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16/07/2025

🖤🏃🏾👈🏾

One of the most important things that will help you build your business will surprise some of you...
__It’s called !

A few years ago, I came across a podcast called Business Wars. I was so excited by it that I spent two weeks going through all of them, some 60 episodes at the time! Good thing it was during my holidays!

It details the history of great companies and the competitors that made them great companies, for example: Coca-Cola vs Pepsi; Estée Lauder vs L'Oréal... Epic battles between well-matched entrepreneurs and their companies.

These companies fought using one primary tool: !

If you are a football fan, you will know that competition is what makes the team great: Imagine Barcelona and no Real Madrid? Or Manchester United and no Liverpool?! Personally, I have never enjoyed the German or French Leagues because they are dominated by one team, whereas the EPL has at least six teams that could challenge for top spot.

Every season, you can see the that coaches are trying out to get on top of their competitors. This makes the game more exciting for fans and grows their businesses!

There is an excellent Netflix mini-series called "Sprint" which came out before the last Olympics and follows the intense competition between the runners from America and Jamaica. It is one of my favourite shows ever!

A lot of entrepreneurs in Africa don’t really appreciate that competition is a good thing for their business. Some will go to quite extraordinary lengths to stop competitors rather than using . They will even approach politicians and regulators to try to make it difficult for a competitor in one way or another.

State-owned companies throughout Africa are notorious for using power politics to stop competitors, and yet do very little to with products that delight customers.

If you need power politics to help you grow your business, it will be difficult for you to be recognised as a great entrepreneur, even though it might make you rich. There is a thriving industry in some African countries of “juju priests” who specialise in "helping" business people curse or harm their competitors! These are not entrepreneurs. And this is a form of idiocy by the way!

To beat your competitor and grow at the same time, you must to create new and constantly improve what you have.

Those of you who have studied business in school know that companies fight for "competitive advantage" in many ways, including:

# Cost leadership
# Differentiation
# Focus
# Reputation
# Strategic partnerships.

[Check out one of the Afterthoughts for more from this list].

Of all these, INNOVATION is the most important and... can also be added to each of the above!

Now here are some steps for you this weekend:

First, sit down and list your competitors, then carefully examine their : What do THEY do, and how YOU respond -speaking to create more value where it counts?

__How is your product and ? Remember: most investors look for “competitive advantage.”

Then prepare for a conversation with me:

Imagine I ask you to name your competitors and list all the INNOVATIONS you have launched over the past three months?

How would you answer me? If you just pause, umm and ahh... I will move on!

Image credit: Lamont Marcell Jacobs, Letsile Tebogo, Noah Lyles, Oblique Seville, and Akani Simbine in the men's 100m FINAL at the Paris Olympic Games August 2024. Photo by Adam Stoltman/Alamy Live News.

For these , the tiniest fraction of a second means the difference between Gold, Silver, and Bronze or no podium at all, after a lifetime of training.

In business, even what you think are the smallest of positive can make a world of difference when customers compare your company vs the competitors... Keep at it!

03/03/2025

Yes gott it 🤲🏾

02/03/2025

King in wich Jungell👀! Thay Need to change that To I am my Brothers keeper 💯?

01/03/2025

Ho can tel me wat a B20 is ? 👀and Dont Google it ⭐️👀

News
__A historic first for Africa

A few days ago, I was honored to deliver a keynote speech in Cape Town at the historic launch of South Africa's presidency of the B20 and G20. While you are likely familiar with the annual G20 Summit, many don’t know that there's also a B20, which is a gathering of business leaders from the G20 countries.

In November 2025, the G20 Summit will be held on African soil for the first time. A big first for the continent as a whole. This is where the eight B20 task forces will present their recommendations to the world's political leaders.

I am also honored to serve as one of the B20 South Africa Task Force co-chairs this year, representing all of Africa, of course. The theme of my plenary keynote was “Let’s use strategic collaboration to accelerate growth in Africa”.

In the speech, I gave the example of how Africans from 55 nations across the continent and different sectors successfully managed the pandemic crisis TOGETHER in 2020-22.

I shared details of how leaders from politics, business, and global philanthropy worked together to protect Africa’s population. Few people were aware of the fact that Africa had the lowest sickness and mortality rates in the world. And let me assure you, it did not happen by itself. Some of us worked 18 hours a day for two years.

We built the largest supply chain and logistics operation in Africa’s history. We mobilised and manufactured vaccines, and other medical supplies. We even exported urgent supplies to our African brothers and sisters in Caribbean nations.

I shared in my remarks that Jamaica's amazing athletes were enabled to compete in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 because rushed to export to them the vaccines that they needed to be able to travel and participate. [These were the 2020 Summer Olympics that had been postponed to 2021].

Here's my point: This is how we, as Africans, should now be collaborating to develop our economies! African economies [all of them] are just too small for a go-it-alone approach.

This is one reason why the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was launched. Together we are a growing market of 1,3bn+ people, with a GDP of about US$3,4 trillion.

I'll be co-leading the B20 Finance and Infrastructure Task Force which will meet periodically for the next six months or so to come up with actionable [impactful] recommendations to present to the G20 political leaders. The other seven B20 South Africa task forces will focus on:

# Trade and Investment
# Industrial Transformation and Innovation
# Employment and Education
# Energy Mix and Just Transition
# Digital Transformation
# Integrity and Compliance
# Sustainable Food Systems and Agriculture.

I'm not sure of the process but if you think you might have the professional and technical expertise to be considered to serve on one of the eight [volunteer] B20 task forces, you can find out more here: https://www.b20southafrica.org/

We need to leverage our key asset, and it’s not our vast mineral resources. We have something much more valuable than that: we have the world’s youngest and most vibrant human capital.

It is going to be an interesting year!







Photo credit: Henry Marsh

23/02/2025

If this helps pleas liv a coment Thanks!

23/02/2025

Du Får ett Toppen erbjudande

Få en värdering av din bil redan idag

23/02/2025

22/02/2025

New car fräsch start ! Do you need space ?look No futhere

21/02/2025

Wats your view on vendurs capital in Afrika Wood you go fore a move like that to help you with your plans as a ?

Venture capital series: Why does a VC invest in a ? (Summary conclusion)
__Now it's up to you.

In this series about Venture Capital investors, I have challenged some well-held views amongst many of you, but before I go on to other topics, let me go back to one issue: “Why does a VC invest in a business?”

To begin with, get it into your head that a VC is a business, and they make their own money by following a particular business model: They invest and help you increase the value of the company, then they sell their stake to someone else at a higher value than at their point of entry.

They are not interested in staying in for the long term. Whilst they are there, they provide funding and give you mentorship... and if you don’t listen to them or fail to do the things mutually agreed, then they have the power to kick you out of management [but cannot take your own ownership stake]. In such rare situations, they would find a professional manager who can run the business.

Being a VC investor is highly risky and most investments actually go bust or fail to realise their potential. When a VC investment fails, it is not usually because it was a bad idea but because of poor management skills of the entrepreneur. And when the business fails the VC loses everything!

VCs are usually dealing with entrepreneurs who have actually never run anything in their lives and are just full of great ideas. I have told you before that VC invests to make money, and they make their money by selling their shares to someone else. Before they actually invest, they research to see how easy it will be to sell their shares and get their money out.

The ideal situation is to sell to the general public in an IPO. Now if the local exchange is poorly run and rarely does IPOs, then that country is not a VC-friendly environment.

Some people have asked why the VC can’t sell the shares to the founders: It is actually very difficult because a founder who can afford to buy out a VC after increasing the value of the company, never actually needed the VC in the first place. Think about it!

Our message on Venture Capital in Africa is getting through, but you must persist. As I earlier mentioned, I recently attended a function in London where, when the Ambassador of an African country saw me, he immediately referred to my comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. He then asked me to explain in greater detail, which I did:

1. As part of the formal education in our High Schools we need to introduce a course in which is examined in exactly the same way as other school subjects;

2. Students leaving High School must know the formal process of starting a business, including the process to raise money and how to make a to investors;

3. A proper is needed to funnel money into your most promising young entrepreneurs who set up proper businesses with high growth potential;

4. Focus on DOMESTIC Venture Capital mobilisation and don’t rely on external players who are focused on the crème de la crème;

5. Go for mass entrepreneurship; and

6. Transform your local Stock Exchange into a vehicle for mobilising capital for high growth businesses.

On this, my job is done. Now it's up to you.







Image credit: KWB-Ubuntu Hope via AI.

19/02/2025

Love this animalas ?Naw i know wi i Have so much love fore Dogs specially pitbulls? 🥰👈🏾or is it just me ?