I write this a frustrated business man. Frustrated because just like you and I, you have watched many and sundry fight for the lifeline of their businesses without luck; dealt with supplier letdowns without a solution in hand, had goods stocked on the shelves with few or no clients putting anything on their shopping baskets, clients taking so much of your consultancy time only to send a regret weeks later that they are holding their assignment ‘for the time being,’ and a pitching event being pushed to next year among many others. While all this is happening, the service provider constantly knocks a day before month ends to remind you of the bills falling due at the end of the month. It feels like a bad coincidence sometimes; doesn’t it?

I have been a victim of such; waking up every morning to the realities of everyday life as a young entrepreneur. I am not a big fan of motivational books; but assuming that they all have a story line just like the Mexican Soaps, it always reads something like, “don’t worry, tomorrow shall be a better day.”

Someone once said that that a wise man learns from the mistakes of others while the fool learns from his own mistakes; or something like that. I have made mistakes, I think once, and somehow learnt from them. I have almost made mistakes a second time and chosen to ‘learn from others lest I became the fool.’  But how do you know that you’re making a mistake? The answer is, more often than not, you never know until you find yourself in one. So, the best way to learn from them is not to find yourself in any.

Every successful Kenyan entrepreneur out here has a unique story of how they made it big.  But beside their nail biting unique experiences, one thing that I have found being a common denominator among all of them is the fact that they have all gone through some really rough patches before they could claim success; arrested by police, spent nights behind bars, been in the media for the wrong reasons, auctioned, left by their spouses, friends, victims of bad PR, etc.  Does it mean therefore that to make it entrepreneurs have to go through this? Not necessarily.

I recently had the opportunity to watch Peter Nduati, the founder of Resolution Insurance (formerly Resolution Health) speak about how he made it in a very ruthless insurance industry. Failure to him was not an option. He learnt the hard way, wasn’t afraid of making mistakes and actually crashed. The most inspiring part was rising up again, dusting off and moving on.

When my friend got a job at Morgan Stanley before the global financial crisis, he told me that his passion was to get employed for a short time and that he would eventually venture into business.  The difference between my friend and I is the fact that whereas he wanted to venture on his own 15 years later, I wanted to do it now.  He saved every coin he could with as much caution as any accountant would do.  Two years ago, he started his business with a US$. 350,000 saving.  The only challenge he encounters is that the market out there still favours those who can face it no matter how bleak everything appears to be.

He has had to fight with everyone from the lawyers for delivering the incorporation documents a day late to the web designer for not confirming the domain name, from printers to interns to his bank; everyone to him is a letdown. He has found himself at the police station many times just to report someone for failing to deliver on time or filing civil suits due to those misgivings.

My response to his sometimes lazy complains has been, ‘this is Africa.’ This brings me to the question, despite the period that you’ve been in business, how many people have you wanted to sue for failing to deliver, or for not delivering on time? If you looked at it critically, it would be almost every service provider that you have had to deal with for over a year; initially at most instances. What makes it even worse is that we have a very skewed judicial system that favors the one with more to spend. 

Tired by the frustrations of not having people deliver on their promises, I was once compelled to run to the courts. Relying on the information provided by my lawyer, I opted to run to the courts hoping that I will quickly win justice; after all, we have a reformed judicial system, or so I thought. It worked perfectly, only against me.

Why is that so; the Kenyan court calendar is always full, at least some four months ahead; meaning that you cannot not expect any miraculous ruling for at least a year or more.

It is a rough world out there and if we all decided to run to court for everything that goes wrong in business, we’d find ourselves running to court every day over almost everyone we have to deal with.

In a recently concluded Africa Resource Bank forum on Africa’s productivity in the 21st Century organized by the Inter Region Economic Network, it emerged that two key hindrances to Africa’s productivity are culture and attitude among other factors.

Change of attitude begins with you and I and so does the culture of taking shortcuts. Micro, small and medium enterprises are arguably a key contributor to growth in Africa. But unless we learn to do things differently, everyday will be a court day, leading to lack or no productivity at all.

By Micahel Musau

Independent Consultant
Michaelmusau@gmail.com