How to Pitch a Startup: 101
Pitching a startup in under 3 minutes is no easy task. To pack everything from the problem you are solving to your business model, market strategy and Unique Value Proposition feels close to impossible. Can't be done! Or...?
Misfits? No, trailblazers.
Back in early 2019, I asked a group of women in Namibia what holds back female entrepreneurs in technology. Lack of confidence, they said, and self-limiting beliefs. And it’s no wonder - the lack of female representation in technology can make any woman in the space think that they don’t belong. Self-limiting beliefs, while common, feel especially prevalent in countries in southern Africa, where traditional gender roles and cultural norms persist.
Why doing a PhD is like running a startup
Unlike some might think, doing a PhD is not, for me at least, the "Backup plan when I couldn't get a job" or an attempt to travel back in time and "Have fun like in my 20s". I chose to do it to enhance my expertise in an area that is not well-known - the entrepreneurship ecosystems in southern Africa. I'm doing it because I want to understand how technology entrepreneurship can be better supported in the future, and how to do it in a region that is in need of creative, new solutions in job creation.
That's the mission.
"Tomato, to-mah-to" - on SMEs and startups in Africa
While many have been making sourdough and started other lockdown projects, I've been working on my literature review. In the reading on entrepreneurship in Africa, four dimensions stood out to me. From the Rural & Urban, the Formal & the Informal to the Necessity- & Opportunity-driven, entrepreneurship in emerging markets has distinct features that make it different from the developed markets. But there’s one dimension of entrepreneurship that seems applicable regardless of where you find yourself in the world. That’s the Traditional & Contemporary dimension.
Startup Culture from North to South and back - and why I do what I do
If it's still there, alive and kicking after you've left, you might have been a part of creating something sustainable.
That's what I thought when I was beaming with pride earlier this week attending Investing and partnering with African Innovators in Helsinki, Finland. I saw my previous colleagues implement an event idea I had been a part of conceptualizing and it went brilliantly.
Ordinary women, extraordinary resilience
Yesterday I attended an event at the Southbank Centre during which Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton discussed their newly released book, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favourite Stories of Courage and Resilience, interviewed by Mary Beard. My interest in the book piqued since I had recently worked on a project where we at SAIS Programme together with Hivos Southern Africa aimed to understand the female experience in technology entrepreneurship in Southern Africa. I was curious to learn who the 100 women Rodham Clinton and Clinton had selected for their work were and if any African women had made the cut – but to be honest I was looking for some personal inspiration, too.