Entrepreneur Capacity Building in Africa – the Missing Ingredients

After 25 years of helping entrepreneurs achieve and sustain success in Africa it is clear to me that it takes a lot more than a village! Although building a business has become a lot easier across the continent, achieving scale eludes the vast majority of even the most enthusiastic and committed founders.

Building a business that can scale beyond recurring annual revenue of a million dollars (or even half that) and 25-30 fulltime employees require skills and capacity that most entrepreneurs do not have intrinsically. The idea is therefore to build these skills and capacities among founders who deeply desire to create medium-sized businesses. Chief among these skills and capacities are the ability to think strategically, be analytical, and honest and diligent in the audit of their own and their business’ performance and ability, be able to articulate a consistent and realistic plan for the near, medium- and long-term; and finally, the leadership prowess to execute these plans, and increasingly so through independent team members.

Unfortunately, these are skills that cannot be acquired by simply taking a course or investing in an Executive MBA. This is capacity that is built through practise, lots of diligent practise! And not unlike going to the gym, only the most committed of us last. Unless, that is, we get a personal trainer to drill us and hold us to account – and connect to the community of peers embarking on a similar journey, i.e. the jocks in the gym, creating valuable social and professional bonds.

Individuals and organisations involved in capacity building of entrepreneurs and their businesses need to be those personal trainers. Individuals, who can both instruct entrepreneurs in the various exercises and disciplines and frameworks available to them; help them make a plan that fits their needs based on an assessment of their reality and goals; and then can motivate them to stay with the plan and build up the skills, the stamina, determination and the self-control necessary to reach the set goals.

In the world of building successful small businesses that can grow into medium and large enterprises, this requires a skillset that is rare in Africa. A lot of entrepreneurship development organisations and professionals may have some of the skills, or a few individuals have the full package, but very rarely to a degree that allow them to scale themselves. From experience, such skills and such individuals are in high demand (naturally!) and thus notoriously hard to hold on to for even the best of entrepreneur support organisations.

Thus, only a few founders and their businesses have access to support that can make a real difference. And, it is clear that if we want African entrepreneurs to develop these skills and this capacity, we need to dramatically increase the supply of individuals – and organisations – with the ability to be effective “personal trainers” for these ambitious, committed and capable entrepreneurs and provide them with the resources necessary to stay the course.

The curriculum for a course that builds these individuals and the programme that supports organisations scale their capacity to help growth entrepreneurs may not be rocket science. However, challenges and opportunities in Africa are unique as are the dynamics and realities needing to be navigated by entrepreneurs, support organisations and their professionals alike. Thus, the idea that we can replicate success from US, Europe or Asia is simply not feasible – we need deep, local knowledge, experience and insights to form the foundation of such an effort.

Finally, we need to abandon another fantasy many development partners in Africa has – from governments over donors and bilateral organisations to philanthropic foundations. Namely that such an effort can be financially sustainable – that somehow (by magic!?) these fledging businesses can pay the full cost of these tremendous efforts within a matter of years. Something that after decades isn’t even true in industrialised countries! If we want quality jobs for future generations, and if we want the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders not to be extractive and think short-term and share wealth with only their inner circles; then we must invest in this with the longest of terms in mind.