CO-FOUNDERS SHOULD FIND EACH OTHER BEFORE FOUNDING ANYTHING ELSE
Starting a business, especially in Africa, requires more than a great idea. Many aspiring entrepreneurs focus more on the product or service they want, refining every detail of the concept before launching into the market. However, the first stage of building a successful business isn’t about polishing your business idea but refining yourself. And if you have a co-founder, it’s also about aligning values and ideas because the business will only grow as fast as the personal development and synergy of those at the helm.
In Africa, where resources can be scarce, and the entrepreneurial journey is often fraught with challenges, this principle is particularly relevant. The key to a sustainable business lies in the personal growth of its founders and the alignment of their core values, vision, and goals. Here's why and how this foundation is critical to business success. In my second year at NUST (Zimbabwe), I had a roommate who was studying electronic engineering. He was always fascinated by how broad my understanding of different subjects was, and we often laughed about how I’d spend hours on YouTube, learning to code from Indian developers—despite my major being accounting. Inspired by the famous Facebook story, we co-founded a company called Bridgetek Investments, focused on software development for organizations. We had a mantra: "We provide the simplest solutions to the most complex problems." This has remained my guiding principle across all the businesses I’ve ever started or co-founded.
It was an exciting time, trying to build our version of the Facebook story from our NUST campus residence—Block D, the famous premium block. We participated in several hackathons and won six in a single year. We later brought on two more classmates, the best in their streams, and it felt like we were on the verge of building something big. This felt like confirmation and alignment, but the excitement didn’t last. When the money started coming in, people's true personalities and priorities began to emerge. Things got more real, and the dynamics between us shifted.
I won’t go into the exact details, but many value-based and personality differences surfaced after we landed our first client. This wasn’t anyone’s fault—it was just a natural outcome of unspoken differences. In hindsight, we could have avoided these challenges by refining ourselves first, then refining the idea, and finally, the business. Had we done that, who knows? Maybe Bridgetek would still exist today.
The first stage of building a successful business isn’t about polishing your business idea—it's about refining yourself. And if you have a co-founder, it’s also about aligning values and ideas because the business will only grow as fast as the personal development and synergy of those at the helm.Before embarking on any entrepreneurial journey, especially in the competitive and complex environments found across Africa, the entrepreneur must engage in self-refinement. This process involves understanding who you are, what drives you, and how well you’re equipped to handle the challenges that come with entrepreneurship. In Zimbabwe, where political, economic, and social dynamics can shift rapidly, the ability to adapt and maintain clarity of purpose is essential.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
In the startup world, challenges arise quickly—cash flow problems, market rejection, or regulatory issues. Entrepreneurs with high EQ can manage stress, maintain composure, and make sound decisions even under pressure. The ability to remain calm and focused in Zimbabwe's volatile economic environment separates resilient entrepreneurs from those who falter at the first hurdle. I was the finance person, and every time the numbers didn’t look good, the blame fell on me. This wasn’t just a matter of financial responsibility; it reflected the lack of emotional preparedness in our team.
Our EQs weren’t strong enough to handle abrupt changes in both the external and internal environments of our business. Instead of approaching the situation calmly and collaboratively, we defaulted to pointing fingers, which eroded trust and further complicated the situation. In hindsight, had we collectively developed the emotional intelligence to navigate these setbacks, our business could have weathered those storms more effectively. It’s a powerful reminder that EQ is just as essential as technical skills in any entrepreneurial journey.
Self-Awareness
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is the cornerstone of self-refinement. As an entrepreneur, it’s crucial to understand where you excel and where you need support. Are you a visionary with great ideas but lack organizational skills? Are you good at building relationships but struggle with financial management? Honest self-assessment enables you to either learn new skills or bring on team members with complementary strengths.
In my case, I was a self-taught amateur programmer, and I allowed that to create friction between my co-founder and me. Whenever we failed to deliver on a project, I would default to the same phrase: "Writing code isn’t the challenge; you guys just don’t respect the client's time. You’re no different from tailors, mechanics, and photographers who have the world record for disappointing clients."
At the time, I wasn’t fully aware of my own limitations, or even my capabilities. I didn’t recognize what I could or couldn’t do, and I let my frustration overshadow our teamwork. I started feeling like Bridgetek couldn’t exist without me because I believed I was contributing more than everyone else. This lack of self-awareness, combined with the inflated sense of my own role, prevented us from functioning as a cohesive team.
领英推荐
Discipline
In Zimbabwe, access to capital and mentorship is limited, creating a particularly challenging environment for entrepreneurs. For most startups, the lack of financial resources and guidance from experienced professionals means that every decision must be calculated, and every mistake can feel like a major setback. As a founder, especially in such a volatile context, discipline and resilience are not just desirable traits—they are essential for survival.
During the early days of Bridgetek, we faced immense challenges that required more than just technical know-how. There were times when funding was low, clients delayed payments, or we simply weren’t hitting the milestones we had set. I vividly remember how, at times, our projects dragged on for weeks longer than planned due to unforeseen obstacles, leaving us frustrated and financially strained. In those moments, it would have been easy to give up or to shift blame onto one another. But that’s where discipline comes in.
Discipline, in the entrepreneurial sense, isn’t just about staying committed to daily tasks—it’s about maintaining a long-term vision even when the short-term situation looks bleak. For us at Bridgetek, discipline meant continuing to code late into the night, even when we were mentally drained. It meant showing up to client meetings with enthusiasm, even after being turned down by investors. It meant learning to manage our emotions and maintaining professionalism even when things weren’t going as planned. For a while, we rode the high of winning hackathons, but when the first major business hiccup occurred, that initial excitement began to fade. I realized that resilience was more than just the ability to endure hardship; it was about bouncing back stronger, learning from failures, and continually adapting. For instance, when our first major project was delayed due to technical issues, the blow was heavy. It caused internal conflict, drained our finances, and left us questioning our capability as a team. But the real test came afterward—how we responded to that setback.
Resilience required that we didn’t just dwell on our losses but learned to pivot, adjust our strategy, and come back with renewed focus. However, the difficulty in our case was that our team had not prepared ourselves for this level of stress. Our EQs weren’t strong enough, and our lack of personal refinement as individuals made it harder to bounce back as a collective. We hadn’t built the emotional or psychological capacity to handle such setbacks together, and this made our resilience as a team weaker than it should have been.
I also realized that resilience isn’t a solitary trait. It’s something that, as founders, you need to cultivate within the team. Had we focused more on building a foundation of trust, transparency, and open communication from the start, we could have weathered those storms better. In retrospect, our inability to overcome internal struggles after facing external challenges was a reflection of not just our individual weaknesses, but also our failure to collectively align our values and build a culture of resilience.
Discipline and resilience, when practiced individually and collectively, become the backbone of any sustainable business. In a tough market like Zimbabwe, where external factors constantly test you, these qualities allow founders to keep pushing forward. They ensure that even when the environment feels unforgiving, you maintain the grit and focus to keep moving toward your goal. Entrepreneurs who invest in their personal growth by refining these traits are the ones who not only survive but thrive in the long run.
For founders, the importance of discipline and resilience cannot be overstated. The entrepreneurial journey is a long one, and the ability to stay committed through financial challenges, team conflicts, and market uncertainties defines whether your venture will succeed or fail. It’s easy to be disciplined when things are going well, but true discipline is forged in adversity. Likewise, resilience isn’t just about enduring a setback but about using it as a catalyst for growth.
Reflecting on my own journey with Bridgetek, I now understand that these qualities aren’t just built overnight—they are cultivated through experience, self-reflection, and constant self-improvement. And as a founder, leading by example in discipline and resilience sets the tone for your entire team.
The crucial role of Founder alignment
While self-refinement is vital, businesses often fail because of misaligned co-founders. So many brilliant ideas in Africa and Zimbabwe die because the founders are not on the same page. When values, vision, and ideas diverge, even the most innovative business concepts struggle to thrive.
In many African countries, entrepreneurship is often seen as a path to escape poverty or unemployment. While this drive is admirable, it can sometimes lead to jumping into ventures without adequate self-reflection or alignment with co-founders. The pressures of the market, combined with the high failure rate of startups, make self-refinement and co-founder alignment all the more critical. The first stage of building a sustainable business isn’t just refining the idea but refining yourself. If you have a co-founder, aligning values, vision, and goals is crucial. Markets will change, regulations will shift, and competition will intensify and the exchange rate will keep changing—but businesses led by self-aware, resilient, and aligned founders are the ones that endure.
A business grows at the pace of its founders. The true essence of entrepreneurship lies not just in the brilliance of an idea, but in the strength of the individuals behind it. By focusing on personal growth and fostering a partnership based on shared values and mutual trust, entrepreneurs can transform ideas into thriving, impactful ventures.Many great ideas perish due to misaligned founders. Entrepreneurship as a means to escape hardship can be short-sighted; one successful invoice might solve immediate financial problems, but to maintain momentum and build a lasting business, much more is needed—starting with personal growth and co-founder alignment.