How to Find High-Potential Entrepreneurs Quickly and Cost-Effectively

Let’s move away from trying to find entrepreneurs that will build massive businesses that employ thousands. Let’s instead create business owners; it is quicker, more cost-effective and easier while giving you a deep pool of business in which you can find your next unicorn entrepreneur.

Being an entrepreneur for more than 21 years, and one thing I have learnt is that if you fill a room with 100 business owners, around 3 of them might be entrepreneurs in the true sense of the word. They build a business at all cost. I take my hat off to them; well done, and I hope you succeed. We need people like you.

Trying to find that 3% in my experience is difficult at best. In South Africa, we spend much money looking for entrepreneurs; look at all the business incubators and ESD (enterprise supplier development) money floating around.

The traditional approach puts people into a R120,000 ($8,000) to R175,000 ($12,000) business creation program for 6 to 12 months. The hope is that entrepreneurs will come out on the other side of the program.

We need to create jobs quickly. I believe the 6 to 12-month model might not be the most cost-effective, sustainable way of building businesses, creating jobs and stimulating the economy.

I am not proposing the abolishment of the longer-term programs; they serve a purpose. I suggest a quicker way to achieve job creation through business ownership while increasing these programs’ overall success.

Finding entrepreneurs is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, someone to develop into a super entrepreneur instead, I suggest we do the whole haystack. In the process, we will find the needles.

Before we get to the benefits of creating business owners, here follows my definition of an entrepreneur and a business owner.

Definition of a business owner:

A business owner builds a business within the confines of their immediate financial needs. The business owners growing financial needs mostly determine the growth of the business.

Definition of an entrepreneur:

An entrepreneur builds a business outside of the confines of their immediate financial needs. A greater vision or mission determines the growth of the business.

What is possible?

In November 2020, during the lockdown in South Africa, we took 50 people from previously disadvantaged areas into a Rapid Job Creation Program. They had to build a business in 21 days that make enough profits to replace their salary.

The program created 30 jobs in 21 days.

But are they sustainable?

We left these new business owners alone for 90 days, with no support, coaching or mentoring. We could reach 26 of the 30 businesses; anyone working in this space in Africa knows young people change their mobile numbers almost every month.

What we found was astonishing.

All the businesses we reached were still trading; in fact, these business owners created 8 new businesses to serve as additional revenue streams for the owners.

The photographer could not see clients due to tightened lockdown rules and then started a laundry service for students. The window washing business was hit with more than 4 weeks of rain and then proceeded to start a cleaning chemical supply company.

It shows resilience and adaptability, which in my opinion, is an entrepreneurial trait in people who would traditionally not be viewed as entrepreneurial material.

Each of the jobs/business was created at the cost of between 10 and 20% of a 12-month program. You can read more about the Rapid Job Creation Program here.

By developing as many business owners as possible; we gain the following benefits.

#1. The entrepreneurs will rise automatically

We do not have to look for the needle in the haystack anymore if we have a quick and cost-effective process to create business owners.

The people who are natural entrepreneurs will automatically rise during the program and excel and build bigger businesses while creating businesses that create jobs and economic activity. You kill two birds with one stone.

#2. Massive cost saving

For the cost of sending one person on a 12-month program, we could develop between 5 and 10 business owners. Developing 1,000 business owners will mean employment for the business owners. We are creating more jobs for others while giving you a deep pool to find great entrepreneurs to grow further.

#3. Going from months to weeks

The unemployment rate in South Africa is out of hand. We simply cannot try to create jobs or businesses over a period of 6 to 12 months because people are hungry now. We can reduce the time needed to create a business owner to a matter of weeks, giving people money in their pocket, self-determination and economic empowerment.

#4. Job creation and local economic stimulus

Helping someone build a business that can replace their salary means they have a job. These business owners may not employ people in the first year. Still, we have one less person on the street or putting stress on limited governmental resources. We have a family that can eat. We have children that go to school.

It creates businesses in the local economy, stimulating the local economy.

#5. Reducing incubation risk while increasing success

Would it not be a better idea to plug actual business owners into a 12-month incubation program? Now you can put people with money in their pocket, food in their stomach and customers on their books into a longer-term program. That program can help them make that business bigger and hopefully start to employ in the first year.

Also, you know more about the person before investing a lot of development into them. Do they have the ability to build a business? Do they have resilience? Can they sell? etc. etc.

How would that impact the overall success of business incubators when they work with businesses that already exist?

Conclusion

We should divert development money and other resources to creating as many business owners as humanly possible. We will reap the rewards of finding entrepreneurs while creating jobs, prosperity, stimulating local economies and addressing the unemployment issue faster than ever.

If you believe in this stance and would like to support me in achieving this, reach out to me at [email protected], and we can see what is possible.

Let’s democratise prosperity by creating jobs faster and more cost-effective than ever before.