Just before I left the University in Nigeria the NUC introduced a course "Entrepreneural Development" and made it compulsory for all of us then. That was a wise starting point by the Govt by trying to introduce Entrprenueral Skills into the University Curricula, but it is one thing to learn about Entrepreneural Skills it is another thing to have a desire to become an Entrepreneur.

David Mc Cllelands "N-Achievement Theory" (or the Need for Achievement theory) posited that some nationalities have a high "N-Achievement" tendency while others have a low one. He also added that those nationalities with a High "N-Acheievement" tendency also have very high Entrepreneural Spirits that causes them to excel in their business enterprises and examples were given of such races as the Americans, Jews, the Asians et al.

You can't argue with success (or successful people), you can only learn from them.When I attended a Business seminar recently for Black Entrepreneurs in the UK one of the questions most of the participants asked was, "How come the Asians are so successful and we are'nt ?".That triggered off a study into Asian business enterprises and we decided to learn from them.

We learned how to have a solid business plan, we learned how to create a niche market for our products,we learned how to take risks based on assessments and how to make use of OPM* to the advanatage of the business and we also learned how to utilise Franchise's.There is always something new to learn from every successful Entrepreneur irrespective of where the person may come from.

Talking about Franchising in Nigeria, this is one area where business opportunities are easily transformed into business ventures.

For every single consumable product in Nigeria there is an Entrepreneur who holds the Franchise for it. Someone holds the Franchise for Uncle Bens rice, WAHL Clippers, IKB Soap, Capel Wine, Jungle Oats,Dell Computers etc in Nigeria. With the advent of globalisation and the Internet it could be worthwhile checking what areas of business franchising opportunities are available and make enquiries.

The proprietor of DBN Televsion Nigeria saw an advertisement in a foreign newspaper about the Broadcast rights of African football on Television. He quickly formed a company ,applied and won the broadcast rights.Before you know it, Technical partners joined him and they were able to Broadcast the African Nations Cup tournament throughout the continent for so many years before the era of Satellite TV.

Some months ago a TV series titled "Inside The Mind of a Millionaire" was broadcast on TV in the UK, they were trying to analyse the mind-set of these Millionaires to see what made them dare to be different.They were given various tasks to accomplish.The strange thing about it was that the Millionaires were inter-mingled with other ordinary men during the tasks and a group of Business psychologists had to analyse who amongst the group were Millionaires. That was'nt hard to find; they did'nt play by the rules. When the rules did'nt suit them they created their own rules ,re-adjusted the playing ground to suit their potentials and played by them. They took risks. They were visualisers and ( I don't like this part) they were all school drop-outs.

In that group was a young Nigerian guy named Alexander Amosu who had the intellectual property for the Commercialisation of Ring Tones on Mobile phones in UK.You know what that means ? Other companies get the Franchise from him and for every £1.50 Ring tone downloaded he gets a 30 pence Royalty (with over 12 million ring tone subscribers).

The Bottom-line: Being an Entrepreneur involves a self-conscious desire to provide a solution to a business need. This can be done by being either an innovator (improving upon an existing business idea) or an inventor (creating a business idea) or by Franchising (having the right to borrow someone else's business idea).When this is settled we can then utilise our acquired or learned Entreprenueral skills in line with the business vision we have .

Hello, thanks for your write up i enjoyed every bit of it and i want to ask you to pls give me a note or write that will explain more about the below lectures you get from that seminar pls brother. "We learned how to have a solid business plan, we learned how to create a niche market for our products,we learned how to take risks based on assessments and how to make use of OPM* to the advanatage of the business and we also learned how to utilise Franchise's".

you can help send to onyewenu@yahoo.com

thanks

Rogo,

Thanks for taking interest in my write-up. I took part in a seminar , it was a Start-up Business Seminar for Black Professionals. They examined the characteristics of black businesses in UK, the attitude of Blacks to business, comparative analysis with Asian UK business models.We also examined how to look a unique product to sell/market, and at the business opportunities available through Franchising. I gave examples of Franchised products in Nigeria. OPM, refers to borrowing money or using other peoples money to finance your business ideas. I may not be able to replicat everything but I hope you understood the salient points I was trying to make concerning being an Entrepreneur.

Bump