The Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network holds the Southern Africa Digital Marketing Award. We managed to put a free business advert that went viral in at least 5 countries at the same time. In under 24 hours we had thousands of people talking about the forum in Lesotho, Botswana, Malawi, Swaziland and South Africa. We wanted to find whether we could promote products beyond our home country. The result was more than we had anticipated setting new records that will be hard to break. Its not everyday that a free advert (non boosted) gets more than 10,000 reactions in under 24 hours! More than 10,000 were to be added in the following days.

So a lot of opportunities exist for young entrepreneurs especially those that are tech savvy. With social media, there is just no limit! You can sell products and services to any part of the world. Below we give you a free Digital Marketing Guide book for free download.

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We have been carrying out a debate on what is more important when starting a business, is it Capital ($s) or Market? Both are very crucial in business and one cannot do without each other. You need both to succeed in business. Both are part of ZBIN’s objectives, access to markets and access to markets.

We reached out to our  Caribbean followers and we feature their responses below:

Kevin Hosein Starting a business… make sure you have a good capital plus extra savings in case of hard times… and always have determination and dont ever think negative when things bad… doh even think about quitting just keep at it and eventually your clientele will increase week by week… Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Kevin Hosein I started selling bbq in June of this year… its divali time now so sales basically dropped to an all time low… but hopefully things will pick up by christmas time.

Tricia Simone Gaspard I can’t speak for others but for me I always step up to hw the country falls. I am a certified chef decorator and planner I am my own boss as soon as I saw a lot of ppl heading to that same path I went to selling safety gears and some hardware stuff. I am now doing a course in electrical and plumbing reason being everyone is building a house. The road and time is not easy when u are ur own boss but it’s worth it at times I hve built a form of friendship with my clients I try to help them if they can’t meet my price and I also respect them. Hw u treat ur customers in no time they spread the word and u build from nothing to something. I hve never taken out a loan because I started my business by the government grants unfortunately de close it down. So yes a capital is needed and clients. I hope u successfully push forward to become the great person u would like to be.

Ramesh Ramadhar To start a business you need money so capital is the most important

Mdala Wa Rue But if u have no market the capital may not be too useful?

Ramesh Ramadhar The first day I opened my retail business I didn’t sell a pin but you need to advertise properly to attract your clients

Andrew Drax Laing it all depends on the business u plan to start

Ravi Chunilal A product for the type of market you are aiming for and the capital to fund the dream

Manju Gulati If the economy is good and market has the buying power

Divya Maharaj Your market is very important. Can’t open a business you like or want having the money and then no customers/clients. Research the market out there and plan out things before making any purchase. Think about everything possible in and around whatever the business. Many people have the capital to start of businesses whether loaned or self financed and the majority fail eventually. Your marketing strategy should be on point when starting. Capital is vital, you can’t have one without the other, having both capital and knowing/having the market goes together. You can’t want to start a business and leave out any aspect of it. Think and plan thoroughly before starting otherwise you might end up facing problems you never thought of. May not apply to all but it does in many ways

Divya Maharaj Persons would say you need money to make money (profit). For some businesses, you need capital to purchase resources, to advertise, to cover unexpected financial pop ups in the process etc. If you offer a service that gets around through word of mouth and you don’t need any extra resources, then that cuts out your capital for marketing and creating your working environment (e.g. building and infrastructure etc). Depending on your business type, you’ll know what you need to get started, once you acknowledge that money is required to purchase stuff, then you know that a capital is needed. You can get capital either through self, loans from bank, loans from different people, etc. You need to know what your business is, what is required and determine your capital. Another saying is, if you want to make “big” money, you need to invest “big”. Hope I was clear enough.

Mdala Wa Rue Yeah u need a thorough knowledge- the ins and outs of your business! It’s amazing to find a huge no of people who venture into business with very little knowledge of what they will be getting into- result? The result is failure!

Divya Maharaj If you don’t need building/office then focus on advertising for your market. To market yourself you will need money. Example, a teacher wants to teach, maybe open a school but doesn’t have the finances. He starts off by having a small job if he can’t get a job, he uses whatever little he has/ or borrow to advertise his service of private tutoring through media or papers, he then makes money and in time would make more than what was used for advertising (capital) and generates that as a profit. Over time he makes up enough to get a bigger loan to put up infrastructure and building this time for a private school. Understand?

Rajesh Boysie Market is the key to selling products or services . you’ll easily lose your capital without a Market

Paul Newon market…