Stories End, Even More Powerful When People Choose How They Allow The Environment To Influence Them

Strive could not understand why a war against the British should not be the most important point to make in his young life. That is, he could easily find the weapons and sign up for Zimbabwe’s guerrilla war for independence, barely a few years after coming back to Zimbabwe from Kitwe, Zambia where his family had gone, in 1968, to find life in a local copper mining factory. The war could have meant one thing, for certain: Zimbabwe’s Independence, which still came, after all. And Strive could have been killed, fighting for a cause, which has already been won. But then his environment meant he had to take a different course, in two significant ways:

1. The Irony of Racism: 

In Zambia where his parents had fled to when he was barely four, following a series of local war (one for independence and another against the rule of the white minority over the black majority) that broke out in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Little Strive’s family shared a fence with some Scottish neighbors. He would, perhaps, occasionally stick his face over the Scottish’s fence in playfulness. This brought Strive’s family closer to their Scottish neighbors, and this would later see Strive enrolling in a boarding school in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Related: Zimbabwe’s Richest Man Takes Botswana’s Largest Telecom Operator Out On First IPO

2. Information is Power

And now to the war, which Strive did not end up fighting because there was no need for it. A Zimbabwean freedom fighter gave him some encouraging words that Zimbabwe was almost, almost an independent country and that the country did not need more soldiers, but people who would help rebuild the country. The advice seemed a deep one because Strive had to abandon the glory of fighting in a war and secured a scholarship for further studies in Wales. He returned in 1984, four years after Zimbabwe’s Independence, a qualified electrical and electronics engineer.

Entrepreneurs Who Can Take Risk and Break The First Entry Barrier Have A Higher Chance of Succeeding

Mr. Strive Masiyiwa’s first venture into business would be in 1988, when at the age of 27, he quit Posts and Telecommunications Corporation of Zimbabwe –Zimbabwe’s state-owned telecom company–after rising through the ranks to become Principal Engineer at the Corporation. He quit because he felt muffled by the bureaucracy of the institution, and a construction business, Retrofit Engineering, which he started with a 75-dollar-loan, was what he was willing to accept. His strategy was to invade the electrical and construction engineering businesses in Zimbabwe on time, win major contracts and become the best in the country within the shortest time possible. Retrofit Engineering did just that, and in time. The company once ranked one of the top in Zimbabwe.

Nothing was heard of an African continent with many telephones in the 1990’s. Mr. Strive went after Dr. Nkosana Moyo, the then CEO of Standard Merchant Bank. Masiyiwa, who proceeded to sanction the largest loan his bank had ever made –Zim$120 million (approximately US$40 million) for him to a launch his way into the telecommunication industry.

Again, the idea was to get key allies from the government-controlled PTC to launch a mobile telecom company that will make cellphone networks available to all Zimbabweans. The Partnership would see the PTC owning a majority of the stakes in the new company. PTC unfortunately rejected the joint venture proposal, claiming no demand for it existed. With this, Masiyiwa went out alone.

Mr. Masiyiwa wrote of his decision to start Econet:

“You must be honest in assessing your own capability, as well as weaknesses”… When I started Econet in 1993, I had already been in business for six years. I was running a successful engineering construction company, then I had this brilliant idea after learning about a new technology called GSM…

Every day after hours, I would read sometimes until 3am, doing research on this new industry. There was no Internet at the time so I could not do a “Google search”. I also travelled to trade shows to learn more. I was convinced this was the future.

Expect The Government to Lash Its Big Whip Once It Is A Big Hairy Goal

Telecommunication in Africa until recent deregulation of the sector has seen governments battling to save their faces, in efforts to hold onto the sector and monopolize it to raise revenue, even when they are proving incompetent. They came after Mr. Masiyiwa, through the PTC, which was Zimbabwe’s body responsible for granting new licenses to new cellular companies, blocking him from acquiring a licence to operate a telecom company in Zimbabwe. Mr. Masiyiwa filed a suit against the refusal in 1994, and as expected, the country’s High Court ruled against him.

Defeated but not destroyed, he further appealed the judgement in the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, and in a landmark judgement, after a legal battle that dragged on for five years, he won! The court ruled that anybody could be granted a license to operate a mobile telecom service in Zimbabwe, provided they fulfilled the requirements of the law. The implications of the judgement meant that today:

• There is no longer government monopoly in telecommunications in Zimbabwe.
• Strive Masiyiwa could own Econet Wireless, Zimbabwe, proving the Zimbabwean state-owned PTC wrong, and shutting them out of business.
• Econet Wireless is the leading mobile Telecoms Company in Zimbabwe, with over 1.7 million users and operations in up to 15 countries.
• Econet introduced the country to the mobile banking system and according to Masiyiwa, it took only 18 months before its networks began to handle some 20 percent of Zimbabwe’s GDP.

Further government whips would come later in 2002, when Masiyiwa himself had to flee Zimbabwe for South Africa when government’s attacks on him became overwhelming. The government was still groaning for the loss of its right to monopoly in the Zimbabwean telecom sector.

More government whips came in 2014 when the Zimbabwean government threw all of Econet Wireless’ executives and directors behind bars for gross misconduct. Mr. Strive was fortunate to be away in Singapore. The company’s stocks headed for an all-time low, until their release.

Mr. Strive Masiyiwa Once Admitted A Co-Founder Helped Him In His First Years of Business.

“Yes, I had six years of experience. Yes, I had 700 employees in my existing business, and had already won both “Businessman of The Year,” and “Industrialist of the Year” awards (the country’s highest awards for business), but I knew, listening to the advisors, that I did not have the capability, YET, to raise this kind of money.

I approached the only banker I knew with this type of international exposure. He worked for one of the international banks. I was excited when my research showed me he had a degree in physics. That is how detailed I was in my research!

I made a very technical pitch to him, and he was excited.

“We will act as your advisors,” he agreed.

They were not cheap, but I knew it would add to my credibility, so I signed their mandate.”

“Then I heard that there was a banker who had just returned to the country and was looking to start his own bank…,” he said in a long Facebook post on his Facebook Page that has more than 3.7 million followers. “(This reminds me of a conversation I heard between PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on one of his “Masters of Scale” podcasts. I really urge you to look up!)

This is what I said to Jeff Mzwimbi:

“Come and work with me for a few years. I will teach you how to be an entrepreneur, and you can teach me how to raise Project Finance.”

“I don’t really want to work for someone,” he protested.

“It’s not a job. You can be my partner,” I said. “Free equity, 10%. You can leave as soon as the business is up and running.”

Initially, he agreed to come as my advisor to meetings with the banks. But after a few weeks, he was hooked!

Soon he took over all discussions with banks and financing partners. I returned to being an engineer, and Chief Entrepreneur!

We would be together for several years, and true to our agreement, when the company listed in 1998, he left to go and start his own business. I headed to South Africa for the next stage in my journey: Continental expansion!

Lessons:

Notice how I addressed the problem of raising capital: I focused on getting knowledge. My own capability was being the “ideas guy” who had an engineering background. But I had a weakness: I did not know how to raise the kind of money needed to build a business.

How about you?

What weaknesses do you have that needs to be addressed before you can move to the next level, and what are you willing to pay to deal with it?

Despite his extraordinary genius, Bill Gates needed co-founder Paul Allen and CEO Steve Balmer; Mark Zuckerberg needed COO Sheryl Sandberg; Larry Page needed co-founder Sergey Brin, and soon they both realized they needed CEO Eric Schmidt. The list is endless!

They are called “co-founders”! Some venture capital investors will not even consider investing in you, if they don’t see your co-founder. The co-founder is there to take risk with you, share your vision and also to plug a gap in one of the 3Ps! The best co-founder is not an employee, but an entrepreneur themselves.

Sometimes they are looking to launch their own ventures but also recognize their own weaknesses which can only be solved by becoming someone else’s co-founder.

Some of you are trying to find some big company or established Big Man, when what you need right now is a co-founder!!

Let me close with this secret:

Some of you have been on this platform for as long as five years. By now you should already have used this platform to reach out to potential co-founders of your venture.”

Expansion Helped Econet to Survive

 Econet Wireless Group, a vision of Masiyiwa has today holdings and investments in the U.K, China, South America, UAE, Europe, and Africa as well as assets in the U.S and New Zealand.

Masiyiwa has also expanded his vision to Burundi, Lesotho, Rwanda, Botswana, Nigeria, and South Africa. He has also launched the Liquid Telecom, a fibre-optic/satellite service company, a privately-held telecom company which is today one of Africa’s leading satellite and fibre-optic companies.

“Several weeks ago, I attended one of the most important business conferences that take place anywhere in the world. It is the only place I know where you have investors in the room who collectively manage more than $22Tn. That is more than the GDP (2017) of the United States ($19,39 Tn), and almost twice that of China ($12.24Tn).

This serves to remind you that, contrary to what many believe, the largest amount of money in the world is not in the hands of governments, but in the hands of the private sector! The guy who founded this conference is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, Michael Milken of the Milken Institute. For the global entrepreneurs, this forum is bigger than Davos.”

Mr. Strive Masiyiwa is a symbol of hope for entrepreneurs in an aggressively oppressive regime.

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.