Already struggling with high unemployment, Kenya’s population is expected to grow by another 3.4 million people by 2020: to avoid an unemployment crisis, the country needs to generate an estimated 3.9 new jobs by then. Based on Endeavor Insight’s assessment of the entrepreneurship scene in Nairobi, with the right kind of support, high growth firms may be able to do just that.
The Endeavor Insight team mapped the entrepreneurship scene in Nairobi to assess the city’s economic potential, and here is what they found.
1. The local ecosystem in Nairobi has four major strengths:
- excellent access to costumers,
- great access to a skilled workforce,
- high entrepreneurial ability, and
- entrepreneurs with a desire to reinvest in the ecosystem.
2. The local ecosystem also has three significant challenges
- a lack of entrepreneurs promoting entrepreneurship
- low levels of mentorship from successful entrepreneurs, and
- a relatively small number of employee spinouts.
Moving Forward
Based on the study, the Endeavor Insight team identified a number of recommendations that could help Kenya in generating enough jobs for the next generation to avoid an unemployment crisis.
- Promote and faciliate mentorship: for successful entrepreneurs, mentorship is one of the most effective types of support mechanisms. A cooperation with Endeavor may help Kenyan policymakers to promote mentorship. Endeavor provides high-potential founders with expert mentors, who also help entrepreneurs find investors and customers, and help connect them to unique opportunities.
- Provide early-stage startup mentorship: early-stage mentorship can help entrepreneurs take ideas and turn them into scalable business models.
- Offer early-stage investment training, because the most prominent worry of startup founders is often raising capital.
- Celebrate scaleup mentors, in order to encourage entrepreneurs to reinvest their success in the next generation.
Click here for more information on the study, conducted by Rhett Morris and the Endeavor Insight team.
Contributed by Lili Torok.
No Comments