What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur?
What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur?
Being an entrepreneur is both rewarding and challenging. There is no sure secret to what makes an entrepreneur successful, but there are certain characteristics entrepreneurs can cultivate to have the best chances of building a long-lasting and lucrative business. Learn more below.
Self-motivation: While having a good community to support you is important, successful entrepreneurs are usually self-motivated and do not need encouragement to take steps toward building a better business. They start the day with a defined set of tasks and goals, always keeping in mind their main business objectives. They view challenges as opportunities to learn and grow rather than as reasons to quit.
Build your strength in this area by regularly defining tasks and goals for yourself and your team – each day or week. Think about how you can take your business to the next level rather than waiting for an opportunity to present itself. Reframe challenges as opportunities to deliver better products or services and meet customer needs.
Strong work ethic: Successful entrepreneurs tend to have a strong work ethic, and this drives how they manage their time. They are driven by a passion to work towards stated goals, even if it means working beyond regular working hours.
Build your strength in this area by developing a disciplined routine, embracing responsibility, and developing a mindset that demonstrates hard work through sacrifice and focus.
Creativity: Because of stiff competition in the entrepreneurship ecosystem, successful entrepreneurs are typically either creative themselves or good at hiring creative employees. The need for entrepreneurs to create unique ideas and provide user-friendly solutions for customers demands out-of-the-box thinking in everything from marketing to service delivery to product design.
Build your strength in this area by developing a curiosity mindset in your daily life, and networking with likely minded people in your field. Networking can help you discover new ideas and also get valuable feedback on your existing ones.
Robust leadership qualities: Most successful entrepreneurs are usually cited by their employees and communities as strong, compassionate leaders. Leadership skills help an entrepreneur develop talents in their team, drive efficiency, and ensure quality products and services delivery.
Build your strength in this area by regularly engaging with your employees to understand their challenges, successes, weaknesses, and strengths. This will enable you to know what actions to take to make them more productive.
Being a successful entrepreneur means being a dynamic individual with strengths across different areas. Assess yourself along the above-mentioned characteristics and identify where you can build your strengths. Click here for a quick entrepreneurial self-assessment and see where you can improve as an entrepreneur.
Are you a woman entrepreneur with a business that positively impacts the community? Apply for AWA Prize before 24 October 2022
Are you a woman entrepreneur with a business that positively impacts the community? Apply for AWA Prize before 24 October 2022
Enabel, a Belgian development agency, invites African women entrepreneurs to apply for the Awa Prize, a competition highlighting women entrepreneurs in Belgian development cooperation countries and their projects. The competition aims to celebrate women entrepreneurs who positively impact their communities through their businesses.
The competition awards entrepreneurs in four categories: startups, scale-ups, innovation, and people’s choice. Three entrepreneurs will be selected for each category to receive EUR 50,000 for first prize winners, EUR 10,000 for second prize winners, and EUR 5,000 for third prize winners to be spent on coaching based on their company’s needs. First-prize winners will be offered an opportunity to spend one week in Belgium networking in entrepreneurship circles.
Interested participants in the competition must fulfill the following:
- Be a woman of legal age in her country of residence
- Have a nationality of one of the participating countries
- Be a co-founder and/or non-minority shareholder of a company registered for at least one year in the participating country
To participate, visit Awa Prize Applications to register.
Apply for the AMI Set Up for Growth Program
Apply for the AMI Set Up for Growth Program
The Africa Management Institute Rwanda invites applicants for the Set Up for Growth program, a one-month online entrepreneurship Bootcamp. The program is designed to help entrepreneurs assess their growth goals, identify critical strategic objectives and key results to support Growth, and monitor the performance of their businesses to adapt in real-time.
This Online Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Includes:
- 120-minute virtual session
- Access to the AMI learning platform & community
- Access AMI’s downloadable practical business toolkit
- Opportunity to engage with AMI business experts and join the AMI network of ambitious entrepreneurs
Interested participants should fulfill the following to apply:
- Be a company leader (business founder, business owner, CEO, or managing director)
- Have a business that has been operating for at least two years with a minimum of 2 employees
- Generate a minimum monthly revenue range of RWF100,000 – RWF500,000
- Have a smartphone and/or laptop with an internet connection to access online courses, AMI tools, and learning labs
To apply for the program, visit: Applications
Does your business tackle climate change and environment challenges? Apply to win funding and mentorship from the Lead2030 Challenge before 21st October 2022
Does your business tackle climate change and environment challenges? Apply to win funding and mentorship from the Lead2030 Challenge before 21st October 2022
One Young World, a global community for young leaders in collaboration with Deloitte, a management consulting company invite young innovators to apply for the Lead2030 Challenge for the SGD13. Successful participants will receive a grant of USD 50,000 from Deloitte, sponsorship to participate in the One Young World Summit 2023, and 12 months of mentorship from a team of Deloitte professionals and partners. The Challenge seeks to support scalable youth-led solutions that:
- Reduce the impacts of climate change, and/or empower others to act on climate change
- Address root causes of the climate change
- Demonstrate ability to drive impact and potential to scale
- Collaborate with others to accelerate or broaden impact
- Utilize innovative approaches
Interested participants should have a solution that fits these criteria:
- Be evidently aligned with the SDG13 challenge
- Be founded by youth between 18-30 years of age
- Have a clear knowledge of key stakeholders, beneficiaries and reasonable proposed outcomes
- Have a positive impact such as generating educational incomes, creation of employment or developing skills
- Have an impact that can be adequately measured or be measurable
- Be able to achieve efficiency and survive independently through the resources they generate and/or the investments and donations they attract
- Be able to demonstrate potential to grow impact after expanding in scope or size and/or into other regions
- Must rely on proven or readily available technology (relevant to the solution)
To apply for the Challenge, visit: Applications
Bank of Kigali launched SME Center to serve Small and Medium Enterprises.
Bank of Kigali launched SME Center to serve Small and Medium Enterprises.
The SME Response Clinic spoke with Darius Mukunzi, Head of SME Banking at Bank of Kigali, about how the bank is currently serving small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Bank of Kigali is the largest commercial bank in Rwanda, serving more than 200,000 SMEs across the country. In July 2022, it launched the SME Center, a facility that provides tailored financial and advisory services to business owners looking to grow their enterprises.
To serve the segment, Bank of Kigali uses relationship managers and officers stationed at the SME Business Center and at each bank branch. These staff members are responsible for helping the bank to better understand SME customer needs, enabling Bank of Kigali to tweak products and services in line with those needs as they evolve in the market. Importantly, the Business and Credit departments within the SME Center work closely, which facilitates decision-making, thereby reducing the time it takes SME customers to obtain financial products from the bank.
Bank of Kigali also leverages government facilities to acquire new SME customers and provide loans to SMEs at favorable rates. The bank was involved in disbursing the government’s Renewable Energy Fund and is currently also participating in disbursing the Economic Recovery Fund (Hatana 2) and Export Growth Fund. Bank of Kigali is also working on a strategy to serve SMEs with non-financial services, planning to provide capacity building focused on topics like financial literacy for SMEs and taxation. The Non-financial services will also introduce Business Clubs and Supply Chain linkages in the near future.
Visit the Bank of Kigali’s SME Center in Kigali, CHIC Building, second floor, to learn more about the bank’s offer for the segment.
Are you a start-up with innovative solutions to climate adaptation and resilience challenges? Apply for funding in the YouthAdaptations Solutions Challenge before 4 October 2022
Are you a start-up with innovative solutions to climate adaptation and resilience challenges? Apply for funding in the YouthAdaptations Solutions Challenge before 4 October 2022
The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), in partnership with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Climate Investment Funds (CIF), invites applicants to the Youth Adaptation Solutions Challenge program. (YouthADAPT Challenge). The Challenge is an annual competition and awards program for youth-led enterprises seeking to boost sustainable job creation through support for entrepreneurship and youth-led innovation in climate change adaptation and resilience across Africa.
In this edition of the Challenge, 20 innovators will emerge as winners at an award show and will have access to post-award support in the forms of:-
- 100,000 USD grant for each winner
- Capacity Building and Training
- Mentorship and Coaching
Interested applicants should fulfill the following to apply
- Be youth-led, with applicants aged between 18 and 35
- Have innovations delivering climate adaptation or resilience solutions addressing real-life challenges
- Be Legally registered and operating in Africa
- Be able to show revenues for at least two years
Admissible solutions can represent:
- An adaptation solutions business that has not been scaled and is not in widespread use
- An existing resilience and adaptation solutions business or product
- A commercially viable means to raise awareness or scale uptake of specific adaptation solutions.
To apply for the Challenge, visit: Applications
Are you a woman SME interested in scaling your business? Apply for VV GROW Fellowship before 18 October 2022
Are you a woman SME interested in scaling your business? Apply for VV GROW Fellowship before 18 October 2022
The Vital Voices Global Partnerships, a non-profit organization invites female applicants for the VV GROW Fellowship 2023 Global Accelerator program. The program is focused on supporting women-owned SMEs to sustainably increase their business’s impact in the world. The 10-month virtual program fosters growth and skills advancement in strategic planning, financial management, marketing and sales, strategic networking, leadership, human resources, and communications.
Through the program, participants will be offered the following benefits:
- Support with strategic planning for growth
- Access to a new network of peers and informal advisors
- Official certification as a Vital Voices Grow Fellow
- Access to the Vital Voices network of global women leaders
Interested applicants should fulfil the following criteria to apply:
- Be a woman (inclusive of identities including cisgender women, transgender women and, non-binary people that are comfortable in a space that centres on experiences of women)
- Have or lead a purpose-driven for-profit business offering innovative solutions to global challenges or to advance SDGs
- Hold a key leadership and management position in the business with decision-making authority
- Have a business that is beyond the start-up phase with a proven business model and product/service, and committed customer base
- Business breaks even in terms of annual revenue
- Have at least one full-time employee
- Have proficiency in speaking and writing English
To apply, visit: VV Grow Fellowship Applications
Are you an innovative start-up tech company interested in securing funding? Apply for the Hanga Pitchfest before 17 October 2022
Are you an innovative start-up tech company interested in securing funding? Apply for the Hanga Pitchfest before 17 October 2022
The Government of Rwanda led by the Ministry of ICT and Innovation and the Rwanda Development Board invites applicants for the second edition of the Hanga Pitchfest. The event brings together angel investors, tech company founders, private sector business leaders, and key players in the creative industry and academia. Hanga Pitchfest seeks tech-enabled start-ups or high-growth start-ups that demonstrate potential to scale up through the use of technology.
Building on last year’s Pitchfest, the 2022 edition aims to provide a unique platform for tech entrepreneurs and creative talents in Rwanda to showcase and promote the use of technology and innovation in Rwanda’s market. Participants are given a platform to network with potential investors and business partners.
Successful participants in the Hanga Pitchfest will win the following cash prizes:
- USD 50, 000 for the top start-up
- USD 12, 500 for four runners-up
To apply, visit: Hanga Pitchfest 2022
Are you an agri-SME interested in accessing finance? Apply for the AgriXcel Programme before 3 October 2022
Are you an agri-SME interested in accessing finance? Apply for the AgriXcel Programme before 3 October 2022
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), in partnership with the African Management Institute (AMI) and Aceli Africa, invites applicants for the AgriXcel Programme. The programme is designed to support ambitious agri-SMEs by linking them to finance lenders and equipping them with practical tools and resources to improve their financial practices.
During the six month programme, participants will gain skills in making data-driven decisions and improving financial management using AMI Business, a financial tracking and analysis app, and implementing best practices for business growth, including financial analysis, leadership and governance, strategic business planning, customer management, markets, and streamlining operations. Participants will also gain linkages to financial service providers offering relevant financing as well as access peer learning and opportunities for collaboration.
Interested applicants must fulfill the following to apply:
- Be based in Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, or Uganda and interested in finance in the next 6-12 months
- Have generated revenue between USD 30,000 and USD 1,000,000 in the last financial year
- Be operational for more than two years
- Have at least two full-time employees
- Be willing to participate online with access to a smartphone, laptop, and internet connection
- Be willing to share financial/performance data as part of the financial goal tracking and analysis for finance readiness
- Be agri-SMEs who buy/sell from small-scale farmers or SMEs involved in logistics, processing, and handling food crops produced by small-scale producers
- Main participant must be the CEO, Managing Director, Owner, or Founder of the business; this person must be an active participant in the programme
- Other participants must be senior leaders in the business capable of supporting the implementation of key practices
- Women-owned businesses are highly encouraged to apply
To apply, visit: AgriXcel Programme Application
Register for the upcoming USAFRICA Business Expo Week
Register for the upcoming USAFRICA Business Expo Week
The USAfrica Business Expo Week, a Business-to-Business (B2B) trade show, conference, and networking event happening around the UN General Assembly, invites businesses interested in finding new buyers, suppliers, and investment opportunities to the September 12 – 22, 2022 event. The Expo will take place in New York, USA.
Participating businesses can network and consult with potential business partners and relevant global business development agencies. Additionally, participants will have access to an exhibition highlighting tools and resources to enable their business to grow.
Interested participants can attend virtually or in person, depending on the tickets they purchase. Attendants from outside the United States of America can opt to pay a standard package of USD 700 or a complete international package of USD 1500.
For more information on the event, visit: USAFRICA Business EXPO WEEK
To purchase tickets to the, visit: USAFRICA EXPO Tickets