Making youth enterprise finance sustainable. By Ronald Osumba – Chairman Youth Fund
Statistics in Kenya currently show 45% of young people want to venture in business, those that actually venture into business are 4o%. 60% of young Kenyans do not want formal jobs.
It is due to such statistics that organizations like youth Fund are very important to Kenya’s current generation. The organizations funds and supports young entrepreneurs who would like to venture into business. “Sadly there is a limited awareness of such organizations among Kenyan youths” says Mr. Osumba.
There are 175 youth empowerment programs in the country but majority of Kenyans are not aware of their existence.
“Young entrepreneurs should have mentors to help them in their idealization” he says. As an entrepreneur, aim at making your idea bankable i.e. if you invest some money in that idea, will it be able to bear fruits in the long run?
According to Mr. Osumba, young entrepreneurs, should avoid being desperate in business and underpricing their products, because this could be lethal; for the business.
The Key to big business. By Julian Kyula – CEO, MO-DE
In running their businesses, successful entrepreneurs are rarely driven by money, their major driving force is having passion for what they do.
The world is currently more tech oriented. Numerous products are being digitalized each day. “An entrepreneur aiming at venturing in tech world should not only target the 40m people in Kenya, but should rather target the entire world’s 7B population.” Says Julian.
Avoid trying to copy and build a duplicate of product already in existence on the market, but rather seek to upgrade on what is already in existence.
According to Mr. Julian, in Kenya, only 10% end up doing what they actually studied in school, therefore we should always learn how to adopt.
Young entrepreneurs should approach potential investors when they already have built their idea. This way, having investors who will be willing to invest in the business will not be hard, because an investor will be able to see his/her seriousness in the idea and business.
“As an entrepreneur, if you want to build an idea always think global” advised Mr. Julian.
For more info:
www.youthplusafrica.org