Kenya Bitter Truth

By Strive Masiyiwa Click here to signup into Odibets and play to win big. "Not all readers are leaders... __But all leaders are readers!"* By now most of you will have seen the streaming videos from the inaugural two-day summit on African business that was held last month in New York. If you weren't able to tune in to the Global Africa Business Initiative discussions Live, I'll share the link below. It was a real honor for me to have been the co-Chair alongside Africa’s most senior global diplomat, Ms Amina Mohammed, the Deputy SG of the UN.  One of the key events was a fireside chat in which I interviewed Mr Robert Smith, the wealthiest African-American with a net worth in excess of $5bn according to Forbes. Mr Smith is an engineer who went into telecoms [like me] but he later went into banking before setting up his own multi-billion dollar private equity investment company known as Vista Equity Partners.   Back in 2019, I am sure some of you will rememb...

Nyamakima and Kamukunji hasolas are crying wolf as their stock delay being cleared in Mombasa due to huge container pile up. Previously, before all the clearing and forwarding was reverted back to Mombasa, the containers would be offloaded from the ship and directly loaded on SGL freight train for onward transmission to Inland Container Depots (ICDs) in Athi River, Embakasi or Naivasha, where the traders would swiftly clear them. The traders are nowadays forced to waste alot of days in Mombasa following up the Clearing of their cargo.  Revitalising the economy of Mombasa means unconvincing the traders and making them incur losses as they follow the slow clearance of their goods. Ni god, ni god manze!

One, Intelligent People don’t like wasting their time. They have a strict work ethic. They don’t attend everyone’s business. As scriptures challenge us in 1 Thess 4:11, intelligent people mind their own business and they are self-reliant. They are not a burden to anybody.  Two, Intelligent People believe in quality thinking. One can hardly think critically if they’re always crowded by small-minded people. As scriptures challenge us in Eph 5:17, intelligent people don’t act thoughtlessly – they are purpose driven. They exercise their imaginative faculties in solitude.  Three, Intelligent People believe in planning. They plan each day the night before. They have clear goals for every day. They make each day count. In Luke 14:28-30, Jesus challenged us to count the cost before executing any project. Prov 21:5 says good planning and hard work lead to prosperity. WARNING: Spending quality time alone is not the same as isolation. Isolation breeds depression. Intelligent people sched...

By strive masiyiwa Would you consider merging your business with that of another entrepreneur? A merger is when you combine your business with one created by another entrepreneur. Most people think that Mergers only happen between large businesses, but that is not true. I have done some really cool mergers in the past, and our business would not be as big as it is if I had not mastered the power of merging. Mergers have always given me an opportunity to make my business bigger, faster.  We call this getting @SCALE. It is still about the two key formulas of the entrepreneurial playbook: INNOVATION PLUS MARKETING-COST=PROFIT. A business [that has identified and reaches out and solves a human need] #Scales as a result of the “3Ps”, and nothing else! #Product #People #Process. You might have a good #Product [that solves a customer problem in an #Innovative way], but you don’t have the #People who can drive the other pieces—Marketing, Process, Cost Management. If you hear an...

By strive masiyiwa About 30 years ago I wrote a letter that changed my life as an entrepreneur. I've told some of you about this before. I had come across a newspaper article announcing the private sector arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, was setting up a special fund to help what they called at the time “Small and Medium Size Businesses” - SMEs. [We don’t really use that term much anymore; today we say “Entrepreneurs]. The article was right there in the local newspaper that we all #Read. But I read to DO, so I always have a pen and paper... READY to FOLLOW UP! Back then there was no email, no Internet. I decided to write a letter and then had to wait months and months for the reply. A black guy from Guyana eventually wrote back, and said he was one of the people working on it. To cut a long story short: he traveled to Harare to undertake a Due Diligence of my first little business. Together we worked on my Business Plan. He actually had the ...

By strive masiyiwa One of you reminded me of a post I wrote here back in 2016 where I said that what you do AFTER you have a great idea, is what becomes your legacy in life. That you’ll go nowhere as an entrepreneur if your #Plan to finally get down and work on your dream is ... “one of these days”. “You must first believe in yourself,” I wrote, and then commented: “This whole topic is a subject for another day! There’s much to be said about faith, and faith at work!” Thank you to Jacqueline Adeagbo for reminding me of that post a few days ago, and for asking if I could write something more on the topic before I close the platform. In fact, that subject would take a lifetime of posts but let me flashback to the one she mentioned, to get us started for today. It’s then over to you! Several years ago, long before Internet and Amazon, I was in London going from shop to shop looking for a bible translation called The Living Bible. I’d just heard a sermon about the meaning of Ma...