With the growing unemployment rates in Africa, there has been that demand or urge for innovative ways of survival, and in most cases, there has been comfort in buying and selling, but I’m particularly concerned by my fellow *copy-cats* They hear that shoes are selling these days, and they all start selling shoes, make-up business, everyone is doing it, combi business and everyone is doing it, mushika-shika, everyone is doing it.Think of any idea, everyone is doing it. Whilst there is nothing wrong about doing the same business, but there is something wrong by doing it the same way, same colors, same fliers, same marketing, same everything. I’m not talking about anyone else, but I’m talking of my fellow Afripreneurs.
Entrepreneurship, is all about monetizing solutions, you see a problem you think of a solution, people pay for that solution. It might be the problem, of transport to work, then one entrepreneur thinks of introducing bus system then the other car-pooling system or a taxi system.
They all solving the same problem, but they all doing it in a unique way.That is part of entrepreneurship, the solutions must be innovative in a way..OK let’s take for example Food World and OK Zimbabwe , whilst they all supermarkets, they have some services that distinguish them. Food World has an online shopping platform, which OK doesn’t have.What does this mean, It means Food World allows even those in the Diaspora to make purchases directly from there to those back home. They also have door-to-door deliveries of purchased goods.
Though they might all have promotions like for example OK runs the OK Grand Challenge Promotion and Food World has their own Promotion too, they still different. Food World is going a step further in solving problems like of the misuse of Diaspora money by family members where some could use the money sent for other things which is not the intended groceries etc. They also solving the problem of time spent in a shopping queue and allowing shopping on the go. This puts and distinguishes Food World from other supermarkets.
Now we have these so called entrepreneurs who so fond of copying just like a guy in the exam who ends up copying the name and candidate number. They so believe in oneness, family, crowding etc and I want you to think of an lion who spends all its day with other lines, sleeping in the shade and playing. Where does it get the food? This is just like some of the Afripreneurs, they sell and market in the same platform. They into network marketing,and they have a group of network marketers, but you find some people putting up the same advert in that group.
Who do you think is going to buy, when everyone in that group is also looking for a customer. The problem is when that group is your only target market, just like a lion trying to hunt down other lions. Look at the Hwindis, how they frustrate, abuse, force, customers.
The problem is they all want to load at the same time, crowd at the same place, all want the same customers, all have the same marketing strategy and at the end of the day they become a nuisance to the same market. Look at the money changers, phone dealers etc, how they all crowd at the same place, want the same customer and at the end of the day they become a nuisance to the market. Now today as you thinking of any business to venture into or you already into one. It’s time to re-evaluate.Aren’t you just a copy-cat?? Aren’t you just like the normal so called entrepreneurs of Africa.
