Should Entrepreneurship Be About Repetition Or Innovation? - Desmond Edem Eklu



Two weeks ago, I was at the Ghana Youth Entrepreneurship Convention, a gathering of young Ghanaian entrepreneurs below the age of thirty one (31) years. I had an amazing time at the day one of the two-day event which ended on 16th March, 2019. One of the things that excited me most was the networking. Entrepreneurs especially startup founders as most of us are, usually work alone or with small teams. Also, because of the phase in which our businesses are, we spend a lot of time away from family and friends. This program offered us a real connection with people who understand our language.

However, during the introduction session, I noticed one thing. Most of the business ideas weren't new or even improved. They were mostly differently named. The solutions weren't so different. I believe that entrepreneurship can solve a lot of problems. I watched Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote's recent interview with Al Jazeera and just when the interview was about to end, he was asked whether he has plans to go for president. He did not think twice before saying no. To my surprise, he pointed out that his way of contributing to the growth of the nation was through business. His new venture in rice farming has employed about 180,000 Nigerians and he believes that the provision of jobs can end violence in northern Nigeria.

Entrepreneurs are nation builders but we can only do this by constantly looking for ways to provide better services or goods to the people.
I read this morning that Nigeria has risen to be the number one producer of rice in Africa! That's the power of solution-driven entrepreneurship. Yesterday I read about Tom Monaghan who started Domino's Pizza with the idea of helping to deliver pizza faster than everyone else. He retired with a personal fortune of 1.8 billion dollars. He earned his fortune through innovative service delivery.

I entered the publishing business because I've realized how difficult it has been for the young ones to get published. I spent years approaching different publishers with my work. Their fees were too high and they had no plans for marketing and distribution. So after my breakthrough, I decided to enter into publishing to help the young ones publish their books with ease by coaching them on how to write best selling books, how to also strategize, market and sell their books with ease. Also, I found a way to do that for less while of course maintaining great quality for my clients. That's entrepreneurship!

If you are an entrepreneur, you should evaluate what you are offering and profile your ideal customer correctly to understand their needs and look for ways to help them meet those needs. Solve problems. Your product or service may be solving one problem but what more can you add so that it solves more problems? Think about this everyday. Stop thinking about cute names and titles. Serve the people, meet their needs and don't leave them your made one sale. Keep coming and satisfy their need totally.

Your duty is to HELP your customers. The biggest industry today is the HELP industry. That's why you see more nonprofits these days. A business organization has no different mission than to help its target market.

You should think of ways to continue adding value to what you offer through innovation. Once you do that, they'll pay you whatever you charge.

Those who think about solving problems are the ones who stay in business because business is all about solving people's problems profitably.

Now let's get to work and make our countries great.

Published by: Cypran Akubude Blog

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