There are very few creative entrepreneurs in Kenya. Many just copy business ideas

  

Date Posted: 11/2/2012 10:11:46 AM

Posted By: Franco1989  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 321

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There has been a new trend among the larger Kenyan population about starting enterprises and not relying on their day jobs. The youths especially have been seen to embrace the craze of having businesses and gearing towards having their own business. Most of them is because they want freedom and others just to satisfy their feelings. The government and schools have also encouraged their students to become job creators and not job seekers. This has really piled the pressure on the learned lot to have something in terms of an investment and not rely on unsatisfying jobs. The high level of unemployment has also been a major factor that has pushed many people into engaging in small and medium sized enterprises.

The major problem has however been the kind of businesses being set up in today's times. There are very few people who come up with ideas that are new and able to solve people's problems and in return enable them earn some cash from the idea. In a country where the level of technology is still low, very few technological based businesses are being incubated and the ones that are there are not so much new ideas. This has however been attributed to the stringent patenting rules and other laws that are related to intellectual property.

However with all that said we still go back to the same problem whereby we see that most of the business ventures are just copied from other people or places. We have very many examples to support the same like most coffee shops in Nairobi just cropped up not because there was a dire demand for such but because of copying the idea and trying to make it grow but identifying a more suitable place or better still a more promising location.

It is said

that there are only a hundred entrepreneurs and a thousand imitators. The entrepreneurs are creative and come up with original ideas like selling what is not there and also that has demand but an imitator will open another shop selling the same items but either cheaply or of the same price. There are also these kind of traders who hear that a certain commodity is selling highly. Without even surveying the market some other people order the same and try to make wild selling.

There are so many examples that can be taken from such like the trending business opportunities being rushed to. There are so many of these that can be compared to wild goose chase. One of my confidante recently had some new products made from macadamia seeds whereby he was making some oily substance that could replace the petroleum jelly in our markets but was skeptical for fearing his idea being duplicated by someone with more economical muscle and therefore his idea being rendered irrelevant and him losing out greatly.

The Information and technology savvy should be on the forefront to cultivate the culture of cracking their brains and coming up with fresh ideas and avoid the issues of counterfeit. You should also ask yourself as a trader whether you are introducing a new item to the market or just duplicating other people's ideas.It has even spill over to the creative arts where shows are not that fresh but past ideas.

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