Thursday, April 27, 2017

Important Entrepreneurship Lessons To Take Home From Successful African Entrepreneurs

By Arthur Peterson


Attaining success in business has never been an easy thing. The main ingredients for success, the ones most talked about at least, are good capital and access to a market. However, many other factors that do not often get much attention play contributory roles. Many successful African entrepreneurs played these factors to their favor and excelled while at it.

The continent possesses a lot of untapped potential for economic growth, potential that can be harnessed by those looking for business excellence. Africans who owe their victories in business to this potential, Nigerian internet mogul Jason Njoku and Zimbabwean tech commodore Strive Masiyiwa, have stories that inspire. Some of the traits that appear common in all business success stories are passion, devotion, attentiveness and the all important trait of learning from faults.

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 his interviews with reputable entrepreneurship magazines, he often credits his success to his inborn passion for making people happy. With this passion, he got to learn what building a streaming service requires and the rest is history. These days, the world knows him as a venture capitalist with a keen interest in sponsoring aspiring businesspeople so as to help them attain their dreams.

Commitment, an equally important trait, is exactly what drove Strive Masiyiwa to emerge triumphant. The Zimbabwean launched Econet Wireless, a company whose footprints are felt globally, and now acts as its permanent chairman. As expected of any entrepreneur, an idea that many may have considered inconceivable grew to enviable heights, government resistance notwithstanding. A five year court duel instituted by the government did not dampen his spirit. He spurred on to build a company that is today a haven for any sane investor.

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 founding the thriving consultancy company that is currently in her name, she had a career as a public relations officer in Kenya. She credits her failure to study market trends and what leadership entails as the reason her business took a while to take off. Upon quitting employment, she found out that she lacked the support and corporate structure an employee often has.

She was finally in charge of the running of a business. With her initial oversight behind her, her company transformed into a household name in East Africa and the continent at large. These stories of triumph should spur you to aim for more. If you adhere to the same principles, there is no doubt you will make a name for yourself.




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