We all know the saying that a business is only as good as its people, and the bottom line is that people make up one of the biggest investments, both financially and emotionally, an entrepreneur makes in a business. Sometimes getting “the right people on the bus” can be the hardest part about launching a new venture. It all seems so easy when you start out as a solopreneur or with one or two co-founders, all focused on the same goal and all determined to make the business idea a success. But when that growth spurt happens, and you suddenly need to bring other people on board, then suddenly you’re trying to get everyone driving in the same direction toward the same goal. The trick is to hire competently and manage proficiently in order to move your business to that next level of growth. It isn’t easy, but by creating solid hiring processes and developing effective people management systems, you can build a productive and engaged workforce.

Just five years ago, a relatively small market of early adopter entrepreneurs crowdfunded for their businesses online to the tune of a reported $880 million. Fast forward to 2015 and crowdfunding grew to over $34 billion - a meteoric rise. In 2016 the crowdfunding industry is on track to account for more funding for entrepreneurs than venture capital, according to a recent report by Massolution. In comparison, the VC industry invests an average of $30 billion each year. Meanwhile, the crowdfunding industry is doubling or more, every year, and is spread across several types of funding models including rewards, donation, equity, and debt/lending. Equity crowdfunding has also emerged as the newest category of crowdfunding and is further accelerating this growth and disruption.The World Bank estimated that crowdfunding would reach $90 billion by 2020, but if the current trend of doubling year over year continues, we’ll see $90 billion reached by 2017. Fascinating stuff to consider for entrepreneurs here in Africa going forward!

Many highly successful entrepreneurs started out on their business journeys inspired not by one simple innovative idea, but instead by their need to solve a particular problem. It might be a problem facing other entrepreneurs in their businesses, or it could be a problem facing society or the environment - but finding solutions to key challenges in business or life is a great starting point for a business. It means people will be interested in, and want what you are creating.

We all know how easy it is to just keep doing things the same way in business because we know itworks and it is how everyone else does it, so why change it? Yet, what is the sense in doing things the same way others do it - if you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to do things differently? Perhaps this is the year to think out of the box, flex your creative muscles, and do things differently from the rest of your competitors. Why not look at presenting your company in a different way, re-look at your marketing strategy and try some new ways of reaching customers, launch a new product or approach - consider if there are alternatives to anything your company does to see if it works better. A little disruption can often be a good thing in business, keeping things fresh, not just for your customers, but also for you and your business. Just look at some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk to name a few, who regularly disrupted their respective industries, took risks, and as a result,  simply did things differently. 

Look at the key traits of any highly successful entrepreneur and the chances are that sheer tenacity will rank there highly. It’s inevitable that any great company or brand will go through challenging times at some point during its journey to success; periods of time when things are just difficult - perhaps a new product development process takes too long to get to market and is beaten to the punch by a competitor; or when a fundraising round for an expansion project hits some unexpected hurdles; or when the media starts to question the company and its leadership publicly. At times like this, entrepreneurs as the passionate founders of their companies and brands need every ounce of their tenacity to keep believing when others don’t, keep going when it gets hard, keep employees engaged and committed during the tough times, and lead from the front.

I read an interesting piece of advice this weekend written by Meenal Balar, Facebook’s early growth leader and now the VP of Marketing at Remind in the US, who said startup growth isn’t just about customer acquisition — in fact, that's just the first of four, multi-dimensional steps to real, meaningful expansion. Here are Meenal’s 4 steps to think about when looking for real progression in your business. Firstly, Acquisition - it’s largely about understanding how your potential customers discover and share new things, and mapping your product tactics to match the specific behavior you want to tap into. Secondly, Activation - this means understanding why people like your product, why they come back a second or third time, and then capturing all those attributes to retain even more customers. Thirdly, Engagement - the more customers you activate, the more you can engage them and that's when things really start to take off. Fourthly, virality - understanding how you can get your engaged customers to start talking about you to others and getting the messages about your company and products to go viral. It all makes common sense, but sometimes creating a step by step process to help us reach our goals, just makes it easier to get there.

I read a really interesting article this morning, the take-out of which is worth sharing. Mark Leslie, the Chairman and CEO of Veritas Software, a leading light in Silicon Valley, has made some interesting observations in that highly competitive startup environment. He often sees that big companies and brands are being beaten to the punch by ambitious young tech startups with their innovative, small, simple and cheap products that are aimed at taking on their larger, more complex and ultimately more expensive competitors in the marketplace. So his advice to startups is to learn from this trend, avoid the temptation to over-feature or over design your products, avoid adding on all the bells and whistles just because you can, and get your products to market quickly before your more established companies and brands do. This is the real competitive advantage for startups. However the trick is to watch out behind you for the next young startups who are nibbling at your own heels. Great advice.

Having the right business mindset that can handle anything is crucial in a startup and one of the ways to achieve this is through some focused reflection. Spending just 15 minutes at the end of your day in a quiet, uninterrupted space to truly reflect on your business and to look at it through the lenses of the ‘It’, the ‘We’, and the ‘I’, could be invaluable. In that quiet time, ask yourself these questions: The It: Did you achieve everything on your list at the start of the day and did you do the things that were important and not just urgent? The We: Did you add value to the lives of the people you interacted with? The I: Did you manage your own energy and mood levels properly, afterall, you can’t successful manage your business if you are not in good shape. By taking some valuable time to simply reflect on these things each day helps you to maintain focus and perspective in your business life.

As entrepreneurs, we are often focused on acheiving the next big goal and working out how quickly we can get there, or the next big challenge and how quickly we can find a solution, but the fact is that there are no quick fixes in entrepreneurship. As the old adage goes, it’s a journey not a destination. I was reminded of this again when I was reading a great interview with the highly successful US entrepreneur, Tory Burch, who said: “We may live in an age of instant messaging, instant gratification, and Instagram, but there is no way to short circuit the path to success. It takes hard work, tenacity and patience.” How true!

One of the mega-trends to emerge globally last year was the Maker Movement, which in turn has been credited with the rise of the Maker Economy. It represents a more collaborative, creative economic model for the future. Basically, it takes an age-old concept of traditional makers and crafters working in communities and applies a new technology-based approach to create a contemporary culture which focuses on art, crafts and creativity. This new interest in a growing global Maker Economy has to be good news for Africa’s women entrepreneurs who are building businesses based on making and creating things in the arts and crafts space, but harnessing the power of technology to build those businesses. After all, women in this part of the world have been working in communities and crafting beautiful arts and crafts for centuries. The opportunity today exists for women entrepreneurs who create a new contemporary approach to traditional African craft and tap into this global Maker Movement to expand their business potential into new markets.

As an entrepreneur, the smallest things in life can bring the most happiness. It could be a new business enquiry, a positive media article, a new social media fan, or a satisfied customer telling you how much they love the work you are doing. On their own, these may seem like small insignificant things in the day-to-day hurly burly of entrepreneurial life, but when you are in charge of your own business and destiny, each one of these small things represents a great step forward and matters hugely. There is something really satisfying about receiving positive acknowledgement and feedback as an entrepreneur, in whatever form it takes, and that is worth celebrating. At Lionesses of Africa, we still remember the complete joy of welcoming the first person to join our community, or the excitement of receiving our first comment on social media, or the immense satisfaction of publishing our first daily newsletter, and we still celebrate each one today with the same enthusiasm as the first time. So, take the time to recognise every small thing that happens in your entrepreneurial life, it can bring the most happiness.

The whole concept of entrepreneurship, by its very nature, is empowering, and therefore it stands to reason that if more women in Africa are encouraged and supported in realising their own entrepreneurial dreams and aspirations, then the continent will benefit. Through entrepreneurship, women are free to follow their dreams, test their ideas, not be the vehicles to delivering someone else’s vision, and as a result, encourage a new ‘can do’ era of entrepreneurship and innovation in their communities and countries. Women’s entrepreneurship in Africa can act as a catalyst for greater empowerment and positive change. So, surely its time to provide the right support, particularly in terms of mentorship and access to funding, to ensure that women-led enterprises can flourish. It's time to recognize and value women-owned businesses, and acknowledge that an investment in women's entrepreneurship can and will change Africa for the better.

Many aspirant entrepreneurs are ultimately deterred from pursuing a business because they don't believe their idea is original or differentiated enough, thinking that unless they have a business concept that has never been done before, it is not valid. Yet, success depends less on the originality of the idea and more on how it is executed, and that can be the key differentiator. Many highly successful entrepreneurs launched their companies, brands and products whilst there were others in the marketplace with similar offerings. However, what set them apart was their vision for the business, their marketing strategy, and their sheer determination to make it a success.

There is much talk about the need for entrepreneurs to understand that failure is often part of the journey, and that success doesn’t come easy or necessarily the first time around. Understanding that a business venture might fail, and that this reality doesn’t worsen your prospect of succeeding in the larger scheme of things, gives you perspective. Most successful entrepreneurs around the world will tell you that they have experienced failure at some point in their lives, and many have failed multiple times before getting it right. The trick is to have the right attitude to thoughts of failure. There is a great quote by the hugely successful Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Bakeries in the US. She began her business in 1977 in Palo Alto, California, and since it has grown into over 650 retail bakeries in the U.S., yet she faced a barrage of sceptics in the early days who warned her of impending failure. She famously said: “The greatest failure is not to try. Had I listened to all the people during the course of my life who said, “You can’t. You’ll fail. It won’t work. You don’t have…,” I wouldn’t be here today.” Acknowledging the fact that failure is a natural part of the entrepreneurial journey means you are less likely to see setbacks as insurmountable, or to view any isolated failure as catastrophic, or to let a failure get you down.

Over the holidays, I came across a really interesting article based on a book by leading behavioural economist and Harvard Professor, Sendhil Mullainathan, entitled Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much. It looked at how having a narrow perspective severely limits a person’s options and prevents them from seeing new and interesting opportunities that exist around them. It made for really interesting reading. From an entrepreneurship perspective, one of the keys to success is learning to keep an open mind, being ready to rethink existing ideas, being prepared to adapt to new circumstances, and being open to pivoting in order to take advantage of new opportunities.  

There is nothing quite like the start of a new entrepreneurial year to get the adrenalin pumping and the creative juices flowing. A new year is always so full of possibilities to be realised, new opportunities to be explored, and energy to be unleashed. The trick is to hit the ground running and to put in place and implement the new business strategies for the year ahead. By kickstarting the year with a strong direction, renewed energy and new goals to be achieved, it provides much needed early momentum that will set the tone for the months ahead. 

Behind any successful entrepreneurial venture is usually a team of people working tirelessly and energetically to achieve the end goal. Even solopreneurs have a network of people who support them on their ventures. But all too often, we get so caught up in the day to day challenges of building our businesses that we forget to tell our teams, co-workers, partners and supporters just how much we value having them on our entrepreneurial journeys and how lucky we are to be working with them. Being an entrepreneur can often be a lonely experience so having teams of people around us to give us the encouragement we need when the going gets tough, and to celebrate the wins when they happen, makes the journey all the sweeter. So let’s remember to continually acknowledge those teams of people who are taking each of those business steps to success with us.

Over the holidays, I caught up with some reading and revisited Eric Ries’ book, ‘The Lean Startup’, now a classic read. I was once again reminded about the importance of measuring success as a startup in order to learn and grow in the future. The whole concept of the lean startup is based on a constant, and very sensible, ‘build, measure, learn’ cycle. It encourages a startup to be agile, to work through failure, adapt to customer needs and constantly learn from experience - all very practical advice. Yet, as entrepreneurs it’s all too easy for us to feel too busy to build proper feedback loops into our products and business models. But without ways to effectively measure our success, it is all just guesswork. Ultimately it’s all about making sound business decisions based on evidence, not being afraid to try new things and measuring the difference it makes, whether it’s positive or negative. It is learning from this experience that can help our businesses to grow.

If I look back at the last year, I can honestly say that much of it happened at such lightening speed that some of the small yet significant events are somewhat of a blur when I look back. I am sure that for many of us as entrepreneurs, this is often the case in our busy lives. So, one of my resolutions for the year ahead is to learn to cherish each and every day, to record each of the highlights as they happen, and to value all the memories made on of each of those entrepreneurial days of my journey. I realise that every moment, no matter how big or small, is worth remembering and celebrating, and makes life purposefully more interesting.

The start of any new year brings thoughts of exciting new trends that lie ahead. And, behind every new trend are innovative people who are reinventing traditional ways of doing things, ways of seeing the world, and ways of creating things. The world of entrepreneurship is full of such people who are driven by a need and a passion to do things differently, and they are the force behind refreshing new ideas. Ultimately, trends define the future, and entrepreneurs are leveraging those trends to the full in order to create exciting new business opportunities. So the question is, will you be a trendsetter or a follower in 2016?