In 2016, I travelled to Uganda, as part of the Balloon Ventures Fellowship programme. As a business consultant, I helped entrepreneurs grow their businesses: I provided microfinance advisory support, taught financial management techniques, and empowered their business strategy innovation.
I am continually struck by Ugandans’ drive and ambition. One entrepreneur aspired to have a group of companies, spanning the supply chain for educational resources. Another strove to become bigger than the market leader in the beverages industry, by targeting his product to the needs of the“ common man”. One of the most heartening moments of the trip was when an entrepreneur, whom we initially thought was extremely shy, used our farewell celebration as an opportunity to flaunt and sell her clothing wares – with great success! Outside of our supported entrepreneurs, locals were eager to tell us their story and business vision, which included many socially-oriented projects as well as commercial ventures.
Moreover, our entrepreneurs were well-versed in business theory, and displayed creative flair. Despite an infuriating cultural tendency of poor punctuality, every entrepreneur understood the importance of good customer service, and sought to incorporate this into the value propositions of their businesses. Our entrepreneurs were replete with ideas for innovating their business models, ranging from offering discounts on multiple purchases to grow their customer base, to selling unused materials from the production process and reinvesting the profits. Even hobbies were drawn upon for inspiration: one aviation enthusiast transforming his passion into a business by making toy airplanes, carving a niche in the market for children’ s goods.
This behaviour makes Uganda the most entrepreneurial country in the world. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2014 Global Report [ 1 ], researchers at Approved Index [ 2 ] reported 28.1 % of Ugandan adults are entrepreneurs, defined as those who own, or co-own, a new business that has paid wages for at least three months. This was considerably higher than Thailand’ s entrepreneurship rate of 16.7 %, which ranked second. Reflecting on my experiences, I set out to investigate the economic reasons underpinning Uganda’ s entrepreneurialism and ask if this bodes well for Uganda’ s future.