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NewsDay

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‘Create core infrastructure for start-ups’

Business
An independent study done in July showed that small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) were contributing 40% to the gross domestic product.

An independent study done in July showed that small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) were contributing 40% to the gross domestic product.

Successful American entrepreneur Evan Burfield (EB) was in the country last week to help start-ups. In this question and answer with NewsDay’s Tatira Zwinoira (ND), Burfield said Zimbabwe has to put the core infrastructure and right environment for start-ups to succeed.

ND: What is the idea behind start-ups and why are they relevant?

EB: Start-ups focuses on building a product or service with the potential to scale and grow very rapidly. One of the classic definitions of start-up, as used at least in the United States is a business design for high growth.

ND: How can they help improve the economy?

EB: The reason that I think cities from Harare to Nairobi to Washington DC to London all have these sort of glowing nascent start-up communities is because you have a whole lot educated young people that are seeing these opportunities and have access to a common set of tools, skills and content. All of them are sort of seeing opportunities around them to apply all these digital technologies to change and improve things. I think that energy is what drives so much of this.

From left, Evan Burfield, Mayor of Kwekwe Matenda Madzoke and Paul Swider from Yali Network

ND: From what you have seen in the Zimbabwean market, can entrepreneurs invest more into these markets?

EB: I think the next stage in the growth of start-ups here is to really start focusing on finding the one or two or three businesses that have the potential to really become huge successes. So I think if the Zimbabwean community can find those champions, rally behind them, and support them, then a few of those companies can really take off. I think it will have a massive effect on attracting more capital both from some of the wealthy people in Zimbabwe and international sources. Also, I think it is going to have a massive effect in getting people to look at start-ups as something they want to do.

ND: What criteria can be used to try and find businesses with that potential?

EB: They need to have a very clear understanding of a specific customer that has a really burning problem or need and there needs to be a whole lot of those people around the world. You need to have people with a particular need, in a big enough market, product or service that has very high skills ability to it. Products and solutions that really have the potential to scale are big, entrepreneurs that have the ability to get stuff done fast are really rare and is critical to success. Entrepreneurs that are able to tell their stories very effectively, often times these are new ideas that people have never seen before. So an entrepreneur that is good at explaining that in a very simple and short way which will get people excited are going to be a lot more successful than someone who can not quite explain why this new is relevant to people. The final factor is you have to be able to figure out how to get a basic product built and enough early users to prove that there is something relevant there without a lot of capital. You have a lot of entrepreneurs that are sitting back and going like “until someone invests in me I cannot get started building my company”. But that actually works the other way, if you start building your company you are much more likely to get somebody to invest into what you are doing.

ND: What do you think policy makers can do to support the start-up community in the country?

EB: Part of it is stay out of the way, part of it is to try and help to create the right environment, the right core infrastructure. In a perfect world, government would be totally open to innovations and supporting new ideas and technologies so for a start-up to be successful they have to get good at figuring out how to work around or through governments that do not necessarily want to support what they are doing.

ND: From what you have seen, what would you want to say to the start-up community in the country?

EB: I think there is so much more potential in Zimbabwe than I appreciated before I came here. So I think the next stages are to stop focusing on what does not exist in Zimbabwe yet and start focusing on what does.