This week is entrepreneurship week, a series of events which
will highlight, celebrate and inspire this underappreciated factor of
production.
Underappreciated because beyond lip service we do not
appreciate the skill of the entrepreneur, because yes, it is a skill not some
metaphysical or genetically passed on trait that is the preserve of a small
minority among us.
Elementary economics teaches that the factors of production
are capital, land and labour. What constitutes each of the above has been
undergoing alteration in years. Capital has moved beyond cash, plant and
machinery, land too has grown to include things like internet domains and other
networks – physical or virtual. Labour has graduated to human resource, because
muscle power that the industrial age economists may have been referring to has
morphed more into the use of brain power.
Some people have added to these entrepreneurship or the
ability to manipulate the previous three factors to show a return on
investment.
"Thankfully in Uganda going into business for oneself is not looked down upon. In fact it is expected. Research bears this out...
In 2006 a World Bank sponsored research showed that Uganda
was the most entrepreneurial country in the world. A subsequent research put us
second only to Chile and more recently a UK research group confirmed our
entrepreneurial proclivity.
Success in the market is not inevitable. Some statistics
show that fewer than ten percent of the startup businesses survive beyond their
fifth year. That dismal figure then puts as at distinct advantage as a country
because if we can generate a thousand startups we can expect that maybe 100
will survive that is much better than starting 100 a year and only ten survive.
Our figures also show that entrepreneurship is not a
congenital attribute, that a whole society can show a tendency towards it,
debunks the notion that it is “in the blood”.
Our underappreciation of entrepreneurship comes from the
misconception that – beyond that it’s a genetic condition, it takes money to be
entrepreneurial. This attitude explains why we are all saving to start a
business “one day”. While it is true many businesses collapse because they are
undercapitalised it’s also true that many businesses have flourished while
kicking off with the most meagre of resources.
"In trying to understand entrepreneurs, people have come up with all sort of personality traits that one has to have or develop to be entrepreneurial. Top of the list is that they have to have an appetite for risk. This has been scoffed at by the same entrepreneurs, the most successful of whom say that instead it’s the ability to manage risk that is key. They are always covering the downside...
The most successful of them have learnt this over years of
experience.
And there are no shortcuts, despite what the movies show.
When we see our successful businessmen, we are witnessing the finished product,
we have no clue of the hardship and failure they have had to overcome, emerging
from each stronger in spirit even if down on their knees financially.
Maybe that is the most outstanding feature of successful
entrepreneurs, that while to the rest of the world they look like they are
suffering debilitating losses or failure, to them they can say “I never lose. I
win or I learn,” leaving the rest of us mere mortals shaking our heads at their
“madness”.
You can’t pin down the essence of entrepreneurship but the
management of risk and the ability to get up again and again from setbacks have
to be at the top of the key criteria for entrepreneurs.
"For a country like ours keeping this pipeline of entrepreneurs is critical. Governments do not generate wealth it is entrepreneurs that do. If the history of the world has shown us one thing, it’s that nations are only as viable as their private sectors, read entrepreneurs...
Entrepreneurs ferret out the opportunities and manipulate
resources around them to not only create material gain for themselves, but to
provide society with essential goods and services.
We need to celebrate
and encourage the entrepreneurs among us and with us the entrepreneurship week
as good as any place to start.
