Starting a software business requires just a computer and programming skills, most people will say. However as Mark Straub a Venture Capitalist who visited kLab on Tuesday 19th February 2013 elaborated, a lot more is required for a software business to be successful and begin attracting investors.

"Starting a business is about finding a customer and solving his problem. Software and ICT are just very efficient tools to do that at scale, but software and ICT alone does not make a business, first you need to find a problem and then come up with a solution." Mark is a venture assistant at Khosla Impact, a Venture Capital fund based in Menlo Park, California that has invested in Kopo Kopo, a Kenyan based company that enables small and medium businesses to accept mobile payments and build relationships with their customers.Venture capital (VC) is financial capital provided to early-stage, high potential and high-risk startup companies in return for equity ownership in the company.

“The Rwandans ICT Entrepreneurs that I met are definitely focused on solving real problems and they face many of the challenges as young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, such as finding co-founders, identifying customers, and financing their early stage ideas. However there are some things that Rwandan entrepreneurs can learn from those in Silicon Valley." Mark added.

After meeting a number of Rwanda’s Young ICT Entrepreneurs, Mark had a few insights to give out to the developing generation of ICT Entrepreneurs in Rwanda:

• Rwanda Young ICT Entrepreneurs need not to repeat the same mistakes as that previous generations of US entrepreneurs went through. Since we know that 90% of startups fail to succeed globally, this percentage need not to be higher in Rwanda. There are lots of books describing the common mistakes to avoid when starting up a business including "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries.
• Venture capitalists who consider investing in Rwanda will look for an early success story: For example 1 or 2 clean and highly profitable technology-based businesses operating in Rwanda. With just M-PESA’s success, a number of investors began flocking to Kenya, thus Rwandans also need to come up with just a few successful companies to spear head development of others.
• Rwanda Young ICT Entrepreneurs just like their fellows around the world need to focus on solving just one particular problem and not trying to solve several problems at the same time. They need to zero in on just one particular item, and make detailed analysis of how to make it profitable by considering the end users’ needs and ability to pay.
• Rwanda being stable and secure with an ease of doing business and good climate is a conducive place for an entrepreneur to set herself up and use as the testing ground and headquarters for a company that has intentions of rolling out to the whole of Africa.

"Meeting Mark was really fruitful. He asked me all possible questions an interested investor would ask which helped me in knowing how to pitch a business model taking in consideration all strategic data" Jean from Torque LTD shared after the meeting.