INTRODUCTION
Leadership education is very important in the development of any nation. Because it is out of it that great minds, great entrepreneurs, great Innovators, inventors and agents of change are borne. Whenever a person or a people have the right leadership spirit, then trust me, there is nothing stopping them as regarding what they can achieve individually and collectively as organizations. So in this essay I’m going to be focusing on youth entrepreneurship in third world nations its impediments a way forward and guaranteed solutions.
What is Entrepreneurship? in simple terms entrepreneurship is the act of setting up a business or businesses in other to take on financial risk with the hope of making profits.
Entrepreneurship and innovation are the main ingredients which have brought about a giant increase in the economies of developed countries so far. The importance of entrepreneurship cannot be overemphasized. Entrepreneurs consist a greater percentage of the worlds billionaires.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg these names are leaders in their respective markets, they are multi billionaires and they are entrepreneurs not the government or government officials. These guys have their own businesses. And they never stop investing they never stop dreaming, setting goals and achieving it.
Some common advantage of entrepreneurship
- Financial freedom: there is a popular saying that ‘the lack of money is the root of many evils’. Entrepreneurship will help you become financially free for life.
- Employment opportunities: you become the employer of labour thus helping to reduce poverty levels and crime rate in the country.
- Touch lives positively: entrepreneurship helps you to empower people after you might have finished empowering yourself. There is this popular saying that ‘you cannot help the poor by being one of them’
There are so many advantages of entrepreneurship like I have stated earlier its advantages cannot be overemphasized.
What’s the meaning of the word ‘Debilitating’? From the title of this essay its obvious, the word debilitating would mean weakening, impediments, hindrances etc.
So in my view, the challenges debilitating youth entrepreneurship in third world communities can be reduced to three factors and also its insights and solutions are still centered on these three factors you might hastily want to ask me what these three factors are. That could be the debilitating factor and also the solution depending on which buttons are pressed or which strings are pulled. To satisfy your curiosity, those three things are: - Vision (has a lot to do with the individual’s mind)
- Access to quality information (entrepreneurial education)
- Access to startup capitals
In my view these three things are the strengths and weaknesses of youth entrepreneurship in our communities. And the first two are ingredients that should be used in cooking up our young people before they even become adults. And then the third would not really be a problem.
Let’s analyze each factor distinctively - Lack of Vision: vision can simply be defined as the mental picture of your promising future. Or vision is a comprehensive sense of who you want to become, where you want to be, or what you want to achieve in the nearest future. Vision is very important because it gives you a sense of purpose for every activity going on in your life. Vision brings about discipline which is another key ingredient in the struggle for success. Vision gives you a drive, a force, motivation and enthusiasm to keep on going despite odds, opposition and challenges. Vision is so important that even in the Holy Scriptures it is written “where there is no vision the people perish” that’s how powerful vision can be. With all these things that I have written about vision, I want you to now imagine a community made up of people without a vision for themselves or the community as a whole not to even talk of posterity. That community is bound to fail. And that is one of the problems of many young people (youths) in most of our communities. And because the youths do not have a vision for themselves they now transfer their frustrations to their parents, guardians, family members or even the government. Instead of taking responsibility, taking ownership of their lives and coming up with something to better their lives and that of the community they rather choose to transfer responsibility and blames to others. This is the reason why there are so many poor people in our communities. People living their lives with no sense of purpose, no vision, nothing to commit to. They are just floating and are tossed here and there without any direction in life. When this pressure of frustration gets intense it brings about desperation and in the process many evils are done just to make a living.
The way forward (Insights): it’s high time for our youths to start asking themselves thought provoking questions like who am i? five years, ten years from now where will I be? What can I do for myself? What can I do for my community? Because we are never going to become entrepreneurs until we start asking ourselves these questions. Five years from now this is what I want to achieve once you have a vision automatically your brains will start to think on possible ways to reach that vision. Break this vision down into simple goals maybe yearly goals break it further into monthly goals, break it into weekly and daily goals and work hard and achieve each goal according to the stipulated time frame. Because time frames and deadlines are what makes goals and vision meaningful otherwise it is just wishful thinking.
The guaranteed Solution: dream big think of creating employment opportunities, own a business that is what entrepreneurship is all about. From the definition of entrepreneurship you will see that it’s basically about owning your own business. So this vision of being a business owner should be given to our community youths. In my view, let us not stop at telling community people to have this entrepreneurship vision rather let us break it down in simple terms that people should start up businesses of their own rather than waiting for someone to employ them. The gospel of business ownership should be preached across our various communities. - No access to quality information (no good entrepreneurial education): one of the main challenges to youth entrepreneurship in our communities is lack of proper education. We have people who are properly schooled but not properly educated. These people are not enlightened, people with first class honours yet they are the first class job seekers on the streets, people who have masters in business administration but are not masters in managing their finances not to even talk about starting up a business for themselves. So our communities are filled with people going to school daily but still not properly enlightened (no sound financial/entrepreneurial education). Note these set of people have visions they have ambitions (for example ask some school people what their vision is, and you will see that its basically to graduate and get a job with the government or one of the oil firms and then settle down) no doubt this is a vision but we need to dream bigger. And the right kind of entrepreneurial education and enlightenment would be a very great asset. Because you can never become very rich by working for someone else. You need your own business; you need your own company.
The way forward (Insights): Vision without quality information will lead to frustration. it is information that gives a drive to your vision. So any youth that wants to be a successful entrepreneur (business man) or innovator must give his/her self to information hunting (my own way of calling it). This involves reading quality business books, by successful authors. Attending targeted entrepreneurial/ business seminars and conferences and also getting to meet with people that have already made it and learning from them (mentorship) these things i have listed are the secrets to gathering quality information for your business. Information is simply facts about a thing or person. So in other to be a successful entrepreneur you need to be thoroughly informed on the particular area of interest or business venture. Knowledge is power and the level of your knowledge in a particular field determines the level of authority you command in that field.
Guaranteed solution: the habits of reading books should be inculcated into our youths they should not just stop at reading math, physics and chemistry. Business books from successful entrepreneurs should also be read. Our entrepreneurial classes in schools should be more targeted practical and concise not just theoretical. - No access to startup capital: A lot of our youths in the societies have this challenge of not having a startup capital to enable them execute their business idea. So you now see that sometimes youths have a vision, they have an idea (a business idea), they are informed, enlightened and well educated but there are no startup funds. It is even worse when you don’t have anyone to borrow from. If it were to be in developed countries it’s easier to borrow from the bank but here in our own country it is very difficult for the bank to borrow you money. And sometimes you write a business plan with your idea and submit it to a financial institution with the hope that they will loan you money which might give you leverage. But chances are them stealing your idea or perhaps leaving you at the mercy of pirates because of this our youths will prefer to work then when they have enough money then they will start up their business enterprise.
The way forward (Insights): I will suggest that both the private sector and the government liaise together to create platforms where youths can easily get loans to startup their businesses then payback within an agreed period deemed fit between both parties.
Guaranteed solution: our banks, companies and other corporate organizations should start giving loans to people to help them startup and run their businesses then payback later with minimal interest.
CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATION
Entrepreneurship is basically about starting your own business or businesses and taking on financial risk in other to make profits. And for us to really have deep insights on the entrepreneurship subject we need to fully understand what business is. In simple terms business is solving a problem for an agreed reward. Business is simply and agreed exchange of value. So a potential entrepreneur has got to look for a problem he/she can solve for the community. Because the money you are looking for is actually in people’s pockets all you need to do is look for a way to solve their problems, satisfy their needs and they will happily give you their money.
BUSINESS IDEAS for 278.00 US Dollar as capital
The most important thing about being an entrepreneur is your mindset (mentality) the mindset of seeing possible opportunities in every given situation, community or place. An opportunity to solve problems when you look at it from that perspective it becomes easier to see investment ideas and opportunities everywhere you turn to.
There are lots of businesses to venture into let me list a few.
- Cassava/Bean Grinding Mill: with a minimum of a hundred thousand naira ($278.00) or less you can start this potentially lucrative business in our local community where people consume lots of cassava (fufu) and moi moi (akara) these are foods people consume daily.
- Photography: with less of the said amount you can go into professional photography starting with photos as easy as passport photographs.
- ICT Services/Printing: you can get a 3 in one black and white printer and go in printing and photocopying around our campuses.
- Laundry/dry-cleaning services: with a hundred thousand naira ($278.00) you can still venture into this potential lucrative business.
- Trading of food stuff: with that same amount of money you can go into buying and selling of food stuff like beans, rice, yam, potatoes, groundnut, melon, fresh tomatoes etc. you buy them from the northern part of the country (northern Nigeria) and bring them down south and sell them and make huge profits. Trust me its very lucrative.
- Trading of livestock: with the same hundred thousand you can also go up north and buy livestock like goats, sheep, dogs, birds etc.
- Poultry farm: seek professional advice call me and I will link you up. Start this business its also very lucrative.
- Blogging: this is also very lucrative on the long run. Get your own webpage monetize it post adverts and get paid for it.
- Learn a trade: example Aluminum/Glass windows Installations, Tailoring/Fashion designing, Wood work/furniture making etc. then start your own firm.
- Waste Disposal firm: there are lots of rich people looking for who to dispose their waste for them and they will pay capitalize on that.
- Start up a crèche program: there are very busy parents or single parents help them take care of their babies while they are off to work.
- Start up a barbing/beauty saloon and you will succeed
- Start up a mobile kitchen/restaurant: this is Africa people will definitely patronize you.
Let me stop there... There are so many business opportunities out there in our communities. Like I said earlier they mindset should basically be about solving people’s problems and meeting their various needs then the money would not be a problem.
It is important for you to note that there is no business now that you want to go into that there are not people already doing that same business. People are not going to patronize you because it is you who is now doing the business. People want to see the difference in your business and it is that difference that will make them patronize you. That might be termed as packaging. It is your packaging that sets your business apart from the rest of the folks doing the same business.
Package your self and your business well and people will flow in. read business books learn continually (note it is the use of the brain that establishes the reign of man) do it better than anyone else. Add a little extra effort because it is that little extra that makes it extra ordinary. Then reproduce the business in many other community get people into the vision.
Your own two hands alone is not enough to get you enormous riches as an entrepreneur, you need other people’s hands, other people’s time and other people’s money to work for you. This is how you will make it to the top. Above all seek God’s help. Apply what I’ve written down and you are sure to become a successful entrepreneur. Good luck and see you at the top.