In the constant debates about entrepreneurship vs. paid employment it’s easy to forget the basics – what entrepreneurship really should be. At the core is a venturing spirit, the ability to see opportunities and seize them by doing the work necessary.
Entrepreneurs come in different shapes and sizes. An Intra-preneur working within an organization is no less of a venturer, and can have a lot more impact because of the reach of their company’s operations.
Since not everyone is cut out for it, the pressure to start a business should be disregarded – if we all started businesses then who would get hired to help out with the work?
So here’s an alternate thought. Entrepreneurs in Africa should teach.
– Good thinking, good product
Any professional navigating a career path, will eventually have a wealth of experience and know how to optimize on some earlier decisions. Why not pay it forward? Teaching is probably one of the best ways to really understand a subject and a chance for real impact.
If you’re in the better half of professionals in your field then it is possible that you might have thought about projects you don’t have time to handle immediately.
What if you had a couple of interns to put on the job? I think the quality of this experiment would depend on your ability to teach/manage them to bring out the best in them. It’s a two way street, as well as imparting skill you’d be expanding your private capacity, with the off-chance that one of these projects might bring in the proverbial pot of gold.
Because sometimes, it’s really just about trying. When you have the perspective that everything around you can be improved, you start to see opportunities to do more and more.
Final Thoughts
An entrepreneur is anyone with a venturing spirit, business owner or not. Just as startups are finding ways to boil the ocean, people can go one step further down the pipeline and provide personal opportunities for post-secondary age youth through teaching and mentorship.
- formal curricular activity i.e practicums, co-ops.
- extra-curricular activities and side projects e.g tech fairs, conferences, meetups.
Such activities can create a viral loop where the talent pipeline improves as post secondary age youths are utilized in viable fields of interest, forming a steady labor pool.