Dr. Innocent Nahabwe a serial young entrepreneur in Uganda is giving a free dose of advice to young people considering starting or those engaged in business to consider handling competition and managing business finances in a way that will keep them in business and enabling prosperity.
The book is a guide for entrepreneurs on how to leverage partnerships, raise capital and how to manage individuals.
This inspirational book also shares tips on how to handle competition in a business environment.
The book’s author, Dr. Innocent Nahabwe is a multi-talented individual, and a flexible entrepreneur with outstanding achievements in various fields. TREATING SMALL BUSINESSES will officially be launched this week, on Friday, July 12, 2019, at Kingdom Kampala Mall, at 6 pm.
The author candidly advises against mixing family, relatives and friends in the business.
He also emphasizes that all debts must be paid and that a business must make money. “If it fails to work, regardless of how much you love it, let it go. If you get a good offer that makes business sense, sell. Don’t be attached.” Dr Nahabwe advises his readers.
He is a father, veterinary doctor, marketing expert and a writer.
His recently published book is aptly themed; Treating Small Businesses.
The book, in a nutshell, is a silky mélange of tips on how to handle partnerships, money, people, competition and marketing and how to remain mentally stable in a cut-throat business environment.
In the book, the author notes that among the top mistakes that small business owners make include; wanting instant success, he cites a prominent example of Dr Sudhir Ruparelia and others in his league who have taken 30 years plus in business. “We can’t want to live like them in 2 years. We will kill the business.” Dr Nahabwe remarked in a recent interview in the local media.
The author also notes that most entrepreneurs make a common mistake of mixing business capital and their own money which he decries saying “the business is an extension of their pockets. This makes accounting hard and most of us kill our businesses ourselves by being bad parasites. We become cannibals.” He reveals.
He also notes that most businesses lack bookkeeping skills, “Most people have shops and don’t know the value of the stock they have. Money comes in and goes based on intuition. Stocking is done based on requests. In the book, I suggest simple mathematics (Primary 4 mathematics is enough) with a simple equation to use to track performance and have proper records. It is a must for every business to have proper records and track performance.” The author asserts.
Other major challenges that he points out in the book include; not giving business enough time to grow as most entrepreneurs do business as their side hustle.
“We keep our jobs and hope business will grow on its own. Just like a baby, I explain in the book how to look after your business and create more time within the regular day to get the best out of the business. You can’t invest in a business and let it be a by the way.”Dr Nahabwe notes.
According to the author, another common barrier for most entrepreneurs is mixing emotions and business. He states that many of us get emotional. We look at the business as our baby. We do what we love. We do business for us and not the customer. Even when it fails, we stick with it and it sucks us dry. We need to understand that business is business. It is about money- treat it as a business; principally for money.” He sternly advises.
Author’s Profile
Dr Innocent Nahabwe is an accomplished businessman with interests in the media industry, sports betting and entertainment.
He is a venture capitalist. Among the many hats, he wears includes the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder of Kagwirawo -Uganda’s first online – sports betting company.
The 38-year-old is also the proprietor of Bluecube, a leading mobile solutions company that he formed way back before the SMS business became an ordinary line of investment.
In addition to all these accomplishments, Dr. Nahabwe owns Club Amnesia – a trendy city discotheque.
He is also the proud owner of; Howwe.biz, the best music streaming and showbiz platform in the country.
His other duties include being the CEO of 100.2 Galaxy FM – a pioneer youth urban station that broadcasts in both Luganda and English which was founded in 2013, but had by its fifth anniversary risen to a dominant award-winning urban station and was amongst the top 5 radio stations in its category.
The book’s author also holds a Masters degree in Business Administration with majors in Marketing from Makerere University. He says he was inspired to write the book because he realized that in spite of most people aspiring to own big businesses, most of us will realistically only do small businesses.
He also notes that Uganda has been listed among the most entrepreneurial countries but most entrepreneurs will remain small businesses and the bulk of these entrepreneurs are into the service sector – boutiques, saloons, bars, restaurants, cottage firms and the like.
“Most of these start and fail before their first anniversary causing lots of frustration to budding entrepreneurs and those after them.” he notes.
Many challenges conspire to keep most Ugandans from reaching their fullest potential like access to capital, the issues with the stock exchange that keep out small business from tapping into it hence denying them capital, lack of accessible investment banks or firms continues to limit how far most entrepreneurs will go.
