Climb every mountain

Earlier this year, the Kampala Amateur Dramatic Society staged the world's favourite musical, The Sound of Music. I am not a fan of the unashamedly sentimental and heavily embellished story of the von Trapp escape from Austria and, as a result, my mind frequently wandered during much of the production; even, I am sorry to say, during the spirited rendition of Maria's mission to "Climb every mountain".

This song made me think, a little bizarrely, about entrepreneurship and the huge challenges presented by establishing and managing a successful business. As an investor in early stage businesses, I am only too aware of the disheartening statistic quoted by venture capitalists that only 3 out of 10 new businesses survive beyond their first two years, and that only a small fraction of those grow into even moderately successful enterprises. And yet, brave people keep doing it.

Why is successful entrepreneurship so difficult? It demands a very rare combination of personal qualities: a marriage of vision, imagination and creativity with the cold-hearted pragmatism required in order to manage a business effectively. It requires tenacity, determination, stubbornness and, most elusive of all, luck.

Having said that, I do believe that entrepreneurs can do very well in Africa, despite the manifold difficulties of launching successful businesses. African economies are growing rapidly and, except in a few hotspots like Nairobi and Lagos, they tend not to be as crowded or competitive as in many wealthier economies. Furthermore, Africa is, on the whole, a low cost environment with an under-utilised labour force and massive natural resources. There are, of course, a variety of challenges, principal among which is the need to manage the internal factors of a business effectively. Otherwise, no matter how good an idea it is, the business will fail. But there is also help available, from the numerous donor-backed small enterprise support programmes that are a feature of most African capital cities - and indeed also from the increasing number of venture capital funds in search of good quality investing opportunities.

"Climb every mountain" should be the entrepreneur's anthem. It represents the triumph of hope over experience, of optimism over pessimism. Entrepreneurs are the change-makers, and we should celebrate their achievements. As Lord Darlington (in Lady Windermere's Fan) said "we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars". I doubt if Oscar Wilde had entrepreneurs in mind when he wrote Darlington's part, but it is nevertheless a wonderfully simple expression of what it means to be a human being - a stubborn refusal to accept our own insignificance and the status quo.