The end of a Journey of Learning. The beginning of an Adventure (cue stirring music..).

Without much pomp and ceremony, here follows my final and last reflective blog (hopefully not my last blog though!) of my 6 week part time short course in Entrepreneurship for Emerging Markets. I’d like to try (briefly-clearly didn’t happen!) summarise and highlight some of the best parts of my journey within the course framework and then conclude with some thoughts on how I plan to take what I’ve learnt into my future.

Here goes: (I hope you’ll allow me a few errors and ommissions on certain of the course work Prof..)

After the orientation module (which I actually took detailed and excitable notes on..), we dove straight into the foundations of entrepreneurship (Entrependre 1700’s French origin) in which we learnt the subtle and often debated differences between small business management and the varying forms of entrepreneurship and innovation. We learnt that it is in fact not a personality disorder and neither a kind of risk addiction. Nor is it for coffee drinking hipsters glued to their laptops in some (overly busy during office hours by Jhb standards) cape town coffee chain…

We read, amongst others, Prof Howard Stevensons definition that ‘entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled’. Later I got my head around the alteration ‘without regard to resources controlled’ and the issue and importance of risk management. I learnt further that Entrepreneurship is a distinctive approach to managing rather than a stage in an organisations life cycle, a specific role, or a number of personality attributes — Entrepreneurs can be found anywhere. They need to be inventive, creative, opportunistic and persuasive.

We discovered how different entrepreneurship leadership (teams/fast-decisions/equity) is to that of a corporate administrator (hierarchy/deliberation/cash compensation). The two different decision making processes of 1. look at opportunities, pick the best, and try make it fit. Or 2. search for best option and make it available. Most importantly for me, here at this juncture, was the milkshake analogy of Clayton Christensen — of understanding the Job — then hiring or searching for the best product to satisfy that job that the customer wants/needs.

We next learnt about Startups — organisations formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. How one would start with a vision of a product or service, and then a set of hypothesis, further developing into a business plan (and of course thereafter the detailed business model) which all then needs to be swiftly validated. How a startup transitions into a company. Also about the important pivot point.

Most importantly we learnt about startups and growth. Massive Growth. Making something everyone wants and then reach as well as serve all those people. Like the little seed of a redwood tree in comparison to a bean sprouts— both are small, but they each have vastly different potential.

We then went into Entrepreneuship behaviours — deterministic optimism (how to think about future), effectual reasoning (how to act in present) and anti-fragile learning (how to go from present to future).

The Entrepreneurs ecosystem and its six major stages — from idea to exit-was next. The different supporting domains — culture, finance, legislative, human capital, venture friendly markets, institutional and infrastructure support.

The differences between emerging and developed markets for Entrepreneurs started to highlight entrepreneurship in its local context for me and we also learnt a lot about entrepreneurship in Africa which was particularly interesting. The different market characteristics and strategies for realizing market opportunities detailed various challenges and their related solutions.

Predicting the best emerging market ecosystem in Africa, during my assignment, became a two horse race between South Africa and Kenya, and we also learnt a lot about the different economies and industries as well as generally about entrepreneurship in African as well as other emerging markets. Inhibitors to growth in Africa highlighted many challenges and problems not only here locally but for the continent too. An earlier blog of mine discussing ‘Fruginnovation’ — frugal innovation, by Navi Radjou highlighted how Entrepreneurs can learn to do more with less.

The third module unpacked problems and suggested methods and frameworks to find solutions and opportunities. Communication, Analysis and Observation. Focusing on considering the core need or want and then how to best deliver.

Module four detailed how an Entrepreneur in an emerging market sets to build and evaluate solutions and innovative products. Consumers (users), customers (paying), product layers (core, product, offering) and the four stages of development (prototype, mvp, building to a product market fit, building for scale). Core value and particularly important for me was the statement by Andrea Bohmert, in regard to evaluating financing of startups, ‘nice to have is not a need to have.’ The evaluation of Seed phone in our written assignment put into practice what we had learnt. ‘Is Seed a Need?’, still rings in my ears when I hear a new business idea.

The penultimate module focused on people and selecting the right ones for a successful startup. Good founders and bad ones. Creating the right team structure and organizational structure. Cultural fit, skills and expertise. Finding people who want to help you achieve your mission and vision rather than just get paid a 9–5 salary. Integral relationships. Meritocracy — progress based on ability and talent rather than class, privilege or wealth. Trust, empowerment, accountability, communication, sincerity, care and personal involvement.

Finally, module six, taught us how to ensure growth through scalability and sustainability. From product, to finding the right market, increasing demand, communicating further and financing requirements as well as frameworks to satisfy all these. Seed funding to satisfy initial capital required to start the business such as hiring staff and working towards product user fit. 2nd funding rounds required for product market fit. Thereafter series B funding for scalability. Raising enough money but not too much to detract from a lean ‘mean’ approach to executing.

Operations, the glue that holds a company together. Focus and Intensity. Customer Acquisition, getting people in the door. Customer retention, making it easy for people to stay and once in, making it harder for them to leave. All frameworks required at different stages to ensure sustainability and of course scalability.

‘Avoid dying and then get rich’, was an interesting concept that we learnt and suggested the approach to success was managing or mitigating risks and making sure that mistakes are kept to a minimum and fires are put out swiftly. Focusing on getting one or a few people to really love your product was another important concept. Most entrepreneurs stronger motivation in avoiding the fear of public failure or humiliation over the hope of making millions was particularly interesting. So go big, go public, the more ‘out there’ and potentially humiliating, the better!

Of course I’ve summarised a great deal here and I plan to re-read and actually still need to read many of the web based resources, which I’m sure will broaden still, my understanding of such a diverse and multi-layered subject matter.

Just in the last few days I’ve begun reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries ‘How constant innovation creates radically successful businesses. Eric challenges many commonly accepted strategies and idealogies. ‘Entrepreneurship is a kind of management’. ‘Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.’ ‘The boring stuff that matters most..’

Radical new approaches to entrepreneurship, extremely fast cycle time, a focus on what customers want (without asking them), and a scientific approach to making decisions. Lean Startup — the application of lean thinking to the process of innovation. Vision, Steer and then Accelerate.

I look forward to learning even further, gaining a deeper understanding and then finally applying all that I’ve learnt into practice. Into business. Into a succesfull one. And then, I have no doubt, I’ll learn again some more.