I was invited recently by a member of the Young African Leaders Initiative to speak on the challenges encountered by young leaders in startups. In preparing for this speech, I was determined to be as candid as possible by using my personal experiences. I had only 10 minutes to speak and therefore did not fully cover all the things I would have liked to say so I decided to share this to encourage anyone who is interested in a startup.
Simply put, a startup is an early stage business, built on minimal resources for the purpose of eventual success. Startups have a high rate of uncertainty and failure with the potentials to become great.
Some of the most successful startups were initiated by young people. The likes of, Brian Chesky, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates. All these people initiated what has grown to become Unicorns before they were 30 years old. As young people, we have incredible potentials to achieve amazing things despite what some might perceive as our lack of experience. The road to success is rife with bumps and twists but I will tell you something that only few people will tell you, embrace these challenges, use them as your learning curve and remain positive always. You should know you are not alone though, many people have gone through similar circumstances and their stories can help you navigate the road. That is why I am here, to share my experiences with you. As someone who has had to deal with Startups myself, I have to say one of the major challenges I faced and I see many people face was in the area of
– Finance
You might think that when you have a great idea, you share it with an investor, since it’s a great idea the investor will invest in it right? No, wrong. Investors will not necessarily invest in your idea but in you. The onus is on you to build your personality. From my personal experience, an investor likes to know that his/her investments are in good hands. You may have a great idea but your heart or hands are not in the right place. No sane person will want to put their money in them.
– Communicating your ideas to a bigger audience.
Sometimes it’s easy to lose track of your message when you’re trying to impress or create an impact, we get so excited about this grandiose idea we have, of course the picture is in our heads but how do we paint the same picture to someone else. My advice is this, keep your means of communication simple. Try to engage your audience by being relatable.
– Cultural differences
The world is a global village, yes, we are kept abreast of events as they happen, we have access to China’s news at the tip of our fingers but make no mistakes, borders may be disappearing but cultural differences exist and it affects the way we do business. Culture affects HR policies, the pace of business, communications and sales. Yes. Even sales. To scale this particular hurdle, you must first accept that your way is not good or bad but is just one of many ways.
– Knowing the right time for the right idea
Imagine that after watching one of these futuristic movies, you have a great idea and then you launch it but it falls flat. You end up depressed because you think your idea was not so great. The thing is, your idea may have been a fantastic one but the time was not just right for it. One of my rookie mistakes was building products that were too complicated for the market or too early to be launched. It is important that we have the right balance in creating a start up, ask the right questions like ‘is the market ready for my idea?’ ‘If not now, when?’
So how did I navigate these challenges? First of all, I was determined that I was not going to fail. It was not an option. So I had these great ideas and I set about putting it to work. What I did was to
– Ask Questions
One of my greatest strengths is knowing that I am always in the least position I will ever be. To get to where I want to be, I must ask of those who have been in a place I am heading to.
– Research
This was something I learnt early enough. I realized that knowledge is an effective tool for a young start up and I set about it avidly. Some of the things I found out through hours of research in past years are things that are most useful to me now and will be even more so in the future.
– Make Errors
Now some of you may not like to hear this but, truth is, I learnt a great deal from the errors I made in my earlier years as a startup. No one wants to make a mistake and if you can avoid it, Awesome!!! For my part, I realized that if I was too careful, I would not learn and so I allowed myself to make mistakes and I learnt from them. I assure you, as a young leader in startup, once you have been bitten, you will never let yourself get bitten again.
Another important thing is to learn from others mistakes, and this is where researches play a huge role.
– Take Risks
– Take Risks
One of my team members said to me one day, “Khalil, I’m a creative, but I often wonder how you think up the ideas you think up, I could never do the things you do”. It dawned on me that day that though we may succeed at our different fields, not everyone is cut out to be creating start-ups. I say this with the greatest humility. Initiating start-ups come with a lot of responsibility and depending on your risk appetite, start-ups may not be for you. You have got to be willing to keep at it, even when the situation surrounding you says you are making a mistake, you take the risk nonetheless. I am where I am today because I was willing to take risks. Calculated risks for sure.
– Take Risks
Someone asked me during the interactive session what my thoughts were on competition. I think we should stop viewing competition as that. Our society is such that there is a huge gap between the challenges we face as a Nation and the solution. What we can do as startups is support each other by collaborating. I gave an example of Ali Express owned by Ali baba Group, this company is made up of small businesses in China and other locations and it is through collaborations that Ali baba is now one of the leading e-commerce company in the world.
Finally, to become a successful young leader, there are certain traits you must possess.
- So 1, be willing to take the risk.
- Secondly, have an idea and not just that, but you have got to put your idea to work. I have heard it said that the grave yard is full of ideas that were never birthed, dreams that died a still birth. Don’t let your idea be one of those that will take up permanent residency in a grave yard.
- Constantly educate yourself. The greatest enemy of development is stagnation. You have got to keep re-inventing yourself.
- Be flexible. Change is the only thing that is constant, so be open to change.
- Keep up with the trends. Don’t be too confident in thinking you have a unique idea that nobody else does, so keep yourself informed of the trends. I can assure you that even as we speak, halfway across the world someone somewhere has the same ideas as we do.
- Which brings me to my next point, stay humble and always remember, your image is everything.
- So 1, be willing to take the risk.
- Secondly, have an idea and not just that, but you have got to put your idea to work. I have heard it said that the grave yard is full of ideas that were never birthed, dreams that died a still birth. Don’t let your idea be one of those that will take up permanent residency in a grave yard.
- Constantly educate yourself. The greatest enemy of development is stagnation. You have got to keep re-inventing yourself.
- Be flexible. Change is the only thing that is constant, so be open to change.
- Keep up with the trends. Don’t be too confident in thinking you have a unique idea that nobody else does, so keep yourself informed of the trends. I can assure you that even as we speak, halfway across the world someone somewhere has the same ideas as we do.
- Which brings me to my next point, stay humble and always remember, your image is everything.
