Skills you need to Suceed as an Entrepreneur

The past weeks have been busy for me and my writing has been restricted to the minimum(precisely zero), but I promise my utmost best to write the occasional thought here and there as my scheduling permits.
That aside, let me focus my discussion on the essentials of becoming a successful entrepreneur in any given industry, be it in a service or a product. I am sure that some of us if not most of us aspire to be entrepreneurs. I believe that given a choice, we would rather be employers than employees. The lure of managing your schedule, controlling your destiny, higher revenue and even for some a chance to fulfill their long held dreams is enough motivation to entice many to entrepreneurship. But my big dilemma can everyone make the grade/cut? Well if you going to attempt, then you better read on.
Ignoring the starting capital requirement aside and arguing from a perspective of equal playground as far as capital is concerned, I would like to focus entirely on the qualities and skills that one needs to develop/learn before we plunge into the entrepreneurial world. I am tempted to jump ship tomorrow, but when I assess myself I am not ready? Because I believe that there are so many skills that one needs, and ignoring the popular believe you need to work hard, I argue that working hard is essential but on its own am afraid may not be enough to help you make the grade.
The other day, one of my friends was boldly debating with me that he believes that some of the successful entrepreneurs around have been lucky in one way or another. This is an interesting argument/opinion but I completely disagree with him. I believe that those people who have succeeded have either mastered the technique to understand and gauge the demand for their product or service. They have also been able to do extensive market research to aid in selling their product and service. We are all capable of working hard at all times, but am not so sure that we all have the same levels of intelligence, insight and commitment to master the same techniques for business success. I believe that hard work and a little bit of luck is necessary but I still do think on their own, they are never enough.
With entrepreneurship, we must be prepared to face obstacles, and if you are the kind of person that quits when the going getting tough or you tend to shy away from challenges, then in my opinion you are not ready for entrepreneurship. Use your present job to learn all the skills that you need to, even a menial job can provide you skills that will be important in running a successful business. Be prepared to learn the skill of networking, I cannot emphasize enough of this. You need this skill in career advancement; you need it twice as much if not thrice as much to succeed in business. Be prepared to learn from your friends, family and even present co-workers.
Lastly, develop street smarts, and good instincts when gathering information. Read widely from business magazines to politics, social issues and environmental issues because neither academic, logical nor systematic techniques will help you succeed as an entrepreneur.

Are you ready to be an Investor?

A lot of people seem to not know what kind of investors they are or for that matter in what ways that they can invest their hard earned money. Most often, we see people start to worry when they are close to retirement on how they haven’t saved enough to retire. Do we really want to expose ourselves to such a situation when we grow old? I have time and again said, I have nothing against enjoying life when we have the energy to, but it also important that we maintain our conscious that we can only have that energy for so long and realize that we need a nest egg when our bodies won’t be able to support such a lifestyle.
I will therefore dedicate today’s page to help us understand ways that we can invest. Some people choose to have cash in their banks and money market funds. While I have nothing against holding cash, why should one hold funds in cash when you can be earning a return on the funds however little that amount may be?
If you are ready to be an investor here are my tips on ways that you can invest, these include real estate, bonds, preferred shares and also common stock. I find that a lot of people go out and buy common stock in reputable companies and even upcoming companies. While this may be a good strategy, it is always important to consider what levels of subjective and objective risks that you can afford. Remember that with stocks, you are placing your future on the company’s managers/CEOs, of which you do not know their skills, loyalty to the company and even the priorities that they may take, which all affect the growth potential of the company. Investing in bonds and preferred shares, offers you less but steady return and you are also insulated against most mismanagement. I have always argued that real estate is an area that one cannot go wrong, though one can argue the example of the collapse of that market in the USA. I would laugh it off as a one off! Most often times than not, real estate gives you capital appreciation and of course one builds equity.
As we contemplate, discover and learn new ways of investing, we need to minimize our exposure to risk, because investors suffer from company defaults, credit crunches and even inflation. We need to set our goals on how much savings we expect to have and the risk that we can assume. Obviously, the younger you are the more risk you can take, because with a younger age you can afford to take risks as you will have enough time to recover. That is why I have always argued that investment and money management should be part of our school curriculum. We do not want to end up being desperate in our investment endeavors as a result of being late in starting to invest; there is no jackpot in investing! Take time to learn investment techniques and also understand financial data, only then can you grow your portfolio. I have said it time and again there are many financial books around, take your time to read as many as you can.

How Africa can compete in the Global economy

Any news you read and even some of the people you talk to have/will indicate some stereotypical ideas, opinions and assumptions that are used to label Africa as a negative place to be. But for those that have been to the continent or frequently visit the place, you can generally agree with my believe that Africa has great potential in it and the continent is not as bad as many perceive it to be, After all, did we not host the 2010 world cup successfully? And through South Africa, the world saw how beautiful Africa is and the potential that the continent carries.
I argue that in order for us to move forward and remain stable amongst the challenges that we face, we need great and visionary leaders to help us achieve that potential. This leads me to my concern, how can we remain stable and grow as an economy when we entirely depend on agriculture? Yes, some countries earn some foreign income from tourism, fishing and even mining but no one can disagree that a lot of sub Saharan Africa is highly dependent in agriculture, and as population growth and industrial agriculture seem to take place, the continent needs new avenues to generate income for the small scale farmers who have high dependency on agriculture. Recently Kenya introduced tea picking machines which I believe will have a positive impact Kenya’s labour force. Surely, they were long overdue and I believe that this is a good step forward as we need to embrace industrial agriculture.
It is through industrial agriculture that we can free the labour and allow for enough time to civilize and educate our population. That way we can target a move to service based economies. I believe that the small scale farmers that derive their living from agriculture are prone to manipulation from those that are knowledgeable and have political power. This is where I argue that we need to invest in a sound education system and also embrace in technology if we are to compete in the global economy. If we continue to depend on agriculture, soon the land will run out and we will continue to have a poor majority, which doesn’t aid the progress of our dear continent. And in the end we will continue to have the same question marks.

Kenya’s Banking Industry in perspective?

Watching Kenyan news earlier today, I learnt that Family Bank Kenya has acquired a new strategic investor expected to inject fresh capital to aid in the company’s growth. I have great interest in the banking industry, and have therefore decided to shift focus from the political news and give opinions on Kenyan’s banking sector.
So what does the Kenyan economy gain from these banking expansions? Kenya’s economy faces a lot of challenges and one of the things that I am proud of, is that our financial sector is growing. However, as banks keep growing and diversifying their range of products, my main concern is the high interest rates that this banks charge. As a case example, how can the poor majority in Kenya turn their lives around when they are being charged an intrest of 17%? There needs to be tougher regulation for Kenyan banks. Even in the developed economies the interest rates are not as high; at least there are varying interest rates.
On the plus side, I commend the recent introduction of credit reference bureaus. I have always felt that they were long overdue in Kenya; I am meant to believe that the country seems to be on the path to developing a healthy and sound banking sector; however we need to put stringent regulations as far as interest rates are concerned. We need low interest rates for the common mwananchi, not this kind of rates that are only accessible to the rich. The country needs the Central bank to reform some of the policies to ensure that our banking sector continues to build on this growing confidence shown by foreign investors. With the increased competitiveness, signs are that things are being run efficiently. As Kenyans continue to talk about the so called Vision 2030, I believe that the financial sector will play a critical role in the economic development of the country, because banks have been identified as the key to the socio-economic model in Kenya.

Moving to the Western (developed) world with a foreign educational qualification, bad or good?

Reading widely on matters concerning sports, politics, business and community living has played a big role in influencing my decision to dedicate some of my free time to write my own opinions on a wide range of topics. Today, I would like to focus on the issue of immigrating to the west, and by that I mean moving abroad to study, live or work be it on a permanent or temporal basis. Since many countries can be termed as Western world, I will limit my focus to the country I know and understand well, i.e. Canada.
Whenever I have travelled to my home country, many of my friends, relatives and even neighbors have either requested me to give them information on how easy or hard it is to live and work in this country as an immigrant, especially those that have already graduated out there.
My personal opinion to those that have managed to come and for those who still have those ambitions of coming is that it can be extremely difficult and even next to impossible to get a decent career related job in this country if you only hold a foreign credential. Forget about your bachelors, masters etc that you have from Africa, too many questions get asked of you out here such as why an employer should hire you when they can get someone with local qualifications. Some employers may bring into question the genuineness of the educational qualifications you hold; for God’s sake who knows whether you may have even paid someone to fake the qualifications. If someone is going to come here with a foreign creditential, then be prepared to sell your skills considerably and also aggressively to the employers’ in order to show that you are better than those that have graduated here.
For those that are already here and plan to stay here, I would recommend that they enroll in local programs because in the end it will pay off to get that Canadian education. Good luck for those that plan to travel this way, and be prepared to sell your skills. Life is no longer about whom you know, but being able to show your skills in an equally competitive market.

Invest your hard earned Money wisely!

Talking to my friend the other day, I figured out that it’s a must I write about our conversation because that would be of great help to most of us. My friend is a retired man in his late sixties (of course didn’t ask his age), but he still continues to work as a part time employee instead of being already retired. He told me a story of how he lost his investments in the stock market and how he cannot afford to retire. I sympathized with him, but there is nothing I can do to help him. However, I believe that I can be wise to learn from his experience, and so I hope you too learn. On the basis of that conversation with him, I decided that I write something that would serve us well when into comes to investing our hard earned money and that is to invest wisely.
In the course of our lives, we all have different dreams that we want to achieve and if I could ask many people around, the answers would probably include, dream cars, dream houses, vacation, raising a family, education for children and even retirement. While we may all aspire to have all these dreams, very few of us will live to get anywhere close to them. Part of the constraints, will be as a result of our own poor planning, poor decisions in our investment strategies and even poor financial knowledge.
Each of us has a very different style in the wide spectrum of investment. Some people are willing to take high risk to gain high rewards, while some are risk averse, and therefore will want to invest in investments that have very low risk premiums, but with steady returns such as the T-bills.
My personal opinion is that when we choose to invest our money, let us choose to diversify. A little bit of this and that, means that we appreciate the terms of risk management. People who are also risk averse can try what we call mutual funds. With mutual funds, your money as an investor gets pooled with other people and as a result you are able to own part of the companies that ideally you wouldn’t afford the risk, in other terms you share the risk. There are many great financial managers who manage mutual funds and are ready and willing to counsel you on the art of investing. Make sure you collect as much information about the companies you wish to invest in and spread your risk. Never ignore the advantages that you can gain by making use of someone who is trained in handling investments, because they will help you make good judgment.

A future in Business?

We all went into school, college/university to get an education so that we can have a foundation to build on our intended careers. However as the years have gone by, the world has become a fast changing place. Recession has hit hard, and the dreams of having secure jobs for some people are fast fading. If you study the statistics that have been released elsewhere, you realize that over 90% of the world’s populations are employees yet they only control 3% of the world’s wealth. Wouldn’t it be good to be in business? Yes, it takes a lot of courage and risk to get started, but why not the risk.
Very few people realize that less than 10% of the world’s populations are business owners and investors, yet they own almost 97% of the world’s wealth. The challenge is simple and clear, how do we start building a future in business. Most of us are afraid to think. There are lots of wonderful books on wealth and business. There are lots of online articles on businesses, which could be a starting point for all that aspire to get into business.
It my sincere hope that with the recent economic crisis, we may start to challenge our thoughts, our lifestyles and our chosen career path. We all have the capability to be successful.

Achieving financial Independency

Many people do not know the secret of achieving financial independency in the latter stages of their careers is careful planning. There is the mistaken myth that one will start saving when they start earning more, or when at their peak of earning, but the truth is one should start saving as soon as they start earning any sort of income. In the modern economies, most people live from each pay cheque to the next; money comes in and then goes out to paying bills. As witnessed, over the last year or so, most economies have been hit by the recession, evidently showing that financial planning and strategizing to achieve financial independency is a must. We have seen people, friends and even relatives lose jobs, businesses go bankrupt etc.What we learn from these events is that you can never know what tomorrow brings, hence having a safety nest a must.
We need to keep tabs on how we spend the funds that we earn. Saving should form part of our habits. Make use of discounts at grocery stores, and also buy things that are a necessity. Live within your means. Don’t finance luxuries, like borrowing to go on vacation.
Credit cards are easy to get nowadays and can be tempting, keep them away from our wallets and only use them in periods of emergency. Achieving our goals of financial success requires discipline and focus. We all have the capability, if we can learn the secrets of money management

As the moment of Truth draws closer-The Kenyan Constitution Referendum

The Kenyan constitutional referendum has been a waste of resources for a long time. The government spent so much money in the defeated referendum in November 2005. Again, leading to this upcoming referendum, the government finds itself in a situation where they have spent so much resource to put the draft together and even campaign for the draft itself. Surely, we have got to move on from these YES and NO’s .There is nothing worse in life than failing to make a decision, and this is what we have certainly been witnessing over the last few years. Sometimes it’s even better to make a decision that’s wrong and build on that to make a correct one. For us to remain discussing the same issues on the constitution without making a step forward is weak and being stagnant. We need to be aware that every time there is a contentious issue in place, it’s always hard to bring the parties involved to agree, what Kenyans need to do for now is to let us have the new constititution and then any amendments can be made once we have it in place.
If I was given the opportunity to be the decision maker, in this case the executive, I would convince parliament to debate and isolate the contentious issues and put them aside. Once we put this issues aside, we can have the rest of the draft implemented into a constitution. Am assuming that once we set aside the contentious issues, we will have a 100% YES vote. Once the constitution has been put in place, the other issues can be reviewed and debated and then a later date for those issues to be voted for or against can be set, probably sometime next year. I believe that this will foster national unity and ensure that no further funds are wasted. We have to be aware that whether the constitution draft passes or fails on august 4th, 2010, some of the contentious issues in the draft can only be amended via a referendum. Which again will call for funds and of course further wasted funds.

Surely, twenty years is a long time for a democratic country like Kenya, with enough educated individuals. It’s a shame that 20 years on we are still searching for a new constitution. Whether we hold this referendum today, tomorrow or even 100 years, I believe that there is no way that we will come to a consensus on ALL the issues or clauses, In my view, let’s have it as it is for now and we can continue to amend those issues on a pay as you go basis. Let’s have this constitution and move on. So from me it’s a YES with no strings attached. August 4th, 2010, one word….YES..

The Kenya Constuitution Referendum

Why I am for a “Yes”

As Kenya plans for a constitutional referendum set to be held sometime this year, I would like to give my thoughts on why we should vote for it and why I support the draft that was passed on April 3, 2010.
This new constitution adds more rights for Kenyan citizens and we therefore should not be seeking corrupt politicians to be interpreting this draft for us. I simply cannot stand Mr Ruto and the church’s arguments for trying to advocate and campaign against the draft. What they should know is we can have what is there for now and anything that needs to be changed can always be worked out with time.
Most of this opposition to this draft is especially from the churches fearing that it may open up the issues of abortion. Having grown up in Kenya, I have experience that tells me that anything that is good has always attracted criticism or variety of opinions from those who feel bad about whatever good you may have, be it beautiful wife, nice home, job or car .That’s why we have those people who thrive on others downfall. I find the argument about Kadhi’s courts less convincing. If these christians want their own courts, who has stopped them. No one. In the Bomas draft in 2005, the Kadhi’s courts was never a contentious issue, suddenly people calling themselves christians are now making noise that kadhi’s courts be scrapped when they have been around for as long as I can remember. A new constitution must be about adding more rights to its citizens and I believe with a new constitution in place, parliament and the judiciary will have more power and as a result the executive will have less. This way we will be able to control the impunity and corruption that is so rampant in our country.
I like the fact that land will be protected, and that parliament will have to vet as to who joins the executive. These so called politicians, who are opposed, are the very same people who stated that the government wasn’t serious about the constituition.Now that the President and Prime Minister are working towards giving Kenyans a new constitution, they are the very same people raising very stupid reasons to be opposed and being in the “No” camp.
Ruto and company have to be honest about themselves and more especially to the Kenyan citizens that entrust them to lead us. They should realize that they are trying to mislead Kenyans and they are only opposed to the draft constitution just because Mr Raila is in the “Yes” camp. Anyways, I hope I wake up to a day that Kenya has a new constitution.
Enough of Kenyan politics!

"What Wenger can do to ensure Arsenal are challenging for titles"

Another season has gone by, another year and once again Arsenal have come up short in their quest to land their hands in any sort of trophy. Avid club supporters are now showing signs of loosing patience with the Wenger transfer policy of signing youth at the expense of the "tested and tried" experience type players.Yes, arguments can be put forth moving to the Emirates Stadium may have put a strain on the club's finances, but then again the sale of key players last season should have at bare minimum seen replacements.
Anyways that's water under the bridge, and what needs to be done is to plan for next season. Here are my suggestions on how Wenger should address the deficiances that have crept into the team over the last few seasons.Ask any manager and they will tell you that a team vying for trophies needs to have a great goalkeeper.A goalkeeper can win you points throughout the season, but it seems to me that at our club, the goalkeepers lose you points, this must be addressed urgently.No more crap, we need a real good goalkeeper.We also need a defensive midfield cover for Song.Add to that, a defender and an additional striker.I would go on, about us needing a true winger, buts thats another day's discussion.
Wenger has to swallow his pride and go out and buy players who have peaked and have enough experience in the game, need I say players who are willing to do anything to win.Players that hate to lose.
Once again, we left to wonder what might have been, and another year we carry our optimism foward to next season.If wenger addresses this issues, we will be soon back to the old winning ways.

"My Thoughts"

Each day I grow older, but on on each passing day too, I have more questions about myself and the things I really want. When I was growing up,as a young boy I always believed I knew everything about what life entails and what its all about.But as each day passes by, I realize that I know less. Therefore, my life has now become a journey that is always filled with questions, and though most times I struggle to find the answers I beleive that at some stage I will meet the people that will help me unravel this questions.For the moment, my life remains a journey!

Welcome To my Blog

Hello everyone,I would like to welcome you to my blog and also thank you for choosing to read the contents .In this blog, I hope to cover a wide range of issues, from sports, business,travel and essentially Kenyan politics. it is my hope that you will enlighten yourself and expand your knowledge on various topics and issues brought to the fore.Enjoy! JR Ondicho Ribasi