Background…
I recieved a proposal to sponsor one of my venues for an entrepreneurship event. I sent the proposal to
Vusi Sindanefor his thoughts. This is the conversation:
Vusi Sindane
This is interesting
I was debating with another young guy who started Ermelo Youth Entrepreneurs Association. I was arguing that this country does not need more entrepreneurs. It needs more freelancers (useful people).
I based my argument on the principle that freelancers are people that get paid for what they do (plumbers, gardeners, graphics designers, photographers etc). When they stop working they stop getting paid. We have plenty freelancers especially in townships, they just don’t know they are playing in this freelancing space; hence cannot access the mechanics of the game and by default have to suffer being branded “unemployed”,
Entrepreneurs are people that design value creation processes, then acquire and manage the intellectual capital (people, information & processes ) in order to profit. Suffice to say this is extremely difficult to do, hence the global phenomenon is that only 5% businesses make it past 5 – 10yrs.
For this reason, I am not in support of “popular” entrepreneurship initiatives. I am all for inspiring people to do more than what they believe they can do – because all of us in fact can become better people in every aspect. I just don’t like misleading people into thinking they can be successful entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are wired differently and they don’t need to be told they will be successful [because it doesn’t matter to them – they will just keep on doing what they are doing anyway]. Entrepreneurs need just need tools in the form of education (mentorship and otherwise).
It is for this reason I choose to work with a small group of serious people, rather than a large group of people who are yet to decide whether or not they want to be entrepreneurs.
by no means am I alluding that these guys are not serious; clearly they are. I’m just wonder what type of people they are inviting to the event. In terms of viability, how long have they been doing their thing? What has been the collective revenue growth of their members in the past 3 years? That, for me, gives a determining factor of whether or not they mean business or if they are just another entertainment club.
Please excuse me for being so blunt.
I am passionate about entrepreneurship.
Jabulani Mabaso
You have a point!,
I don’t think though that the 2 concepts are in conflict. The big question for me is, commitment, vision, wisdom, patience, skills, and all those good things, whether we talking ‘freelance’ or ‘entrepreneurship’!
The challenge we facing is that we confused our need for survival (cash flow requirements) and passion for value creation! It doesn’t matter what you call yourself, but what matters is the underlying and core reason for doing whatever you have decided to so, freelance or entrepreneurship!
What differentiates South Africans from Indians, Jews, and Chinese is that people do what they do because they want to create long term value, whilst we do what we do because we want to buy new car, move to suburbs, build a house for our granny, etc.
My point is, whatever you call us, we are survival driven NOT value driven! Of cause there are justifiable reasons why we are like that and one of the reason is our socio-political history and I am not suggesting that we must hide behind our history, but I am painting a picture and creating context for one to understand why we behave the way we do.
The other reasons of cause are these ill-conceived concepts that we have imposed onto our economic transformation discourse, i.e. affirmative action, BEE, tenders, joint ventures, business development grants, etc.
To be continued
