Being an entrepreneur is one of the most difficult things you can do. Most people settle for the comfort of working for someone else and collecting a paycheck. The truly brave people go off into the wilderness and try to make a business for themselves. They fight hard every single day working 12 hours and try to sell to others. It is a difficult prospect and usually involves pain and suffering. Even in all of this, most people simply don’t have what it takes to run a successful business and end up failing. The failure rate of new businesses is 95% after five years. This means that the majority of people just can’t make it.

A successful entrepreneur is someone who has gone through this process and has come out better on the other side. It requires some of the most grueling and difficult living possible. When you are an entrepreneur, it requires you to sacrifice so much of your time while other people are out partying and enjoying themselves. The journey of an entrepreneur is one of the loneliest roads you could ever take in your life. You will walk it alone and when you are finished, everyone will say they were there with you all along. It can also be done through unconventional methods. For example, the Iraqi dinar is something many people are investing in in order to be successful.

Being Able to Silence the Doubters

Everyone who goes into business as an entrepreneur has doubters. The entire world will keep telling you that you shouldn’t risk it because you will fail. In the end, it is up to you as an entrepreneur to silence doubters and prove them wrong. The only way to do this is to continue on the path and work successfully to build the business you try to have. For every setback you have, you must continue on the path for getting it ever happened and pressing on. You need to be confident even in the face of failure. When the doubters see that you are doing well, then they will start to give you more compliments. Eventually, when you are successful, they start telling you that they knew you would be successful all along. It can be a difficult journey for you, but there is no better feeling than being successful and silencing all your doubters.

Failing and Starting Over Again

A difficult part of being an entrepreneur is failing and having to start all over again. However, it is a part of the process and you should not get yourself down when that happens. It is rare to be successful with your first business. Most people go on a journey and fail forward until they have built a successful business that people will tell their friends about. Once you have failed enough, you start to see patterns and realize what works and what does not work. Another part of doing business is also being able to invest your profits whether in the stock market or back into the business. Sometimes you want to invest in other assets that can grow independent of you.

Making Smart Decisions for Growth

Growing your business can be difficult. Knowing how to grow your business sustainably is a critical part of how things work. You are required to grow your business if you want to sell it in the future. Most people won’t want to buy a business that has not had a significant growth period. They want to see that you are consistently moving forward with the business and that means showing them sustainable growth. The smartest decision you can make is to simply gain new customers over time while building new products that people will love. Once they see that you are delivering high-quality items, they will want to tell their friends and your customer base will expand without any marketing. Marketing is another thing you need to master as this is a critical skill in building successful businesses.

Building What People Want

Ultimately, the most important thing about successful businesses is being able to build something people want. Every entrepreneur knows that the key to success is providing value to people. The best thing you can do is to continually search for things that people want to buy.

‘Congratulations to our six young students for Angola’s most recent agricultural engineers. I’m very proud to see your path, which I followed closely at the Royal Agricultural University in England. You are living proof of what it means to invest in our Angolan youth!’ Isabel Dos Santos

The youth unemployment rate in Angola hit a peak of 27.39% in 2008 and declined to its lowest level in over a decade in 2017 when it was recorded at 16.73%. Between 2011 and 2018 Angola’s youth unemployment has hovered between 16.73% and 17.16%. This startling statistic (Statista: Angola Youth Unemployment rate from 2008 to 2018) paints a worrying picture, given the many challenges faced by the country. These include inadequate education, skills training and development, poor infrastructure, telecommunications, access to capital, investment & opportunities, et al.

Angola’s total population is 29,310,273 people, of which 64.84% are urbanized.  Unfortunately, Angola also ranks highest in terms of countries with the lowest life expectancy and the highest mortality rates. Even more worrying is that the bulk of Angola’s population ranges between 0-14 years of age (48.1 %), with people aged between 15-24 coming in a close second (18.25%). This means that the youth unemployment rate in 2018 of 17.06% translates into millions of unemployed young Angolans.

What types of problems are faced in Angola today?

Angola is a country peppered with problems. The legacy of a bitter past, Angola faces major infrastructure crises with broken bridges, widespread exploitation of natural resources, displaced populations, refugee camps, inadequate housing, freshwater, sanitation, et al. These issues have been highlighted in several important case studies over the years. The widespread urbanization of Angola’s population places tremendous pressure on the authorities to provide the requisite infrastructures and systems needed to develop economic growth prospects. Rapid population growth in urban centres like Kuito, Lubango, Huambo, Benguela, and Malange has stretched resources thin and crippled public institutions. While central government remains a major employer of people, it largely the informal and the formal sectors that are responsible for economic growth in the country.

Individual business leaders are best poised to offer the types of education, skills training, and development opportunities needed for young Angolans to succeed domestically. According to Devex, Angola has the fourth largest economy on the continent, but much of its revenues are derived from petroleum-based exports, making up an estimated 90% of all government revenues. That oil prices plummeted around 2014 has not helped. Consequently, Angola is heavily reliant on IMF funding and bailouts to maintain economic solvency and provide for the needs of its people. Unfortunately, much work remains to be done and donors are needed. Given that the country is working hard to diversify its economy away from crude oil, alternative energies and renewable resources are being tapped into to help drive growth prospects in the country. Government is constrained by its inability to meet the exigencies of rapid urbanization, a veritable population explosion and too many young people without the necessary skills, abilities, and educational qualifications to move the economy forward.

How the Private Sector Can Help with Youth Unemployment

Angola’s economy is a combination of parastatals and Chinese companies. China is particularly dominant with billions of dollars invested in infrastructure growth and development across the country. Opportunities abound in many industries, notably education, agriculture, renewable energy and manufacturing. Many companies are implementing social responsibility initiatives, sponsorship programs, and educational training and development opportunities to help fast-track the growth and development of Angola’s youth. Fostering a new-age ‘company culture’ is an integral component of economic growth. This progressive thinking among notable entrepreneurs like Isabel Dos Santos, chairperson of Unitel is already having knock-on effects across the country. For example, contributing to the health and well-being of local communities through sponsorships of paediatric hospitals, the provision of safe drinking water to rural communities, eliminating malaria and other diseases, the provision of countrywide Internet services, et al are sacrosanct.

Dos Santos and her partners are credited for many unique development initiatives such as fun days for underprivileged and infirm young people, fundraising initiatives on TV networks, and partnership with other small business enterprises to support local communities. Investment in the youth is about investment in the communities. To this end, Isabel Dos Santos and her team have prioritised the empowerment of women, the development of local business enterprise, the provision of scholarship opportunities to international colleges for cross-cultural learning, development, and understanding, and in-house promotional prospects for women to name but a few.

Quoting Isabel, ‘… If you do something that’s going to get somebody a job, then they’ll be able to pay for their kids school, and then the kid is going to be a doctor and then that doctor is going to probably help who knows how many other people, so it’s very motivating.’Investing in people and their communities is something that Dos Santos has been doing for many years. One of most successful investment initiatives was a project that began three years ago in Humpata, in Hulia. This Strawberry Plantation is now one of the most successful community-driven initiatives in the country with high quality produce that meets international standards, ‘… This is the best solution for Angola’s development: investing in national production that makes our land grow, supports our families and boosts our country’s economy… I know we are able to bring Angola to the world.’ Isabel Dos Santos 

Much work remains to be done beyond investment in infrastructure, agricultural development, and nonrenewable energy sources. It is also incumbent upon business leaders to provide the necessary tools and resources, training and development, opportunities and capital to previously disempowered members of the workforce such as women. Angola, like many other emerging market economies suffers from the ill-effects of a male-dominated bias in the workforce. Gender empowerment has the potential to fast-track economic growth by bringing in 50% of the workforce. As more women enter the workforce, it is evident that there are outsized spillover effects. Already, women have assumed leadership roles at many companies across Angola including EFACEC, Unitel, ZAP and Candando. Much work remains to be done however. The current economic landscape in Angola is rife with opportunities provided the right leadership is available to steer the youth towards prosperity.

We are nearing the end of the tax season extension period. Did you file your taxes physically or digitally? As a small business owner or entrepreneur, have you ever taken note of how much paper is involved not only in taxes but in your business operations in general?

In the digital age we live in today, any conscious entrepreneur or small business owner knows that the piles of paperwork required to run a business aren’t environmentally friendly, and switching to digital record keeping today is a must. Villanova University highlights how being environmentally friendly has “become [one of the] key focuses for companies across the globe.”

A shift toward digital record keeping is not only good for the environment, but also more efficient than filing away loads of paperwork. Digital record keeping allows for easy accessibility, cuts down on storage space, and are more secure than having physical documents lying around.   

Filing records electronically is becoming increasingly popular for a reason. Being more efficient while remaining environmentally conscious is a win-win. It can be hard when making this transformation to know what records do you keep, and for how long? So, how do you successfully make the transformation from physical documents to digital?    

What Records to Keep

For an entrepreneur, it’s easy to feel like you are drowning in paperwork — so much so that you may feel like getting rid of some to free up space and declutter your operations. However, you may end up throwing out business records that you will need to rely on down the road. It’s important to distinguish between the documents you will need to keep and the ones you can get rid of. The loss of some documents can hinder your daily operations, while others can halt your business entirely.

Financial records such as income, payroll, expenses, and bank statements will be needed for tax purposes. They will also be needed for the analysis of the progress of your company. Legally binding documents will need to be kept in case of any legal dispute. 

Conflict such as employee and partnership disputes or instances where you need to prove ownership of your business can arise. Licenses, permits, and insurance documents are also important in the event you need proof that your business can operate within certain regulations. Keep client and employee information readily available to those with the proper authority. The laws are the same whether you’re a small business or a big corporation.

Electronically filing your documents eliminates the problem of storage as well as while you throw away enormous amounts of paper. Digital records don’t require physical space to be held Computers can now hold massive amounts of data and are very capable of handling any and all of theses documents for a small business owner or entrepreneur. As a result, you can store and hang on to any records you need just in case you need to look back upon them.  

How Long to Keep Records

Even if you know what records to keep, they can pile up over time. Sometimes, you hold onto them for too long. In some occasions, especially with physical documents, piles of outdated files can impede on your time retrieving relevant files. Not knowing when to get rid of documents will clutter up your business’ day-to-day activities. 

You’ll want to keep client and employee records as long as they are under your employment or services. You don’t want to hang on to them long after that, unless you foresee the need of a dispute. Financial records should be given greater consideration when deciding whether or not to shred or dispose of them. Tax records especially should be held onto for around 7 years after your first filing.

In an earlier, more wasteful time, worrying how long you should keep records was relevant to maintain storage space. Electronic documentation completely takes this worry out of the picture for business owners. You don’t need physical storage space to hold onto these documents, they are all on your computer — you just need digital space. What’s more is that when you delete documents electronically, there is no need to shred paper or throw it away — just hit the delete button and it’s out of your hair.    

Electronic vs. Physical Records

In the modern age, more and more businesses are going with electronic documentation for ease of access, to save space, and to make a conscious effort to go green. Consider scanning the documents mentioned above to if they are physical to turn them into a digital copy and properly recycling the paper documents you no longer need. This change will end your cycle of waste and dependence on paper.  

If you do choose the physical documentation route, just remember they’ll have to be physically indexed and accessed. That is just too much of a time consumer and environmental waste in today’s world. Record Nations points out this waste, saying, “The average person in the U.S. uses 749 pounds of paper each year. Imagine how many trees could be saved if companies began to implement a paperless system.” Not to mention, disasters such as fire can destroy your records, leaving you with nothing. Digitally filing your documents allows you to backup all records in the case of a disaster.

The move toward digital documentation is essential to any entrepreneur or small business owner looking to run a successful, environmentally friendly company. The days of filing your documents physically are over, as it is just not economically or environmentally feasible any longer. If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, your efforts in making your documents digital will not only help your business, but it will help the Earth as well. If the majority of business owners are making this switch, even just for the benefits of their business operations, it will conserve a significant amount of trees.

Taking your livelihood into your own hands can be a tempting but challenging venture. Entrepreneurship poses many obstacles to overcome as you work to get your business rolling. However, even when you’re going through all the right motions, there are a few mistakes that can get in your way. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ways that many entrepreneurs sabotage themselves — as well as what you can do to avoid following in their footsteps:

1. Bad Habits

As an entrepreneur, your lifestyle habits can shape your business. It takes a lot of self-control and time management to get your business off the ground, and even small bad habits can delay your progress significantly. Some common bad habits include procrastination, perfectionism, and self-deprecation — all of which can hold you back from the success you want to see. 

Procrastination and perfectionism will make it impossible for you to get anything done, while self-deprecation is simply a bad mindset when your success is all the way up to you. Although these are common habits for people with depression and anxiety, not working to address bad habits and negative feelings will hold you back from moving forward as an entrepreneur. 

2. Personal Issues

Not only do you need to recognize what your bad habits are, but you should also try to understand the reasons behind them in order to fix them. Without understanding the underlying issues that are distracting you or causing your personal problems, it can be easy to make allowances for it. This can prevent your from dealing with issues in your personal life. 

To really overcome these, you need to put your head to the ground and work to solve any problems that are causing you to doubt yourself. You can do this through counseling or by taking time for self-reflection. When you see that an aspect of your business isn’t working, it’s important to not let it affect your ego. Instead, focus on finding a solution. 

3. Lack of Self-Reflection

In order to identify the causes behind your behavior, as well as what your business needs from you, it’s necessary to pause and reflect on your business plan and practices. Oftentimes, people become too focused on what their next steps should be, rather than taking time to think about how problems have gone so far and what they are doing at the moment. 

Self-reflection can open the door to learning more about yourself, and what you need in order to succeed. According to Western Governors University, “Lifelong learning is the idea that you are never finished educating yourself and growing.” A mindset of self-reflection and to always be learning makes you more likely to adapt in difficult situations, as well as to change the areas of your business that aren’t working.

4. Absence of a Business Continuity Plan

Small setbacks can sometimes be the end of small businesses, especially young ones. Being unprepared to handle these events can make your early demise even more likely. Whether an entrepreneur experiences a natural disaster, a lawsuit, or a loss of funds, they must be aware that they may have to close their doors unless they prepare in advance. 

Business closure can be avoided if the entrepreneur develops a business continuity plan early on, which will help them determine what to do in case of an emergency. Shutting down a business until the owner can figure out a plan is one of the worst things they can do when things start to get tough. Making plans in advance, as well as keeping an emergency fund reserve, can help keep things moving in case the worst happens. 

5. Missing Goals

One area where businesses commonly fail is setting goals. Oftentimes, an entrepreneur’s initial goals are simply opening up their business; they don’t take time to set new goals, which can slow their progress. 

Instead of settling for your initial goal, set new goals as soon as you reach the last one. You should always try to plan at least one year down the road to ensure you’re constantly aiming and moving towards something. Although it can be tempting to set attainable goals to avoid disappointment, setting goals that are not easy to reach (yet achievable) will ensure you’re constantly challenging yourself business to do better.

6. Poor Money Management

As the money starts rolling in, you’ll probably have some decisions to make about the goals you hope to accomplish. One of the big areas where entrepreneurs are often torn when they start making a profit is whether to put their money towards debt or towards an emergency fund account. Credit card debt accumulates interest, which can make it tempting to pay off first. However, if you don’t save up enough money for an emergency fund, your business can vanish within a few months after an accident that take away your resources. 

The answer: Put your money towards both as soon as you start making a profit. Keeping your debts in check will ensure that your liabilities don’t outweigh your assets. An emergency fund will help you make and stick to contingency plans.

7. Negativity

Some entrepreneurs suffer from excessive modesty and humility, which can cause them to talk negatively about their business. Around highly supportive friends and family especially, it can be easy to focus on the difficulties the business is facing instead of the strides it’s making in order to manage expectations. However, focusing on obstacles and challenges isn’t the answer.

Keeping a positive mindset about your business is one of the most important things to do. In the beginning, you’ll probably be its only advocate, which means your mindset and the way you talk about your business is the only way it will exist. Never sell yourself short. Instead, focus on all of the great things you hope to accomplish. Spread the word about your business. Put your energy into making something great happen instead of denigrating your efforts.

It can be easy to self-sabotage when you let your poor human qualities run your business. We’re all flawed human beings, but it’s important to stay positive and to not let your bad habits affect your business.