Failure as a startup owner

I pioneered into joining the now overwhelmingly many Tech Hubs on the African Continent. In May 2012, I pitched Tech Start-up idea to a panel of kLab founders. My business idea was to digitize booking,purchasing of bus tickets and offering of Geo locations of public buses to passengers.

The problem that I was solving is; passenger have to travel 10 to 20 km to Kigali's main Bus Park to book a bus ticket and return to their premises. Other passengers are forced to wait for 30 minutes to 2 hours between the time of purchasing a ticket and the departure time.Thus Nyabugogo Park is ever crowded,with passengers waiting for maturity of their travel schedules.

Perfect, with mobile money API, sms application and a server, I was ready to solve the problem. Passengers would buy tickets after crosschecking the different available schedules through our sms platform and buy a ticket of their choice. A passenger would then move to the bus park a few minutes to the boarding time. Paper use would be reduced as well, since passengers with sms tickets would only be required to show their sms recipients to board the bus. The system was environmentally free as well.

With a thorough market research that gave me projections of over 50,000 daily passengers and close to 1000$ daily profit margin. I spent some sleepless nights and energy on the streets, pushing every door at Telecom companies,banks and Transport companies to get the startup off the ground. With a team of 3, one strong tech guy, one strong Marketer and a strong business and market maven, there is no way, our business was not going to hit the ground running.

Prior to kLab's opening, our startup was operating from my apartment/Ghetto in Nyamirambo. An internet modem and Cash powered electricity are the worst resources to run anything with. (When 10 smartphone users suddenly get into your neighborhood on to your cell tower, your internet speed drops by half.)

When kLab granted our startup space, a few resources were catered for,thus we no longer cared about Internet and Electricity. 12 Months down the road things were not moving past certain points. Issues ranged from the market not being ready to hesitance of partnering companies. Plus the usual balancing-act of supporting living costs and the start-up costs, I put a pose on the Start-up and began searching for a salaried job. In other-words, I failed to kick start the start-up.

Beginning as an amateur Tech Journalist,then a Sub-Sub Contractor with Ericsson and later PSF-ICT Chamber. I found myself doing 3 temporary jobs simultaneously. (It is a long story on its own, since I got fired at one of the jobs, and got cheated 4 months' worth of payments from another.)

Failure as a Tech Hub manager

Luck shows up, and I was assigned to manage kLab. An institution where I failed from and carried lots of complaints. I felt I knew a lot that kLab would have done better to help me succeed when I had earlier joined with a business. There is nothing good in life like being on both sides, one as a receiver and the other as a Giver. In 2012, I was a kLab Tenant, receiving mentor-ship and support, now September 2013, I am the kLab's General Manager.

When I was assigned the job, I smuggled my tooth brush and blanket into kLab office. I loved kLab and still do, thus I was prepared to read,work inside-out and solve all the challenges that I had noticed as a former tenant. For a couple of nights, I would sleep in my office to win time of to&fro my apartment. Yes, some of my sleepless nights were fruitful, for example in a bid to raise kLab's VC community network, I remember having a video call at 2:00 am with Brad Feld -the multi million dollar VC with over 20years of Tech Business experience.

I read a couple of books on Innovation (Malcom Gladwell's 4Books, Startup Nation, The Learn Startup, Innovation and the State and more), made Techcrunch.com my Bible and quickly integrated into the Government's several ICT task forces.(If you love reading, feel free to inbox/comment and I will share some digital versions with you.)

With a background of Startup hustling culture.When I got assigned the task of managing kLab, I made an elevator pitch to kLab community regarding which ideas I was bringing on board. My pitch was dubbed "kLab as a startup" where I put across ideas on how to build the community, increase from just 110 members, to how we would attract funding and establish a world class entrepreneurship ecosystem. Like all ambitious Entrepreneurs, my dream/vision was that one day a Startup that originated from kLab would grow,flourish and list on NASDAQ. I will never forget the round of applause and glittering faces of hope that the kLab community gave me when, I projected that "slide"(above) illustrating kLab and an arrow pointing to NASDAQ. It is that same energy, that still haunts me and make me feel that I owe something to the kLab community.

With an experienced Think Tank at my back, the kLab board and a dynamic community of Entrepreneurs. I had/still have all reasons to dream of NASDAQ. kLab board is made of former Senior Managers at IBM, former Developers at Amazon and Traders on London Stock Exchange, to mention but a few.

Part of my then pitch: A proposed weekly schedule that would develop world class entrepreneurs With one year managing kLab, I did not meet my set targets and my heart itched and I looked for an exit. One year is indeed short to jump out, but today's world moves fast, since I could not easily achieve my short targets. Transferring management to another person with new thinking, was the best idea. And it is, kLab members continue to tell me,of several new initiatives happening and its awesome to hear.

Like, I had promised most of the kLab members, my Targets included seeing more and more kLab members flood cars at our parking lots. I badly wanted to see money enter into their pockets. With inspirations from the works of people like Paul Graham of Y-Combinator, I was determined to not copy-paste but learn a lot from them and do an ounce of what they have done.

As, I prepared my exit speech, I could only get the below items.

1.kLab members have received 1/4 Million USD investments.(Those on our records).

2.kLab community has grown,(over 600 members are part of the community)

2. kLab's media visibility is excellent (Google kLab -You will see.

3. kLab has a strong,committed and high profiled board of trustees plus a strong backing of Government of Rwanda, PSF and JICA.

Why did I share this story:

1.If you are involved into a Tech Hub business either as new Hub Manager or New Startup owner,learn from my story. Call it whatever, failure or success, but don't repeat any of my mistakes nor should you not utilize any hints that I portrayed. At the time, I did both the startup and management of the hub, there was little to learn from, since the two concepts were new in Africa

2. Two main advises for any Person initiating a startup or managing a Tech Hub in Africa

(i) Reading Culture: Tech Entrepreneurship is a knowledge based business, thus a reading culture is paramount. Only about 2 out of 10 Tech Entrepreneurs that I met, be it in Rwanda or other African Tech Hubs had read a few books, the rest had not read any book outside the university curriculum. Shockingly even when I checked stats of my previous article's on Fundamentals of a TechHub that got a total of over 1000 readers. Less than 180 Readers were from Africa, whereas over 250 were from USA, and over 600 from Europe and Asia. In talks that I heard with investors be it from Tel Aviv, USA, India, Japan,UK, they were all interested in co-founders who have a broad knowledge of the business world. All investors echoed the same words."We invest in people not their ideas"."We think kLab members need to read what other Startups' experiences have been." were the popular remarks I got from Investors. Senior Programmers also read books, I remember getting interesting books like "Starup Chile" from Eric Newcomer.(A Guy I would rank among the best Programmers I have ever seen -Click to see his CV to see why!).

(ii) Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 Hour rule: There are no short cuts. Just like the sequential iterations of a computer program, Entrepreneurship is about consistence and extreme hard-work. When, we introduced Friday trans-night live coding at kLab, only 5 to 10 Entrepreneurs attended. Guess what? all those who attended the trans-night coding are the most successful now, of the 600 member community.

I only wish that the above 2 ingredients get into African Tech Hub communities. I still believe in kLab attaining its destination(in future seeing kLab founded startups grow to list on NASDAQ). These dreams are neither biblical nor just random, it will take time but will. I am an aspiring Data Scientist, basing on Data like Hans Rosling, Co-founder of the Gapminder Foundation, or Report to Obama on BigData and the Government of Rwanda's visions, I smell enough evidence that the African continent can/will turn a new economic chapter.

Read more about Jovani's work here

In this world of constant change, new technologies, and a thousand cultures, it’s evident and somehow comforting to me that the basic disciplines for business prosperity really haven’t changed in the last hundred years. Business success is still more about the people than the technology or idea involved. As a klab mentor to entrepreneurs I still see this every day.

I was just perusing a new book, “The Science of Success,” a collection of essays by and about Napoleon Hill, who is most recognized as the author of the best seller “Think and Grow Rich” from way back in 1937. Hill attributes his ten disciplines of success to Andrew Carnegie, who was in his prime well before that, over a hundred years ago.

Since language and implication have changed a bit since then, I’ll restate Carnegie and Hill’s original rules here, with my own current-day commentary and recommendations added:
1. Definiteness of purpose. Every entrepreneur needs to start by setting a major purpose for embarking down a specific business path. This objective needs to go beyond making a parent or spouse happy, getting rich quick, or advancing a technology. For success these days, the purpose better focus on people, and solve a real problem for customers.
2. Master-mind alliance. Building successful businesses still requires the ability to find and inspire the best people who “have what you haven’t,” whether that be skills, knowledge, connections, or funding. Then you must extend these alliances to vendors, partners, customers, and even competitors (coopetition).
3. Going the extra mile. Hill’s eagerness to serve others gave him greater opportunities, and this Law of Reciprocity works the same today. Doing more than you have to do is the only thing that justifies raises or promotions, and puts people under an obligation to you. This is still one of the most important competitive differentiators that you can offer.
4. Applied faith. This is a level of belief that has action behind it. Anyone can have ideas, passion, and faith about an important business opportunity. Yet for most people it’s only a daydream, since they are not willing or able to commit the actions required to deliver. Results are still the only true measure of success in business.
5. Personal initiative. Successful entrepreneurs do what they need to do without being told how to do it. Asking for insight is not the same as asking for the next step, or asking an advisor to make the decision. Great entrepreneurs are proactive, not only in selecting the right idea, but in implementing a product, setting a price, and choosing customers.
6. Imagination. This is the number one skill required for creativity and innovation. Without imagination, entrepreneurs cannot look at a problem from a new perspective. Without imagination, entrepreneurs cannot visualize how various solutions to a problem would work. Without imagination, entrepreneurs can never dream up new ideas.
7. Enthusiasm. This is the contagious quality that great entrepreneurs have to attract correlative passion, commitment, the best people, and customers to their idea and solution. Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful motivational tools in an entrepreneur’s arsenal, and no success will accrue without it.
8. Accurate thinking. Accurate thinking is the ability to separate facts from fiction via deductive reasoning, and to isolate and use facts effectively that are pertinent to your own challenges and problems. When the necessary facts are not available, accurate inductive reasoning or hypothetical thinking is required to fill the gap.
9. Concentration of effort. In current terms this is called focus and determination, to never give up and never be diverted from your purpose. With focus and determination, you and your team will understand what’s most important for success, and drive your motivation through the execution steps required.
10. Profiting by adversity. This simply means remembering that there can be an equivalent benefit for every setback. Successful entrepreneurs learn from funding failures, economic adversity, ruthless competitors, and lethargic customers. They insist on greater efficiency, try new business models, organizational improvements, and better cash management.

Carnegie and Hill understood how business success rules were tied to the entrepreneur way back in the early 1900’s, and the evidence is that those rules are still as applicable now as they were then. Business models and technology have improved dramatically, but the power of people with foresight, passion, and determination continues to supersede all these elements.

So the next time you are tempted to broadcast an abstract email to investors on your new “million dollar idea,” make sure you include your track record on how well you stack up against these disciplines for business success. Investors still tend to bet on the jockey, not the horse.

Ubukombe Hallellua Pacifique
kLab mentor for Startups

After my bachelors at campus , I was determined not to get a job , in fact I initiated an idea to my close friends on if we should start a company, good enough everyone was up for the idea , so we opened an IT company. But I still thought we lacked the skill , then luckily I went for a training in Kenya , on mobile applications development which included business training.

To be honest this was the most informative time in my academic life , I even wondered what I was learning in university anyway learning here was different from university , more practical and real.

So in kenya I learnt alot about business and I couldn’t wait to go back to Rwanda to start a company , more determined this time .

After the training I came back in Rwanda more determined than ever ,I called for a meeting with my business partners and friends, from the skills I had gotten from the training we developed the idea of the IT company , so we developed our services and we were good to go, we even opened up office.

Things got really hard , reality is entrepreneurship is not easy as people have painted it to be “quit your job and be an entrepreneur” lets leave that statement for another day , Respect to all entrepreneurs its not an easy way to go.

We started the company 5 people , we all had a background of IT , we were all running the company, this was the first mistake , we started a company we did not start a product this was the second mistake.

The first mistake we started the company 5 people all with a background of IT, when we started the company we didn’t know the challenge ahead , we didn’t know that we would need someone to market our services, we didn’t know we needed a sales manager, we didn’t know we needed someone to do the finance , maybe we did , so we thought we could handle it , “well those are simple things we can handle them” , this is the biggest myth among “techies”, they form startups without considering this, if you did a simple research of the tech start ups available in Rwanda today you will find most of them never consider this. You find 4, 3 or even 6 people all with an IT background registering a start up.

Well what I learnt is before you start a company around an idea and you don’t want to go in alone , you want business partners , when choosing a business partner think of what value that person is bringing to the company . If you have an IT background maybe you need someone to do marketing, you need an investor, I don’t think you need another IT person , if you don’t have a skill that person has maybe you need to employ them not to make them a business partner, because after that he will add no value to the company.

If we young entrepreneurs can change our mindset , such that if we are to start a start up and need partners we first see what value each partner is supposed to bring on board maybe we would have more successful start-ups.

The second mistake is starting a company without a product , yes like us many young entrepreneurs have started companies but without products , this can work out especially if you are to go for government tenders , but it’s not a good idea to start a company without a product. Its better to develop a company around a product , a company with a product is easy to market.

Some young entrepreneurs think they can form a company then look for a product , yes it works out sometimes but it is hard life. The best way is to have a product then start a company around that product.

That was my first company, I made my mistakes , if you read this don’t make my mistakes learn from them.

Written by: Robert Ssebudandi
Read more of Robert's work here