Made in Africa
Hey guys,
So I attended the London Business School (LBS) Africa Summit 2017 edition at the end of April, and I thought I should share with you all some snippets and highlights from the event from my perspective. I know it’s been a few months since the event, but hey life got in the way of wiring this…Anyhow here are my thoughts.
As a business owner, I’ve heard it said a number of times that you need to network, network and network to grow you business. Aside from my side hustle YOJOS (@yojoscrunch) featuring at the event (LBS purchased some of the mini vanilla crunch bags), I also wanted to swing by as the theme for this year's conference "MADE IN AFRICA" pretty much sums where YOJOS is from.
The summit was organised by the LBS Africa Club, a group of individuals studying at LBS who are all passionate about Africa. They put up an excellent array of speakers including Dr Oba Otudeko and Isabel Dos Santos. First up to speak was Mr Segun Agbaje, CEO and MD of Guaranty Trust Bank PLC. He spoke about "Made in Africa - a worthy ideal". A couple of things Segun mentioned resonated with me;
1. "Your brand can serve the mass market and the high end".
For me, this means that any product or service you supply can always be made to suit the premium high-end clients as well as the everyday mass market. Both ends of the client base spectrum are just as important as each other, you just have to tailor your product to suit both ends of the spectrum. Moral of the story here is cater to all, don’t leave anyone behind! They are all your customers.
2. "The real wealth in Africa is now the people and not the natural resources".
African countries are well known for their natural resources, oil and diamonds to name a few. With the situation with the oil prices now, natural resources are now longer seen as wealth generators. The people instead are now the wealth and value generators. You and I are the wealth generators for Africa. I tweeted this statement during the conference, and it got a number of likes and retweets, guess there are a few more people like me who also agree with Segun's statement. The gist here is that we need to ensure that that our actions, business ideas and contributions to Africa as a continent are all value adding ones to ensure we continue to improve on and grow the beautiful and resource rich continent and draw on it’s true wealth.
Aside from the keynote speakers, there were a number of panels that took place, the Entrepreneurship Panel being one of them. You all know I had to represent the entrepreneurs out there and attend this panel right? Now this panel had a number of influential entrepreneurs in their own fields, including the Co-founder of Aduna Foods
So key nuggets from the panel were, "Entrepreneurs make something out of nothing" Isn't that absolutely correct? We start our business from nothing, well nothing other than the idea behind the business, and with time and hard graft, it grows into something. Thought this was a very powerful and profound point. I wanted to stress that we all have our gifts and talents, some of us are entrepreneurs already, others are budding entrepreneurs. The key thing is to start with what you have, no matter how little the resources are and take the first steps towards your dreams. The key thing is to take the first steps.
You also need to be authentic, and do you, this was a resonating theme throughout the panel discussion. You have you vision about your business, and no one can steal that vision from you.
That’s all folks… Till next time.
Lots of love, Yojo xx
