To Be or Not to Be—Reflections on Entrepreneurship

“Do you wanna be a well-fed slave or a hungry free-man?” This is a question that has intrigued me ever since I first heard it back in 1996 in Lucky Dube’s ‘Well Fed Slave – Hungry Free Man’ track on his Taxman album. How would you answer that question? Even though ‘food’ in this context may refer to all the basic necessities that one needs to live, guaranteed real food is very much appreciated. If in Ghana the average household spends about 52% of its total income on food alone, then this is something to cherish. As a Ga (an ethnic group in Ghana) adage literally goes, “You need a filled stomach to blow a trumpet”. Hence, many would prefer to be slaves and even ill-treated; provided their daily bread is assured.

On the other hand, the one that opts to be free goes hungry. In that hungry state where the intestines in your stomach are rubbing against each other, causing friction, how could you think straight?

Hence, that question is very puzzling, to say the least, and one has to weigh matters carefully before he makes a decision.

To Be Employed or Start a Business?

We can comfortably apply this to the dilemma of either seeking employment or starting your own business—to be an entrepreneur or not to be. If you are employed, your time and energy are all regulated by your employer—They determine for you when to wake up, when to eat, when to return home, how much quality time you make for family and friends, your financial status, even your mood and health! However, at least, at the end of the month, you have a salary—well-fed slave. Thus would you not rather prefer to have a guaranteed pay-cheque every month—all other things being equal—than run your own business and go without a pay-cheque, sometimes for months?

Conversely, as an entrepreneur, you are challenged to put your brain to work (certainly, I do no mean that all employees do not get to put their brain to work. In this context, I mean the challenge to be continuously creative and innovative). You also determine where to invest your time and energy, what business ideas to pursue and a wide latitude of other freedoms. However, you have to start on a modest note and sometimes you do not see the face of a cheque for months—a hungry free-man.

So which one would you choose—to be a well-fed slave or to be a hungry free-man?

The Choice

It is a fact that there are many who are currently employed and would love to have their own business in order to take control of their lives but are scared of the risk involved. Similarly, there are those who have finished school and looked for a job for years but cannot find one and so would like to own a business. But their problem is What business? Yet, others who have answered that question say “I really wanna go into business. But I don’t have the capital to start it”. What can these do?

To be sure, running your own business is better than being employed, if you asked me. Apart from the freedom that it gives you, you are regularly challenged to be innovative in order to find solutions to otherwise perplexing challenges. What is more, you get your money working for you, rather than you working for your money. Hence, I would opt for being a hungry free-man. After all, the hungry free-man has the potential of making some well-fed slaves for himself but not the other way round. But I do not know about you.

In this piece, we will be looking at what entrepreneurship means and how you can become successful as an entrepreneur, irrespective of daunting challenges.

What Entrepreneurship Means

Entrepreneurship is the creation of a new business in the face of risk and uncertainty for the purpose of achieving profit and growth by identifying significant opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalise on them.

The foregoing definition identifies certain ingredients that characterize entrepreneurship: 1) creation of a new business, 2) the ability to take risks and face uncertainties and 3) assembling resources to exploit those opportunities. Is it daunting? It may seem so. But do not worry, you can do it! Let us see how.

The creation of a new business emanates basically from creativity and innovation.

Creativity is the ability to develop new ideas and to discover new ways of looking at problems and opportunities. How can you do that? Talk, talk, talk to people. Or better still, converse with them. As you do so, ask leading questions that would illicit long responses and pay rapt attention. Also, listen to the news and good talk-show programmes. As you do so, you will come to know what challenges people are facing. And that might just give you a new business idea.

Also, there are so many happenings in life/society that we see as problems. But the entrepreneur’s demeanour is guided by the well-known adage; ‘Every misfortune is a blessing in disguise’. Thus while others are lamenting over a happening or condition or whatever, the entrepreneur is interested in how he can turn those concerns into business ideas through which he can help society solve those problems; and voi-la, he has got it!

Yet the most important source of business ideas is yourself—things you enjoy doing best, your talents! In fact, if your business idea emanates from your hobby, you do it best and without hassle since you enjoy doing it. And no one can replicate what you do perfectly since it is from within you. For example, for you Reggae music lovers, take Bob Marley. That man just loved music and doing music. And he invested his every thing into it. Mind you, it was not for the money, but for what he believed he had for society. The result is that no one can ever play music the exact way he did it; no matter how hard they try to imitate him–not even his own kids! No wonder after many decades since he died music that he made in the sixties and seventies are still revered. And issues that he raised are still largely relevant. We can say similarly for Michael Jackson. Like him or hate him. But no matter how anyone can sing and dance like him, no one can come up with the same creativity and  finesse in his singing, his dance moves and all—not even Ussher. And this equally applies to the Michael Jordans, the Messis, the Stephen “Tornado” Appiahs and so on. Hence, in going into business, if really you are original and come up with an idea that is original, you need not worry about competition. And as you do what you love to do so well, not for the money per se but for the love of it, the reward—profit—will come as a matter of course.

Innovation on the other hand is the ability to apply creative solutions to problems and opportunities to enhance and to enrich people’s lives. The latter part of the definition of innovation here implies that a sincere interest in people–their problems and how to solve these–gives birth to business solutions or innovation.

“Necessity”, they say, “is the mother of invention”. Thus as you genuinely and altruistically seek-out ways of meeting a human need, you will definitely come up with a solution if you believe that “To every problem there is a solution”. And that becomes an innovation that eventually puts food on, not just your own table, but others’ as well! The following is one practical example:

Mr. Millah needed to send some money urgently for his sick mother to be attended to in the Northern Region of Ghana. Efforts to get this done yielded no positive result. Eventually, he had to leave everything behind and trek up to the North to get this done. While on this journey, he conceived the Instant Money Transfer (IMT) idea (now defunct). And that became the first ever domestic money transfer service in, not only Ghana, but Africa! You can call the idea a ‘bomb’. But that was how it started. Hence, according to him, the solutions to our problems are right in front of us; under our noses! But we do not see them. Why? Because we opt to look too far ahead of us. And over there, the only thing you can see is a mirage. So, henceforth, just look around you carefully and you will see that business solution that will benefit both you and society at large.

The Risks

All said and done, entrepreneurship involves enormous risks, opportunity costs and challenges which the entrepreneur should be ready to countenance. The risks include the possibility of failure which might lead to the loss of investments in terms of money and time spent. The opportunity cost of foregoing a less hassle life-style while earning a regular income can also be quite significant. Couple these with possible discouraging remarks/reactions from family, relations and others and the task would be daunting. But should these negativities shut your eyes to reaching your peak? Not necessarily.

Talking of risks, if the Wright brothers had not taken the risk to design and fly an airplane, would they have succeeded? And would we have been benefited by having this, arguably, safest means of transportation? Well, the fact is, risks are around us all the time anyway. Only they vary in degrees. And what might be risky to someone else may be normal to you. What makes the difference? Your positive out-look and pragmatic risk management skills. And these you can acquire!

Regarding disparaging comments, let them rather serve as a catalyst—the will to prove the skeptics wrong. Yet you have to be balanced in doing so, else you ignore some warning signals that can equally be beneficial to you. The point is this: While you do not allow negative comments to adversely affect you, do not disregard everything that you are told. Since those who say them are equally intelligent human beings, there must be something you can learn from what they say. Use some of those negative comments as guideposts in managing risks rather than running away from them. However, do not hesitate to chuck out of the window those that are irrelevant.

Further, the definition of innovation requires that the entrepreneur be able to assemble the resources needed to achieve his business goal. These resources are both human and material. Some of them you have to buy. Others you can borrow. Yet the greatest resource is yourself! Without you, those other resources would lie down for the next countless billions of years and they would accomplish nothing. Hence, do not allow the absence or unavailability of material resources to hold you back from setting out on your entrepreneurial journey!

The Qualities of an Entrepreneur

However, for the entrepreneur’s business to succeed, there are certain vital qualities that he must posses. Some of them are the following:

Confidence. You should have confidence for success. You need to believe in yourself and your business plan. This would invariably give you the necessary impetus to persevere, especially when challenges towards achieving your goal rear their ugly heads.

Also, as an entrepreneur, you must eschew fear—fear of failure and subsequent reactions from others, fear of the unknown, fear of not having a regular income to enable you pay your bills and the like. By being able to build your confidence, your fears for the unknown would be greatly curtailed. Fear destroys hope and weakens a person’s nervous stamina, even to the point of bringing about death. In such a state, one becomes prone to making mistakes. Worse still, innovation and creativity are stifled. So avoid it at all costs! I have been inspired by the following lyrics of Whitney Houston’s track The Greatest Love of All and I hope it inspires you too: “I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows. If I fail, if I succeed, At least I live as I believe. No matter what they take from me, They can’t take away my dignity”. However, this can be better achieved if you have the requisite competence.

Competence requires that the entrepreneur has basic skills in areas of study such as business planning, organizing, and leadership. To this end, you can take advantage of seminars, workshops, distance learning and even personal development to acquire such skills as basic book-keeping, finance, business law, and other facets of management.

Further, you must learn to be frugal. This is one of the very important traits required of an entrepreneur. This is especially so in view of the perception many have that entrepreneurs are rich and so much is expected of them in both extended family and social circles. An entrepreneur who is not thrifty could quickly lose his working capital to funeral arrangements and treating friends. Frugality also implies that, instead of investing in, say an expensive car, the entrepreneur concentrates more on practicality and not the desire to be ostentatious.

You also need to be responsible. A favourite quote that my mom taught me is ‘Freedom means responsibility’. One of the reasons why entrepreneurs set themselves up is to enjoy freedom from employers’ harsh demands and scant wages/salaries. However, this comes with its own price-tag of responsibility. In this vein, the entrepreneur should be disciplined in areas such as the time to report at work, separating personal finances from company accounts and the like. The absence of such a quality can prove quite fatal to an otherwise brilliant business venture.

Honesty is also one key requirement for success as an entrepreneur; honesty especially towards the company’s publics such as suppliers, creditors, employees and customers/clients is very essential. If you do not have it, cultivate it. It might save you at some point just when you think all hope is gone.

Cultivate the culture of investment. As an entrepreneur you should recognize that apart from your own business, you can also invest in others’ businesses by buying shares and putting money into investment funds and/or treasury bills. This would make your otherwise dormant money available for those businesses while they improve your own investment portfolio and wealth creation—making your money work for you rather than vice-versa.

Solving the Problem of Lack of Capital

Now to the first reason many cite for not going into business; Limited access to finance! Admittedly, access to start-up capital and business loans from banks and non-bank financial institutions is absolutely difficult, if not non-existent in our part of the world, Africa. And where these are available the collateral security required coupled with high interest rates make it virtually impossible for the micro/small business entrepreneur to access necessary funds.

However, in today’s knowledge economy, I personally do not see why the difficulty in accessing capital should be a terminal problem. Many who complain about lack of capital do so because, invariably, they like to start their business on a pedestal that suggests that the business is already successful; a fanciful office at a great location, a number of employees to call them “Sir” and “Boss”, a car and the like. What they forget to appreciate, though, is that in today’s technological age, it has become easier than any time in the past to run a multi-million dollar business right from one’s brief case, starting with next-to-nothing. Hence, a creative and innovative entrepreneur would not resign himself to hopelessness just because he does not have capital; after all the most important capital is YOU. So just get your business plan drawn up, register your outfit and set out to do business. At any rate, remember that credit is also a form of finance. If you create a credible reputation for yourself as an honest person, suppliers you know and friends/relations can be of help.

To this point, how would you answer the question—Do you wanna be a well-fed slave or a hungry free-man? Well, this is how Lucky ended it: “Now you’ve heard it all. It is time to make up your own mind –To be or not to be….”

The author is CEO/Managing Partner at Soleil Consults (US), LLC, a Strategy, Management and ICT firm.