Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: The journey so far: Sandras Phiri, MD, Africa Trust Academy

[Bulls n Bears]

 <http://www.nedbank.co.zw/> 

 

 

Sandras Phiri is the MD and founder of the South African-based Africa Trust
Academy, a coaching and consulting company that focuses on financial
education, executive leadership coaching and entrepreneurship development.


1. Tell us about one of the toughest situations you’ve found yourself in as
a business owner.


When I lost two of my biggest clients who brought in 80% of the revenue.
This happened at the same time but for different reasons. This highlighted
the risk of being almost 100% dependent on one or two customers. To overcome
it, I had to put every effort into sales to expand our client base.


2. Which business achievement are you most proud of?


Having Africa Trust Academy successfully operate in South Africa and
Zambia, and my work taking me to more than 21 countries. I’m also proud to
lead Startup Grind South Africa and continuing to offer inspiration and
education to startups and individuals.


3. Describe your greatest weakness as an entrepreneur.


Going with the first option and not weighing all other options. I generally
hire too quickly or say yes too fast, which has cost the company money and
time. To prevent this from negatively impacting the company, I now run all
big decisions by another director or, at least, one advisor. This gives me
the needed feedback and time, at least, to weigh all options or to process.


4. Which popular entrepreneurial advice do you disagree with?


Everybody must be an entrepreneur. Another thing I disagree with is that
raising money is a measure of success. There are a lot of companies that are
doing great work that haven’t raised money and there are also a lot of
startups that raised money and failed. I believe that getting paying
customers is a measure of business success and those businesses that are
doing that need to be in the headlines more than the ones that just raised
money and are still not serving customers in a meaningful way.


5. Is there anything you wish you knew about entrepreneurship before you
got started?


I wish I knew the different phases of a startup early on and not try to
skip stages only to start back at one. One model that’s been a great
eye-opener that I learned from American entrepreneur Gabriel Luna-Ostaseski,
for instance, has four phases namely: incubation, validation, upshift and
scale. This model shows that you can’t scale a business that is not well
validated and that doesn’t have a repeatable and predictable method of
acquiring and servicing customers.


6. Name a business opportunity you would still like to pursue.


I believe a profit-making idea that is still not fully tapped is online
freelancing as individuals or as dev shops. There is a skill shortage of
developers in the world and more so in the developed nations. Many African
countries have high unemployment because the local industries cannot absorb
the number of graduates coming out of tertiary institutions.

This way, individuals can source international work and not depend on local
markets. Entrepreneurs can set up dev shops by putting together developers
with different levels of competence and specialisation and having project
managers and sales people to source work.

The focus should be global and not local. India is doing this well, with
many developers sourcing international work through various freelancing
websites such as Upwork and the usebraintrust.com. The internet is making
the playing field more level.

To make it in this global freelancing and outsourcing space, Africans need
to be super responsive and relentless because when a job is posted online
it’s seen by thousands of people in a few minutes and you have to compete
and get rated for your service. This is a great thing as it rewards great
work and service but it also punishes lazy or shoddy workers. African
freelancers and dev shops can serve European customers as time zone,
language and cost barriers are not major concerns between the two
continents.—Howwemadeitinafrica 



Sandras Phiri

 

Invest Wisely!

Bulls n Bears 

 

Telephone:    <tel:%2B263%204%202927658> +263 4 2927658

Cellphone:      <tel:%2B263%2077%20344%201674> +263 77 344 1674

Alt. Email:    <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> info at bulls.co.zw  

Website:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AF
QjCNH8LYgdY55h-XKseuM8Kpr-JKdfhQ> www.bulls.co.zw 

Blog:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw%2Fblog&sa=D&sntz=1
&usg=AFQjCNFoIy6F9IXAiYnSoPSgWDYsr8Sqtw> www.bulls.co.zw/blog

Twitter:                  @bullsbears2010

LinkedIn:               Bulls n Bears Zimbabwe

Facebook:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FBullsBearsZimba
bwe&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGhb_A5rp4biV1dGHbgiAhUxQqBXA>
www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe

Skype:         Bulls.Bears 



 

 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: winmail.dat
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 118519 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20190201/9033518f/attachment-0001.bin>