The Resilient Branson 15
*Written by- Wilson Idahor, Programme Manager of the Branson Scholarship Programme (BSP), Liberia and Managing Consultant/CEO of Top Consulting Inc (TCi). He is a business development consultant with several years’ experience in entrepreneurship, small business financing, training and development in Liberia.
“It’s going to be tough and intense; so get yourself ready”, I warned in an email to the first batch of Branson Scholars before embarking on our trip to South Africa to participate in the Advanced Business Course at the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg. Such has become the norm in our exchanges since January 2014 when the Branson Scholarship Programme (BSP) in Liberia first began. SPARK and Virgin Unite collaborated to launch the BSP through the Business Start-up Centre in Monrovia and have trained a resilient dynamic group of entrepreneurs with 99% of their businesses still running smoothly post Ebola.
The First 15
In the first year, the BSP has carried the first 15 entrepreneurs down a challenging road with a learning curve but has come out the other end stronger with businesses set for success. The BSP in Liberia is a business development programme designed to develop entrepreneurs capable of managing and growing a business efficiently and effectively. The overall aim of the BSP is to train Liberian entrepreneurs that will act as catalysts to spearhead the development and acceleration of a viable private sector-led economy in Liberia. All the BSP business development activities in the last year were implemented locally in Liberia and South Africa.
Selecting the 15 entrepreneurs that made up the first cohort of the programme was not a simple task as our team had to sieve through loads of applications, visit several businesses and conduct personal interviews with many more. The determining factors that swayed our decisions was the state of the entrepreneurs existing business operations, the potential for growth and the likelihood that their business would create more jobs in the future.
At the beginning of the programme, the 15 entrepreneurs we fondly refer to as the Branson Scholars were ‘greenhorns’ in terms of managing a business. Although all the selected entrepreneurs had been managing an existing business, some even for up to 5 years, they still lacked many of the skills and knowledge to successfully manage and grow their businesses. In fact, this was one of the primary reasons for launching the BSP as a trend has developed of many entrepreneurs in Liberia starting their own businesses, managing to survive their first year, then grow marginally in the next 2 to 3 years but then reach a plateau, barely managing to get by which in turn eventually forces them to shut down. This was the reality the majority of the chosen scholars were facing at the start of the programme.
Still going strong
Through the BSP, these scholars have gained the essential business skills and knowledge to grow which we can already see has had a positive impact on the success of their business. This impact is confirmed by the fact that the Ebola crisis which shut down about 50% of SMEs in Liberia did not stop their businesses. We can proudly say that post Ebola, 99% of the scholars’ businesses are still running.
Since their involvement with the BSP many of our scholars have experienced great moments of success. 1 of our scholars has received a US$4.4 million contract, 3 others have relocated to bigger offices to cater to their increased customer base while another has gained so many more contracts that he can’t even manage to service them all. The scholars businesses are booming and they are eagerly seeking for more opportunities to expand.
It is generally advocated that job creation and subsequent economic development can best be realised in an entrepreneurial environment that empowers a large proportion of the Liberian population. Successful entrepreneurs provide benefits not only to their immediate families and communities, but contribute significantly to the economic growth and continued development of the entire country. One of our key objectives for the BSP has been to enable Liberian entrepreneurs to take their businesses to the NeXt Level of expansion, growth and success for their own benefit as well as the Liberian economy as a whole. The success achieved by the scholars so far and the growth their business has shown confirms that we are on course.
Rendezvous in Johannesburg
As part of the BSP, the Advanced Business Course at the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg provided the Branson scholars with further skills and knowledge in several business management disciplines including Business Modelling, Customer service, Sales & Marketing, Leadership, Innovation and Business Ethics to name a few. The course also provided linkages to investors, facilitated networking, mentorship and coaching and gave the scholars more business exposure. They benefitted greatly from the inspiration provided by new and upcoming South African entrepreneurs as well as support from established successful business men and women. These opportunities to interact and network with South African entrepreneurs was one of the key highlights of the programme because it showed the Branson scholars that other entrepreneurs just like them are facing similar challenges when it comes to doing business in Africa and they are overcoming them and moving forward regardless. When the going gets tough, we comfort ourselves with the fact that “nobody said that starting and running a business was going to be easy”. It has been quite a journey – few times, frustrating, many times, challenging but always fun. To borrow the words of Sir Richard Branson, indeed we have enjoyed ourselves and had a blast!
Going forward
Going forward, we intend to create an official network of all the entrepreneurs who participated in the course as a platform to continue to learn from each other, engage, share experiences, network, mentor others as well as enable linkages to business opportunities and access to finance. It is our firm belief and hope that the Branson Scholars will continue to achieve great things in their businesses for themselves, their families and the Liberian economy.
The Branson Scholarship Programme, Liberia is funded by Virgin Unite®, the non-profit foundation of the Virgin Group and Humanity United, a U.S.-based foundation dedicated to building peace and advancing human freedom. Technical support is provided by the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in South Africa, Business Start-up Centre (BSC), Monrovia, and SPARK (an international NGO) that develops higher education and entrepreneurship to empower young, ambitious people to lead their conflict affected societies into prosperity.
Let’s do it again, bigger and better!