Expert Financial & Business Insights for South Africa
Strategic analysis from Idea Accelerator and ready-to-publish content from Financial News Daily.
The other day a bridal company entrepreneur was talking about her worst nightmare. She had ordered over 300 hydrangeas for a “white ” colour wedding from a grower in KwaZulu-Natal because she did not want to import the flowers. She placed the order six months before with the grower. This was good planning. Continue reading “This small business owner was forced to draw on her creativity”
The other evening I was part of a discussion about business education and entrepreneurship. One of the participants made the statement that an MBA degree could not make you into an entrepreneur but if you were already an entrepreneur it wouldn’t hurt to have additional business knowledge.
I’m not going to argue with this statement because I think it is correct. But it does beg the question about what then do you require to be an entrepreneur? What is entrepreneurship? Even though you may have worked for the family business or a company can you still become an entrepreneur? Continue reading “Can you acquire entrepreneurial instincts?”
When you mention the word creativity in conservative circles you may feel ashamed like it’s some sort of dirty word. Creativity is smothered or kept safely under lock and key in command and control organisations and institutions. Why? Perhaps because the new, the novel and different is scary to the traditionalists. Like oil and water creativity and business aren’t supposed to mix.
Yet is this true? Is it really the case? Is creativity so far removed from business? Continue reading “Wake-up your creativity”
Think of all the new products and services that have come about over the past five years. Products for the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room, the home office and small business tools. All these products and services were initially conceived in the minds of people who used their imagination to think up new ideas. In the next five years there will be many more new products and services for the home, working environment, entertainment and sports field. Many of these products and services will come from the imaginations of entrepreneurs who’ve taken the time to explore their world and people around them and have come up with new solutions to problems and challenges.
You see, there isn’t a shortage of opportunities but a shortage of imagination. Whether you use your imagination to come up with a new product or service, many others will do so because of the opportunities that abound. If you took yourself back five years or even further into the past, and looked ahead over the years to where you are right now, you would be amazed at the number of products and services that have been introduced into the market over this time. As a famous entrepreneur said, they is no shortage of opportunity, only shortage of imagination. Continue reading “No shortage of opportunities, only a shortage of imagination”
When we have high temperatures here in Johannesburg in the day and at night getting a full quota of sleep is difficult. It’s enough coping with 30°C during the day and up to 27° as late as 11 o’clock in the evening but the real challenge comes in the early hours of the morning.
You’re sleeping and are suddenly awoken by a sharp singing sensation on your shoulder. Then you hear a buzzing around your head. Next thing a mosquito has bitten you on the nose. That’s where it really hurts because of the many nerves in your nose. It feels like you’re in a dream on the Mosquito Coast.
