Business Story1: Abebech has a small farm and her husband live in a small town, but even

though both Abebech and her husband have jobs, they do not have enough money to cover their
accommodation and their children’s education. Abebech decides to try and start her own agro-
industrial business poultry farms. She knows how to do it and her brother gave her a loan of birr
50,000 to start the stated business. However, before she buys the chicks, someone tells her that
there is a huge demand for sunflower oil because of its lack of availability in the market. Traders
are knocking on the doors of local farmers asking them to produce it. Thinking she can earn a lot
more money from pressing sunflower seeds for oil, Abebech changes her business idea and starts
an oil pressing venture. She has never grown a large quantity of sunflowers. She spends all the
money from the loan to buy seeds, fertilizer and the oil pressing equipment. Since she uses most
of the family farmland to grow sunflowers, there is less land to grow maize and vegetables for
the family to it as consumption. The chemicals from the fertilizer begin to make her children
sick. She now has to buy more food for the family. It takes lots of time and effort to process the
oil, so, Abebech has to employ someone to help her. A lot of other farmers have started growing
sunflower seeds too. Therefore, by the time her oil is ready to sell, the market is already saturated
with the good and Abebech cannot find a buyer. To reduce her losses, she has to sell the oil at a
very low price to local shop. As a result, Abebech makes very little money and is not able to pay
back the loan.

Questions for reflection from business story1:

1. What is/are the products Abebech planned to produce?

2. Who are the customers for Abebech products?
3. How did Abebech planned to deliver the products to the customers?
4. What specific needs of the customers Abebech products can satisfy?
5. What is wrong with Abebech business idea?
 Business Story2: Local entrepreneur succcess story: SoleRebels (story adapted from www.forbes.com)

Entrepreneur Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu was born and raised in Zenebework, a small,
impoverished rural community in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. While most people in her neighbourhood
were unemployed, Bethlehem discovered that several of them possessed remarkable artisan skills
which remained largely unexploited. This observation drove her to brainstorm on ways through which
she could transform the skills of her community members into a sustainable enterprise that could
generate livelihoods for them, and create wealth over the long term.

By 2004, armed with startup capital sourced from her husband and members of her immediate
family, Bethlehem mobilized artistically-gifted members of her community and founded SoleRebels-
which has become one of Africa’s most recognizable footwear manufacturers.

Bethlehem Tilahun, founder of soleRebels (source: http://winsolsolar.com)

Basically, SoleRebels produces footwear locally that often features a strong infusion of ancient
Ethiopian culture with subtle undertones of modern, western design influences. Practically,
all SoleRebels shoes are redesigns and reimaginations of the famous Selate and Barabasso shoe, a
traditional recycled tire sole shoe which has been worn by Ethiopians for a very long time.

By blending this ancient recycling tradition with contemporary, western-influenced, hip shoe
designs, SoleRebels has built a successful footwear brand utilizing a production process that is zero
carbon production and very eco-sensitive. All of SoleRebels shoes are hand-crafted by Bethlehem’s
staff of over 100 people strictly using Ethiopian craft practices such as hand -spun organic cotton and
artisan hand-loomed fabric. And the company sources all of its raw materials locally.

Today, shoes under the SoleRebels brand are sold in over 30 countries around the world and
through various e-commerce sites like Amazon and Endless. SoleRebels also sells its products
through its own e-commerce site.
 Business Story3: Local entrepreneur succcess story: WinSol (story adapted from
http://www.infodev.org/)

BiniyamTesfaye was working as an electrical power engineer in Addis Ababa in 2014 when he
came upon a colleague one day weeping at her desk. “What’s the matter?” he asked her,
concerned. Raising her head, the colleague explained that her mother, who lived far out in the
country, was gravely ill. But they could not talk because her mother’s phone could only be charged
by walking 12 kilometres to the nearest town — something not possible in her condition. The two
were seemingly separated by an impassable gulf. The colleague was heartbroken. Biniyam,
touched by his colleague’s situation, used his engineering skills to design a small solar mobile
charger — something that could power the mobile phones of off-grid villagers and bring them a
little bit closer to loved ones elsewhere in the country. That is how his company, Winsol, got
started.

Photo: BiniyamTesfaye (founder of WinSol – source: http://winsolsolar.com/)

In his quest to help his colleague, Biniyam touched upon a crucial need of Ethiopian households.
According to World Bank Group data from 2014, roughly 27% of the Ethiopian population has
access to electricity. In a country of 100 million people, this means more than 70 million people
without power in their homes.

“The demand is very big,” Biniyam said in a recent interview. “Ethiopian communities are
sparsely populated” making it hard to connect rural villages to the grid, he said. According to the
International Telecommunication Union, there are around 42 million mobile phone users in
Ethiopia — significantly more people than those with access to electricity.

The market is so big, Biniyam said, that “we can’t reach the demand [on our own] … So we need
to share this market.”
 Business Story4: Local entrepreneur succcess story - Feed Green (Story adapted
fromwww.thisisafrica.me)

Senai Wolderufael is the founder and a Managing Partner at Feed Green Ethiopia, a company
that exports Ethiopian spices. Before turning to entrepreneurship in 2012, he worked for nearly
four years as a customer service agent at Ethiopian Airlines, earning $150 per month. It was at
his duty post that the idea for his company occurred to him. He would see many of his
countrymen returning overseas to their countries of residence with large bags of local dry food
items and spices. With a start-up capital of less than US $2,000 Wolderufael got an export
business license and with his business partner, Eyob Weldegabriel, started Feed Green Ethiopia
and began delivering these items to Ethiopian diaspora.

Photo: SenaiWolderufael (founder of FeedGreen - source: thisisafrica.me)

“I have always wanted to be dependent on my own, to be the decision maker of my fate, ever
since I was a small kid, I had that wish,” Wolderufael said. “When the time came and the
opportunity presented itself, I decided to seize the moment and go for it.

Explaining about the production process Wolderufael said “We collect the spices and then
process them
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competence characteristics
Wolderufael as stated:
believes that an entrepreneur should be open-minded, fearless, hardworking and
patient. “Work hard, don’t give up, and always know you can start from zero (negative) to make
something out of your life. Live out of your comfort zone, think out of the box, be creative and
be devoted / committed to your goal,” he further advised.

After reading the above business success stories 2, 3 and 4, discuss the following questions:
• What were the possible sources of ideas from which those businesses start?
• What opportunity or wants did the entrepreneur identify?
• Was it a new product or service or an improvement to a new product or service?
• What did the entrepreneur do to help create a demand?