Additional Conditions and Factors that You have to consider when thinking of starting a business
In this episode of the Africapreneurship podcast, I discuss 4 other things to take into consideration when starting a business here in Africa.
This is a continuation of the previous episode. These 4 points are;
1. Get Feedback
2. Make the business official now
3. Come up with a Business plan
4. Finance your business
4. Get Feedback:
The next thing after your market research and deciding to continue is to build a minimum viable product. Then, let people interact with your product or service and get feedback from them. A fresh perspective on what you’re trying to build is very important and can help point out some problems with the product or service that you might have missed. Additionally, those who get to appreciate your products or service get to become advocates for your business and likely customers as well.
The way to handle feedbacks received is also key. Apply the following:
- Don’t be in a rush to reach a conclusion
- Appreciate those who gave you the feedback
- Look out for an element of truth in the given feedback whether is good or bad
- Scale the feedbacks that you receive and look out for patterns which will help you prioritise the things you’re supposed to work on
- Find out more by interacting with the feedback providers
5. Make the business official now
Once, you know that people are willing to use your product or service and you’re willing to incorporate the recommendations potential customers have given you, then you need to cover all the legal aspect of the business. This is essential to prevent from getting sued over something that is legally yours. Practically, go ahead to register your business with a unique name, and any other thing that your legal representative will ask of you based on the regulations in your country of residence.
6. Come up with a Business plan:
This is a document containing the description of how your business will evolve from when it starts to the finished product. This will serve 2 main purposes; to guide you in the process of building your business, and also to give outsiders more perspective about your entity especially when you’re looking for people to partner with or to sponsor you.
In a more formal setting, you will require about 20 – 30 pages but sometimes it’s difficult to come up with such in the early stages, so an informal one will serve as a guide for you is very essential
7. Finance your business: The issue of financing a Start-up in Africa, is now getting more hype than it used to have and that is a good thing everyone wanting to start their own business. There are a number of ways to finance once business. The decision on which of them to choose solely depends on you, the resources you have and how much of your company you’re willing to give up. Some of the ways include:
i. Fund your own start-up
ii. Get Family and friends involved
iii. Get a government business grant
iv. Start an online crowd funding campaign
- Angel Investors
- Venture capital investors
- Join a start-up incubator or accelerator
- Bring on a partner who will finance the business
Dr. Ehoneah Obed (Pharmacist, Software Engineer, Health Informatician, Founder)
My work focuses on identity engineering, which is the deliberate process of designing and updating who you are, personally and professionally.
Most people experience identity as something fixed or accidental. It is shaped by parents, early success or failure, education, and society’s definition of what a “good life” looks like. They adapt to it rather than questioning it. What most people do not realize is that identity is not just something you discover. It is something you can actively engineer.
Personal identity engineering is about gaining control over how your beliefs, values, and self-concept are formed and reinforced.
Professional identity engineering is about translating that internal identity into skills, work, leverage, and visible contribution in the world.
When people feel stuck, it is rarely because they lack motivation or talent. It is because they are trying to change outcomes while leaving the underlying identity system untouched. Careers stall. Confidence collapses. Direction feels unclear. The system keeps producing the same results.
I learned this by rebuilding myself multiple times.
I trained as a pharmacist for six years. While working in hospitals, I began learning to code alongside my job. That led to building real software, selling products, transitioning into software engineering, completing a master’s degree in health informatics at the University of Toronto, and now building startups and systems full time. Each transition followed the same pattern. My identity did not change because I thought differently. It changed because I took specific actions that produced new evidence, and that evidence forced a new story about who I was capable of being.
That is the core mechanism behind identity engineering.
Identity updates when you intentionally generate evidence that contradicts your old self-image, then compound that evidence until the old identity can no longer run the system.
This blog is where I document that process. I write about how to design identity experiments that are small, controlled, and reversible. How to build proof-of-work that changes both how you see yourself and how the world responds to you. How to move forward without waiting for clarity, confidence, or permission.
This is not motivation and it is not coaching. It is systems thinking applied to human change.
I also write The Ledger, a weekly record of systems and experiments for building a life you own.
And I built the Identity Audit, a diagnostic tool that helps you understand your current identity state before you attempt to change it.
I am not presenting a finished theory. I am engineering this in real time, using my own life as the test environment. If you want more agency over who you are becoming, both personally and professionally, you are in the right place.
