Yesterday in honor of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day She Leads Africa, in partnership with Black Enterprise, hosted a Twitterchat with entrepreneurs Janine Hausif and Cherae Robinson.
Huasif is a seasoned and celebrated tech entrepreneur who launched her successful Around The Way app in late 2012. Cherae, a regular subject on our blog and an annual event partner SMW Lagos, is an award-winning entrepreneur and co-founder of Rare Customs – a consultancy devoted to exposing the world to the wonder and luxury available through in African tourism.
The chat was filled with great nuggets of wisdom from the two businesswomen.
Here they are:
Define your mission and company culture.
Think about how you want to work and how you don’t. Put it in writing so that there is no confusion or guessing about what the company is about.
Know your business and audience; and as such back your any assumptions you make with data.
Research, research, research. Know your market inside and out. There should never be a moment when you don’t know what your competitors are doing.
Network beyond you comfort zone
It’s easy interact with people who are readily available to you. It may change your entire outlook and business when you step outside of the box.
Partnerships are key but “plan for the divorce while planning the wedding.”
Partnerships are essential to the growth of any enterprise but they won’t all last forever. Know your business well enough to forecast when your partnerships will run their course and handle it well enough to have an amicable split when the time comes.
Be consistent.
It speaks for itself.
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