The Afropreneur

The Tony Elumelu Foundation held its yearly TEF Forum which gathered 1000 entrepreneurs from 54 countries across Africa in Lagos, Nigeria. Lots of activities were lined up to ensure that every entrepreneur benefited from the forum.

In this episode we discuss key lessons that struck us

Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. It is powered by Google for Entrepreneurs. Monthly events are hostedin 215 cities and 85 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies.

Startup Grind is a connected online and offline network of vibrant startup communities to help fuel innovation, economic growth and prosperity at the local level.

We held an exciting ‘Networking Meetup/Party’ where everyone was encouraged to come well prepared to network and have fun. Head over to our article section to see the list of steps we penned down on How to network effectively.

Listen to a summary of how the event went in the audio clip below:

PS: We had to record while on the road so the audio quality may have been affected.

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

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Last week we discussed Leveraging Technology as a startup. This week we decided to take it a step further by discussing the use of Smartphones to live a more productive entrepreneurial life.

The use of Smartphones goes beyond just calling and texting. Features like Calenders, Task, applications can further enhance your life if you choose to use them.

Some features include:

* Task management

* Time / Schedule management

* Taking notes

* Backup contacts

* Messaging and communication with teams

* more in the audio file below

Listen to our conversation below:

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Hello African Entrepreneur.

We know building startups can be hard especially in Africa but it is worth it especially when you become profitable. But it is imperative that we entrepreneurs begin to leverage on technology as a business enabler to effectively manage our time, staff, clients, productivity and growth.

With the advancement in technology, applications exist in numbers that entrepreneurs can leverage on, both free and paid.

In this episode, we speak to Adeola Bojuwoye, who is the CEO of Roundstone Consulting. He talks about the Technology landscape in Africa and also suggest tools to use to effectively manage your business. Listen to our conversation below:

Also listed below is a very short list of FREE tools entrepreneurs can use, as there are thousands of products and tools out there for startups. Please suggest tools that have helped your startup that we missed out.

Design

* Canva

Internal communication

* Slack

* Hipchat

Finance

* Waveapps

Surveys, Feedback

* Surveymonkey

* Typeform

Newsletters

* Mailchimp

Productivity

* Any.do

* One note

* Evernote

Conferencing

* Skype

* Uber Conference

Project Management and Collaboration

* Producteev

* Asana

Customer Support & Ticketing

* Freshservice

You can also check the Best Note Taking Apps as shared by our friends at Cloudwards here

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Dear Entrepreneur,

Whether it’s a business, project, or a different type of proposal, the goal of a proposal is pretty much the same – to convince the reader to make the choice you propose. Therefore, your proposal has to be persuasive just as with words/speaking.

The proposal may be to a potential client, partner or sponsor. The end goal is to influence that person’s decisions, simple.

It is important to note the following:

* Sell the benefit(s)

* Proposals are not all about you

* Be specific

* Keep it as brief as possible

* Do your research

* Brand appropriately

* State facts

Listen to our conversation on how to structure a proposal below:

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Unfortunately, one of the issues plaguing our continent is that we do not identify as ‘one’ and would rather succeed for ourselves, our interests, our family etc. This is one of the reasons we have failed to advance at the right pace as a continent.

We spoke to an Ivorian Entrepreneur,  Jean-Patrick Ehouma, who speaks to us extensively on his experiences and why he has made it his passion to give back to other entrepreneurs.

As Entrepreneurs, it is expected that we contribute our quota to the development of Africa by helping those around us, including those that work for us. It is imperative that our work force grow in their personal life and career.

Note to Business owners: A happy workforce is a motivated workforce and can achieve anything!

Listen to our conversation below:

The collective growth of Africa is dependent on each and everyone of us

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Dear Afropreneurs,

Last week was an exciting week for entrepreneurship in Africa because the Tony Elumelu Foundation held its yearly TEF Forum which gathered 1000 entrepreneurs from 54 countries across Africa in Lagos, Nigeria. Lots of activities were lined up to ensure that every entrepreneur benefited from the forum.

In this episode we discuss key lessons that struck us. Listen below

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Often times we Entrepreneurs tend to take the foot off the pedal and put less attention into the quality of goods or services we are churning out or how we treat our customers. This must stop!We also discussed with Mathus Lawson from Benin Republic, who is the CEO of Beninlogis. BeninLogis uses geolocation to help users find and access locations, products and services. You can read all about Mathus here.

Below are some points from our conversation:

* Be open to feedback

* Do not be complacent

* Commit to constantly improve your product/service

* Customers are not patient, because a ton of alternate services exist

* Adapt your product/services to suit the times

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Entrepreneurs are hard pressed for time especially those with growing businesses. Working hard doesn’t necessarily mean productivity!

The goal of every Entrepreneur is to be efficient and effective with the limited resources available to bring about optimal output in good and services.

Here are some of the talking points of our conversation below:

* Have a detailed plan

* Place you goals in order of priority, use the 80:20 rule

* Be early for meetings

* Keep meetings as short as possible, have a clear agenda.

* Get some sleep, at least 4 hours a day.

* Be sensitive to your body, exercise regularly

* Develop a good email culture

* Be open to feedback

 

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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Dear Entrepreneurs,

Entrepreneurship is serious business no matter the industry. As playful as the entertainment industry is, it demands work. Successful entertainers are hard workers, same is true for every other entrepreneur. We met up with a fast rising comedian/entertainer, Olu Salako aka SLK, to discuss The Joke Business and these were some key points from our conversation:

* Look great all the time, it’s your first impression

* Network at every opportunity you get

* Learn to negotiate

* Take your business seriously, no matter how small

* Be passionate

* Be consistent

We would love to hear from you, do share your thoughts in the comment section or drop a comment on our Facebook or Twitter.

If You Enjoyed the Show

You can subscribe to The Afropreneur Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher. Please also leave an honest review on iTunes and Stitcher. If you want to hear more news from The Afropreneur Podcast including and beyond the podcasts, join the enewsletter mailing list.

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