On investment, the missing link is local

The late Njeri Rionge was a serial entrepreneur, most famous for co-founding Wananchi Group. If you are connected to Zuku, you are a beneficiary of her ingenuity and innovation.

I met her once, as a guest speaker in my MBA class at Strathmore Business. Like most Kenyans, I used to hustle academically. After her speech, which was well received, she reminded us she did not have a degree. Everyone went quiet.

That level of confidence was admirable. Bill Gates dropped out of school, as did many other very successful entrepreneurs. One possibility is that they found the school too constraining and boring. As a long-time educator, I can say with confidence that we give the highly intelligent students or the gifted a raw deal.

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And if you are looking for highly intelligent people, they may not be professors, doctors or engineers. It’s the entrepreneurs. You may contest that if you wish. But these men and women start enterprises that have no precedence, often from scratch. Engineers, doctors or lawyers have lots of precedence, formulas and references.

Back to Njeri. I remember her for a question she asked in that class. Her concern was why we keep searching for foreign investors to come and make money. Why can’t we make that money ourselves? You could see the agitation on her face.

We can revisit that question. Every year, we churn out thousands of graduates at all levels. We expect them to get jobs. When jobs are not available we encourage them to become entrepreneurs. Yet it’s very clear many have no problem being employed; after all, labour is one of the factors of production.

Gen Z is slowly changing that narrative; they want to be entrepreneurs, not because they failed to get jobs but because they believe it’s the right thing to do, and there is unlimited possibility.

Why do we invite investors to make lots of money in our country? Would it not be easier and better for us to make that money ourselves? We know the country well, the customers and bottlenecks. Or is it because familiarity breeds contempt?

One reason is that we have been made to believe we are not good enough to start Googles, IBMs, Toyotas or Oracles. In schools of business such big firms are studied, analysed and mystified. We forget they were once startups! 

If a student proposes to write a PhD thesis on Mama Oliech restaurant or Njuguna’s many would laugh at that. What of KFC or Starbucks (si ile ya Karatina)?

This belief starts early when we are made to believe that our names are not good enough - we become Jaydens and Liams.

The belief is deepened by citing other scholars, mostly Western. Our over-reliance on ideas from the rest of the world makes us followers. By the time an idea finds its way into journals and the textbook, someone has already made money out of it. That person could be the school dropout!

Think of starting a hotel. A dropout will just start it after noticing that lots of workers hang around the office during lunch hour or eat cold food.  No time for feasibility studies, market analysis or profiling the customer. He or she will learn by doing. By the time the ‘well-educated’ are done with their analysis, the market is saturated.

We also restrict our students, giving them few choices on what to study. How enriched is our curriculum at all levels? The beauty about 8-4-4 was exposing students to many subjects. That increased the chances of finding their ‘fit’. Is that the spirit of CBC too?

Restrict diversity

It’s easier to start an enterprise in an area you are competent in. How do you know if you have a competence till you try it? How many Tiger Woods are around but have never been exposed to golf?

In our homes, we reward conformity. We would love to clone our kids intellectually. If a lawyer, your son or daughter should follow suit. We even want them to go through the same schools. That restricts their exploration and possibilities. We do not even want them to take matatus to school.

The external environment adds the push to conformity. Think of all the laws and regulations. How many encourage diversity of thought? When we say there is freedom of speech, which speech are we referring to? On politics, science, innovation, medicine? We invite foreign investors because we hate success. How often do we refer to the rich and affluent as devil worshipers, corrupt and members of the Illuminati? Check carefully; rarely are foreign investors classified as such.

Let’s say it loudly, being a foreign investor shields you from local issues like harambees, negative publicity and petty jealousy. They are placed on a higher pedestal courted in palaces. And they make money!

The popular argument is that such investors create jobs. That is true but would it not be better if we went beyond jobs to sharing the profits? Suppose we contributed Sh88 billion and built the expressway ourselves? Don’t we spend more than that on gambling? You would hear how money would be stolen and how we can’t handle such a project.

We love investors but we do not reciprocate by investing in other countries, space and possibly soon in exoplanets.

I have noted that in developed countries investors get all the support they need, from startup capital to even intelligence about markets, political environment and supply chains. If today I want to start a business in China, Nigeria or Moldova, how much support shall I get? From who?

Foreign investors bring much-needed capital, technology transfer and know-how. But we often forget patents and other restrictions. That is why homegrown research and development is indispensable.

Let’s start by making it easier to invest in other counties, then countries, continents and planets. Let’s dispense with the myth that investing, and making money is for the chosen few. Remember that song, “The Chosen Few” by The Dooley’s?