Diaspora Matters

We did share what we believe to be arguably the best advice to entrepreneurs this year—business models that are relevant post Covid-19! It’s your task to search for it on our Facebook Page or risk missing the train.

In our latest newsletter, we also shared the barter trade business models playing out in farming and rural areas. Got a borehole installation company and worried about demand? Rural areas are teeming with farmers with a lot of cattle but little cash. Some have moved in to install boreholes and solar irrigation systems in exchange for cattle which they rear, fatten and sell in urban areas.

We are wired to view rural areas as outposts of poverty but is it?

We covered the business model of supporting entrepreneurs and why this is the fastest growing business model across the continent with studies we carried out across the region.

• What is keeping Siyaso Entrepreneurs busy?
• What is keeping Chinese Factory shops in Joburg busy?
• What used to keep Ecocash busy?
• What is keeping Delta busy?
• What is keeping Seedco busy?
• What is keeping Vet Distributors busy?
• What is keeping network marketers busy?
• What is keeping Musina busy?
• What used to keep Roadport busy?
• What kept ZBIN busy across the region?
• What kept Zvihuta farmers busy?

What is keeping the nation busy is entrepreneurship. There are many unemployed and under employed people with some estimates putting unemployment rates at above 90%. The Covid-19 is adding more numbers each day. The small business sector becomes the biggest in the country with over 10 million people.  The question becomes-how do you structure your business model so that you help support this sector and also boost your business? Selling products directly to the end consumer? Not good enough, include entrepreneurs to make money too and share the proceeds.

Selling luxury cars? Not ideal at the moment—sell money making cars!

We go on to another dimension of entrepreneurship which is fast money making ventures. Do people have enough patience? We can refer to studies on the attention span which has dropped to 7 seconds. The world is spinning at a faster rate and patience is wearing thin.

Which ventures have been trending over the past few years?

Chicken rearing , Miracle monies, Money changing, Ponzi schemes, Soccer betting, Buying and selling, Gold mining, Network marketing, Second hand car selling, Zvihuta, Mshikashikas,  Sack Potato farming, Online forex trading, Bitcoins , Hybrid Paw paws, Hybrid Rabbits and others.

There are fewer takers for gumtree plantations; investment horizons have plummeted to less than a year and in most cases reduced to weeks or even days. Buy and sell forex and earn money in minutes. Give the pastor money and it’s multiplied in an instant? For this reason, all future opportunities now need to factor less investment periods.

Few are patient enough for projects that span longer than 6 months. Farm maize or buy and sell? Rear cattle or chickens?

Why less patience

After spending a lot of time at school and colleges working extremely hard to obtain degree certificates, many are fast realising that patience does not pay as there are no jobs.

The digital era is making everything fast—all spheres of life from business to religion.

The economic challenges have been with us for far too long and add Covid-19 and the situation could not be any worse.

The loss in value of pensions for many leading them to look to entrepreneurship for salvation.

The rise of those who are unscrupulous who show off their ill-gotten wealth on social media.

One for the road

For policy makers including the donor community; if you are not talking about entrepreneurship, then few will listen. If you are a newspaper editor and your newspaper does not cover opportunities then expect the number of readers and adverts to continue sliding southwards.

If you are a church and you do not cover opportunities then expect to be irrelevant in the not too distant future.

For entrepreneurs, the question is does your business model enable others to make money? If not then expect trouble in the coming months.

Lastly most of the money invested by Zimbabweans is flowing towards entrepreneurship—so follow the money!

From the book: 2019 Revised Business Opportunities for Zimbabweans.

‘You learn different things from your grandparents than you do from your parents, and I had the opportunity to spend my summers from ages 4-16 on my grand parents’ ranch in Texas

My grandfather was a civil servant and a teacher—he worked on space technology and missile defence systems in the 1950 and 60s for the Atomic Energy Commission-and he was self reliant and resourceful. When you are in the middle of nowhere, you don’t pick up a phone and call somebody when something breaks. You fix it yourself. As a kid, I got to see him solve many seemingly unsolvable problems himself, whether he was restoring a broken down Catapiller bulldozer or doing his own veterinary work. He taught me that you can take on hard problems.

When you have a setback, you get up and try again. You can event your way to a better place’

Dear Zbinite, these are the words of the richest man on earth—Jeff Bezos the founder & Chief Executive Officer of Amazon at the Anti Trust Hearing this week!

What do we learn from this? Grand parents play an influential role in inspiring our children. Is this new? Not really as we once covered it on the forum. Our revised 2019 book which is available for free on the forum covered this on Chapter 5 on career guidance.

We said grand parents are in a unique position to know the DNA of the family—what is the family good at? Take for instance your paternal grand mum;

She could have been privileged to see your grand great father and mother observing what they excelled at.

She also saw your grandfather as a youngman observing traits passed on from his father.

She saw your father being born, she raised him and could trace DNA from his father and grand father.

She also saw you being born! And could trace the generational DNA from 3 past generations.

If you are fortunate, she could also have witnessed your own children being born!

Now dear forumite, who is the best person in your family to know all about the family DNA?

This is the best resource person and no career guidance expert can do better than her.

Grand mothers used to test the skills of grandkids by giving them tasks such as rearing chickens, planting certain crops and assessing progress.

This is where the concept of ‘Ane ruwoko rwekurima, ane ruwoko rwekuvhima came from’

Talents were tested from an early stage. They did not wait for you to go to school before identifying your talents.

Now here is the interesting part—every kid has talent and in the past they nurtured it. This is why unemployment was nill before the modern educational system came.

Does the school system identify and nurture talent? To some extent yes as students are placed in different classes such Sciences, Commercials and Arts. But students have pressure to study hard in certain fields with the most promising job prospects.

How do you determine the talent of a student with 8 As at Ordinary level? Is it possible that their natural talent could be in Arts but society pushes them to pursue Sciences?

Apart from the schooling system—how does it identify and support entrepreneurship?

We have to go back to basics and revive what has worked and producing excellent results in the past. Grand parents are the first teachers and the first career guidance experts too.

Maximise the time your children can spend with their grand parents– this is beneficial to their future growth. The summers Jeff Bezos spend with his grand father propelled him to where he is. We are sure that the legacy will continue. He should be spending more time with his grand kids too and imparting more information.

They don’t teach this stuff in school and yet it’s the most important aspect of career guidance or even entrepreneurship. When asked about role models—few mention grand parents and instead focus on strangers they never met. Strangers with no knowledge of your family DNAs.

 You too could be a grand parent or will be one in future, the question is what active role are you undertaking so that future generations will be inspired?

Over the weekend one of the trending stories was the extent of fake academic qualifications in the country. This is regrettable as it tarnishes the reputation of the country. Our educational system is revered across the globe for producing top notch graduates who go on to excel in various fields.

The article published over the weekend lifts the lid on a flourishing industry of fake academic qualifications and our forum also discussed the prevalence of the problem. Indeed fake qualifications are being bought with a lot of unscrupulous people benefitting and getting away with it.

This writer once met someone with the same degree, same class but the man never attended the same institution. He was not part of the graduation ceremony either—so where did he get the qualification from?

The traditional approach of qualification verification included approaching universities which would task the registrar departments with verification in their IT systems but fraudsters are creating academic records by hacking the systems or colluding with the registrar departments. So this approach is no longer good enough as its now also prone to corruption.

One of our forum members shared an experience of an accountant who graduated from the University of Zimbabwe, went through articles and then obtained a suspicious MBA during a period when a local college was suspected of selling MBAs for as much as US$3000.

Wary of the tag of a suspicious MBA degree, he later enrolled for another MBA from Masters Degree in Corporate Governance from another local college. In official audit questionnaires, he would cover up for his earlier MBA by writing that he had acquired it from UZ. A bizarre arrangement of pursuing 2 masters degrees instead of pursuing professional accounting studies.

Those that acquire fraudulent qualifications always have a way out—acquiring more qualifications on top to bury down the fake ones. Some even go up to doctorate level and no one will question someone with a legitimately acquired doctorate whether they faked their undergraduate qualifications!

How to solve the problem

Colleges: Internal controls at registry departments should be strengthened and internal audit departments should play an active role in designing systems that minimise the risks of academic fraud. Are academic results databases safe? Do hard copies of graduation lists tally with what is recorded in the databases? Do external audits cover this area? What are the control procedures for verification of results?

Outsiders: The verification results you obtain from colleges could be fake! In future consider asking graduates names of fellow graduates and lecturers and then verify.  Who are the lecturers who taught you? Who else was in your class?

The period at most risk is when the economy started facing challenges from 2003-present. Some have been known to fake professional qualifications but verification is usually easy especially for international bodies.

The academic fraudsters usually perform well as work with some being star performers but they are usually given away by lack of ethics especially making life tough for those who sweat for their academic credentials–they always feel threatened!

Even in-house, some may avoid applying for posts that require interviews and qualifications verifications and prefer growth by promotion. Human resources experts therefore need to regularly check qualifications even for those that would have been in the system for decades.

With our education in the spot light for the wrong reasons, it’s the duty of every stakeholder to flush out academic fraudsters.

We have added a massive 30,000 new members  over the past 3 months to our Facebook Page and our members now stand at 80,000! We welcome you all to this forum. We are registered as a trust with a board of 10 members and a management team of 40. Our offices located at No 34 Quendon Road, Monavale, Harare.

Purpose of forum: Provide small businesses with a platform for resource sharing, networking access to capital and markets

Access to resources: There are thousands of inspirational posts on our Facebook page, over 700 free articles on our website www.zbinworld.com , active business discussions on our more than 50 Whatsapp groups and we also published 5 books.

Access to capital: We pool resources through Crowdfunding initiatives and to date there are 4 registered companies owned by members.

Access to markets: We allow our members to advertise on Facebook 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Look out for consolidated posts that attract an average of 18,000 views or 600,000 views per month. Our Whatsapp platforms also provide a great platform for access to markets. The bonus is the forum is growing at a rate of 300 new members per day—so bigger market for members.

Networking: Before the Covid-19 lockdown, we had started holding monthly meetings attracting more than 200 members. We hope to tap into Zoom facilities and hold monthly fairs to network members starting from August 2020.

Member Expectations

Active participation on forum posts: Share your entrepreneurial experiences, inspire the next person.

Buy from the forum: Do not just use the forum for dumping ads, support others too and grow the forum. The spirit of support on the forum is extremely high.

No spamming: Posting the same ad over and over on our Whatsapp platform is a NO! Our admins will self quarantine you.

No Ponzi schemes: Post ponzi, phishing links or commit fraud and you are automatically out.

Politics: It is a divisive topic especially in Zimbabwe. Avoid political posts as not everyone shares the same view with  you. If the urge to discuss politics is too strong for you, our ZBIN Social App group is a great platform and in there the members are evenly balanced. Those who support Political Perspective X and those for Y. Whatever you support has an equal number of those who oppose it. Outside the ZBIN Social, its advised to avoid this topic.

Diaspora Friendly: We are diaspora friendly and have a good number of diasporans participating in our programmes. Our board is made up of 50% diasporans and we regularly write posts to keep the diaspora clued up on business developments on the ground.

Subscribed Members: They keep the forum running through yearly subs, they have preferential treatment for ads as well as access to our yearly books. They have a separate forum and  are the first to benefit from forum initiatives.

 So enjoy your stay, be visible, promote your brand, support others too. Keep your prices reasonable and deliver what you promise. The Facebook admin team tries their level best to share as much information as possible and is made up of a Digital Marketer (Darlington Letala), Social Entrepreneur ( Kevin Farai Moyo), Lawyer ( Taffy Dube) and Accountants ( James Foster & Chenjerai Takawira). The Whatsapp platforms have Catherine Shava, Theresa Sithole ably supported by a team of 40 admins.

Zim Business Ideas and Network

One of the common reasons why businesses fail is due to venturing into business ventures without carrying out market surveys. More than 95% of start-ups in the country simply deep dive into projects without scientific evidence of the existence of a market.

In most cases, entrepreneurs base investment decisions based on what is trending.What are other people doing? Ndezvipi zvirikupa mari? Are Covid-19 masks the in thing? Then plunge in without enough information.

So why do entrepreneurs avoid detailed market researches?

Little appreciation of the concept and associated benefits

Generally considered an expensive process

No developed SME Experts industry, so few market researchers available

To those knowledgeable-the process can be time consuming

Lets take you back to a few years—do you still remember the sack potato which once took the country by storm? How many people got burnt?

Market researches should have pointed out the grey area of wild animals and related legal restrictions. Of course pointing this out when many people are venturing and benefiting is a futile exercise.  

In this article, we hope to assist you with conducting market researches on your own but our advice is always for you to get experts advice.

Market Existence: Is there a market for the products or services you intend to bring to the market? Is there a gap sufficient enough for you to invest funds and get a reasonable return? If there is no market, then you better hold on to your resources.

Size of the market: If for instance you have established that there is a market, what is the size of the market? This is where you need scientific evidence rather than guess work. You need a helicopter view of the whole industry. For instance The Herald reports today(24 July 2020) that Zimbabwe has a housing backlog of 1.4 million people and it will take between 15-20 years to clear the backlog. If it is agriculture, then responsible ministries such in charge of agriculture publishes regularly information on market sizes and gaps-Output forecasts and actual figures. The donor community also chips in with estimates. ZIMTRADE helps with foreign markets market researches.

So we have an overview of market sizes on a national level but this is not enough—you need to zero  in on your area of interest. For instance the supply of soap to Ruwa or Norton. How many people live in your area?

What are the changes in the market? Business going online or new suburbs being built? New shops coming up?

Active Market Players Analysis : In your area, who are the active suppliers? In the case of Ruwa, we may find that many people buy soap from local shops—Spar and TM and other tuckshops. Are they meeting the demand? Are customers satisfied with their products—quality, prices and other conveniences. Is there a gap to supply own soap? For instance if a bar of soap is being sold for US$1—can you also manufacture and sell at the same price or even lower?

What are the changes in terms of economic environment? Disposable income changes and preference for lower priced products? Can you tap into online business opportunities? For those used to buy from the CBD, how does the lockdown restrictions affect buying behaviour?

Conducting the research

There are key stakeholders involved in conducting a market research and they are;

The buyers: You need input from the people who will buy your products and this process is no stroll in the park. Your sample size should be big enough for instance if a suburb has 100,000, then reaching out to 10 people is not good enough but a few hundreds can help but this can be an expensive process. Solicit their feedback, what are their pain points in buying existing products? Can they buy your products? Having samples of the products can help. Document information collected.

The suppliers: Who are the key suppliers in your industry? You may obtain crucial information of prices, availability of products and changes in their business. Document information collected.

The competitors: Who are the major competitors in the industry? What are their business models? Are they expanding or contracting? What are the challenges they are facing and how are they dealing with them? What is the level of competition in the industry? Document key insights for decision making.

Regulatory agencies: What are the regulatory forces in the country? For instance price controls? We witnessed the ban of kombis—what were the public statements issued in the run up to the ban? What are the priorities of the government? Is your business legal? What anticipated legal challenges can come your way? Refer to our VUCAH Skills articles.Just like the quail birds, you risk investing into a project that can later one be banned and adversely impacting your operations. Highly unlikely to have an opportunity to interview regulatory agencies so your source of information likely to be search engines and general knowledge.

Boots on the ground approach

Unfortunately you cannot conduct researches without getting your feet on the ground. You need time on the ground observing events or carrying our researches. Structure your research so that you have desktop work as well as on the ground. Engage student interns in cases where you cannot afford to engage market research consultants.

Report Compilation and Review

If you were actively involved in your market research, then you are going to need a different pair of eyes for review. It’s difficult to critique a document you would have been involved in drafting. You need someone who will review the adequacy of your report –the independent eye that picks out grey areas you missed out and provide an objective and balanced assessment.

Launching your product

Often times, start-ups prepare projections that span more than 6 months but is this realistic given the dynamic nature of the environment?

Instead of investing all of your funds based on market research evidence—rather choose to test the market with a few product samples for learning purposes. Investing funds for learning purposes? It’s a tough decision as this means resources usage but its important rather than proceeding full throttle. Read more about the lean method.

On a parting shot, this information is just elementary stuff but gives you an overview of how to carry out your own market research. This is an area largely ignored by many start-ups! Even those who can afford to engage experts choose not to but with disastrous consequences!

Do watch out for examples of market researches for our subscribed members.

One of the trending news is that of the smuggling of bodies from South Africa with most of them suspected to be of victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. The clearance of the bodies of Zimbabweans who die in South Africa is unnecessarily cumbersome. The processes required do not take into account that some citizens would have skipped the border without proper documentation and this affects thousands of people dotted across the Rainbow Nation.

Immigration officials take advantage of the situation and demand thousands of dollars to process papers or even turn a blind eye to body smuggling.

Whilst this has worked in the past without serious health repercussions recorded, the Covid-19 pandemic is a totally different period. Smuggling of bodies risks the health of immigration officials, authorities that check vehicles and the drivers.

With some of the bodies sharing space with groceries—there is even more risk for those receiving the goods being imported from South Africa. Most recipients will be oblivious to the condition of the transportation of the goods.

As South Africa heads for the peak of the novel pandemic, it’s inevitable that our daughters and sons of the soil will be affected. Even as SA records statistics of infections and deaths, they should inform respective governments of the victims where feasible so that repatriation can be facilitated in an efficient and effective manner.

How is the South African government dealing with foreigners succumbing to the pandemic? They should have easily available guidance of who to contact and the sort of assistance they can provide.

How is Zimbabwe also handling the issue of citizens succumbing to the Covid-19 pandemic on foreign soil especially South Africa? How is the country dealing with bodies properly processed and cleared and those smuggled?

The Covid -19 task forces in both countries should engage each other especially at government level as this has the potential of posing serious health risks for a lot of direct and third parties. Our borders risk becoming epicentres of the Covid-19.

Why is repatriation expensive? Why is the repatriation process information not easily available to the public? How can our responsible governments come in and solve the bottlenecks?

Business opportunities information is hard to come by as noone is willing to reveal their secrets of how they are making money! The information is a closely guarded treasure and for good reason. However inorder to help inspire many entrepreneurs, our forum has focused on researching and giving you the scarce opportunities information. It is no easy feat as it involves a lot of hard work in researches and analysis of opportunities. Sometime it involves even undertaking tours to regional countries and then compiling opportunities uncovered.

Consider yourself fortunate to bump into our short book that covers 5 chapters. The full book has 11 chapters but the 5 free chapters will go a long way into giving you an insight into opportunities in the country. Our site has a lot of visitors from other countries too and we believe some of the information covered applies to your countries too.

There is so much to learn from the music scene by entrepreneurs. When it comes to stiff competition then look at the FCMG sector ( Fast Moving Consumer Goods)—your OK, TM, Spars etc. We used to have kombis too and who still remembers kombis stopping in the middle of the road blocking traffic in order to pick passengers? We hope when they return-they will be disciplined.

The music scene is one hell of a tough industry—talent is not enough! Getting regular airplay an impossible feat as more than a million songs are recorded each year and yet we have a few radio stations. For new artists, most of their recordings never get airplay.

Enter Van Choga;

A weirdo artist who rose to prominence during the lockdown—I wasn’t impressed when I bumped into his videos—perhaps passage of time. More comfortable with more mature music….Thomas Mapfumo, Tobias Areketa, Ndolwane Super Sounds, Mokis Connection, Bhundu Boys etc

But in my youth we once had a weirdo song from Papa San-look for the song ‘I cant take it nomore’It is a dancehall song from the 90s that rocked the airwaves. In Kenya they have an artist Victor Ongengo-check out for his song Amani. Van Choga is cut from the same cloth.

The Ruwa based artist got signed by Seh Calaz, a leading Zimdancehall artist who recorded and promoted his early works and it paid dividends with the release of his first album.

We expected more collaborations from his mentor but fate had other ideas. Immediately after releasing his album, the 2 parted ways attracting the ire of music followers who thought Van Choga was in ingrate who had cut the hand that feedeth!

Everyone expected doom for Van Choga who had joined a new team.

A few weeks after the acrimonious exit, Choga collaborated with a rising hip hop artist from Ghana called Ay Poyoo and they detonated a bomb! Expect their hit to be a party anthem in the coming weeks with young ones dancing to the fancy beat and lyrics. In 2 days the song has attracted more than 112,000 views.

He becomes the first Zimbabwean to collaborate with a Ghanaian musician….something established musicians failed to do, even his previous mentor never crossed the borders!

From an unknown musician a few weeks ago, Van Choga is now trending in 2 countries. Now this is what we call scale up on steroids!

In your business, are you operating alone? You may need a team that thinks in other terms like the new Van Choga team.

Horticulture is one of the most lucrative fields in Zimbabwe but can be challenging for most new entrants. In this article we explore some of the most common mistakes which you need to be aware of;

1. Poor site selection: Badly drained soils– soils in the selected site should be free draining to 1.5m depth. Gravelly soils: The more stones /pebbles present the smaller is the water holding capacity of soil. Too close to trees or buildings or too steep a slope with excess run off of irrigation water? This can affect the yield of your crops.

2. Poor choice of variety for the market, time of the year, day length, and area. Lack of proper crop planning.

3. Poor soil preparation: The soil must be porous, aggregated, oxygenated to a depth of 0.5M for top yields. See Charter Seeds soil preparation technique to convert badly compacted soil into an excellent tilth in a matter of weeks.

4. Badly planned rotations: Subsequent crops must not be in the same family or group of plants.

5. Inadequate isolation distances between crops.

6. Temperatures and humidity levels are very important for many crops especially in greenhouses. The most frequent fault seen in greenhouses is lack of temperature control.

7. Poor Irrigation: Too much water in winter – especially March – April in Zimbabwe. Too little water in summer – especially September – October. Affects both the nursery and the field. Often the case with drip irrigation which is not really understood by many farmers. If you have a white efflorescence of salt on the surface of the soil it is likely you will be under watering. Examination of the soil will show the subsoil is dry.

8. Poor seedlings: A good well prepared, well hardened seedling is the foundation of a good crop and vice versa. Not too large or not too small and no excess leaf. Must be of the right size, 12-15cm tall, with strong, sturdy stems to prevent post planting shock, and a good root structure. The plugs must hold enough water to carry the seedling in the time before it starts to use soil water. Seedlings of cucurbits for instance need a larger volume of medium than seedlings with a smaller leaf area like cabbages and tomatoes. Use sleeves for cucurbit seedlings, especially watermelons and cucumbers.

9. Poor fertilization: Fertilize according to soil analysis taking both nutrient intensity and nutrient capacity into account. The fertilizer must be carefully placed in the soil so that it coincides with root development at critical periods of growth like vegetative growth, flowering and fruit development. Know your variety so that in a well prepared soil you know where the roots will be in the soil at a given time.

10. Poor planting. Water plant into a soil at field capacity. Never plant into dry soil. Make sure the seedling is full of water when transplanting. Water the night before pulling. Shade cucurbit seedlings after transplanting to minimize water loss.

11. Badly planned pest and disease control. Before the crop is planted have a spraying program planned based on previous experience. Start spraying before the problem occurs and rotate chemicals to prevent a build- up of resistance and stick to your planned program.

 Finally, horticulture is a business: Inputs must be governed by the likely gross return – but the more you put in the more you will get out.In modern horticulture absolute attention to detail is necessary in all aspects of production to make use of the factors incorporated into modern vegetable varieties.

All Credit: Charter seeds, distributors of Stark Ayres in Zimbabwe.

Emmanuel is a qualified Agronomist and development practitionerwith more than a decade’s experience working in the agri-business industry and development sector. You can contact him on edndsep@gmail.com or whatsapp on 0783495396

Brilliant business plans, a lot of enthusiasm, you have attended many seminars, followed role models, read plenty of books and you have mastered the basics—you look forward to launching a successful business project. Good luck to you, thorough researches done—you can do it!

In soccer the coaches would also have followed the same approach. A lot of practice, watched videos of competitors, done self analysis—got psychologists to psyche you up. Confidence full to the brim—bring it on!

Come match day, you enter the pitch and as soon as the referee whistle goes off, its game on!

Then you find the conditions totally different from what you had been taught and practised for.You concede many goals than targeted, you make life difficult for you in the second half. How can you reverse the 4-0 score line?

In entrepreneurship, you learn that the economic environment is not as predicted. New statutory instruments come from nowhere, Covid-19 comes, inflation conspires to make your life difficult. All the business plans and researches rendered useless.

Meanwhile you have sunk a lot of capital into your project, some employees involved in fraudulent activities, some debtors not paying up, currency changes and money stuck in banks or Ecocash banned.

Hold on, all of these events did not appear in your business plans! Like in soccer, you have a 4-0 loss and you are considering quitting to save the little capital that still exist.

Welcome to the second half

Your coach has been studying the opponents, their strengths and weaknesses. Analysing too your own performance vs the opponents and coming up with a remedial plan to overturn the first half losses and record a draw or a win!

For entrepreneurs, there is no coach who was observing your performance and if you do not pause and self reflect then you are headed in the familiar direction travelled by 95% of entrepreneurs—doom!

In soccer teams that finish last get relegated and we can track all the teams that got relegated across the world. The statistics are easy to get…

In the Zimbabwean context, statistics are hard to come by and the absence of the statistics mean thousands to millions of people keep falling into the same trap.

Even when we follow popular entrepreneurs in the country. We only read of successful case studies but how they made losses in the first half and then miraculously survived in the second half to win the match is classified information!

Some of the first half experiences are so embarrassing that many are not comfortable to share them. The education system taught us to be proud of success and be embarrassed by failures and this extends to the business sector.

How to survive the second half

• Complete the match, do not flee due to adverse performance in the first half.
• Bruised, beaten, angry—seek half time expertise. Those who have played the match before—seasoned coaches. They will assist to point areas of weakness and strengths. They will analyse the industry too and other contributing factors. Together you will come up with a plan that also involves working on your deflated ego.
• Draft a second half business plan: Chances of your first business plan failing are more than 90% especially for first timers. Yes its well researched, Yes the same business plan has worked perfectly well for others but that business plan is bound to fail in spectacular fashion too.
• It’s a team sport: Serena Williams only has a team of experts behind her but she performs on the tennis court alone against competitors. Entrepreneurship is a team effort and not golf, boxing, motorsport or chess. You need a team for various roles (Financial Management, Strategic Management, Marketing, Risk Management, Business Management and more)
• The founder can have the passion to succeed but recruiting a competent team that shares the same vision is an almost impossible task in the Zimbabwean context. Refer to those who have operated kombis where in most cases the drivers and assistants have their own selfish objectives. How do you recruit and work with a team that is interested in starting their own businesses using your resources? Your business plan is not going to adequately cover this agency problem—you will have to experience it to appreciate the complexities. The biggest risk is seasoned employees working for a first timer!
• Don’t invest 100% capital in the first half instead craft your business plan such that its creates more cashflows for reinvestment and therefore adding up to your initial targeted capital. Do not invest too much when you entrepreneurship resume is at zero. This is akin to a coach using all substitute players in the first half.
• Success is anchored on experience (80% negative) and (20% positive). You know where you have lost money and how and you avoid making similar mistakes. You now know of events that lead to a statutory instrument being formulated and introduced. You know the type of employees to avoid, your own weaknesses and strengths too.

How about people who are employed and they resign or are retrenched and enter the entrepreneurship sector? You may have been a CEO or Director with a lot of perks and associated prestige and society expects you to continue living at the same level. You cannot all of a sudden be seen getting your hands dirty working at Siyaso.

Unfortunately entrepreneurship starts from the bottom, if you are entering the mealie meal production then you need experience of being a mugaisi. If you own trucks, then you need to sometimes drive the trucks. Starting a soap making business? Then you need to know how to make the soaps yourself. Because of self esteem, employed professionals just want to transfer their positions to the entrepreneurship sector with disastrous consequences.

Once those below you know that the founder knows very little about the nitty gritties, then they will craft strategies to start their own companies within your company.

So get experience—negative and positive and win the match in the second half.