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Young African entrepreneurs face same challenges as older business owners

There are practically no differences between the challenges faced by African entrepreneurs, whatever their age.

Usually, startups surveys tend to focus on entrepreneurs above the age of 25. However, the Anzisha Entrepreneur Survey 2016 provides a snapshot of the realities facing young entrepreneurs in Africa, with a focus on growth, sales and marketing, human resources, funding and support.

A total of 101 entrepreneurs between the ages of 15 and 25 took part in the survey from September to November 2015.

Most respondents run businesses in agriculture (15%), technology (15%) and education (15%) sectors.

When asked what the biggest impediment to business growth is, funding was the top responses among 48% of entrepreneurs.

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GeoPoll released a study in 2015 that also highlighted lack of funding as the biggest challenges facing startups.

Only 27% of Anzisha survey respondents said they had outside funding/ investment for their businesses. Family and friends (59%) was listed as the top source of capital,followed by grants (52%) and crowdfunding (22%).

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Similar responses showed up in the 2015 Seed Academy Startup Survey, where the majority of respondents listed friends and family as their main source of funding.

The top reasons most respondents said they hadn’t secured funding was that they were not sure how to source funding (32%) and that no one would back them (28%).

The majority described the level of support available to entrepreneurs in their country as “fair” (43%). However, 24% and 17% labelled the situation as “poor” and “very poor” respectively.

When asked what should be the top priority for government to better support young business owners, the majority said that entrepreneurship should be taught in schools (32%). The second most-popular suggestion was to improve infrastructure (20%).

Respondents in the GeoPoll study similarly listed business/entrepreneurship and finance course as the top required tools that would be helpful in supporting new business.

“It is our hope that this and future reports will guide the work of teachers, policy makers and other stakeholders in the youth development sector,” Josh Adler, Vice President, Global Programmes at the African Leadership Academy, which hosts the Anzisha Prize, said in a statement.

Download the Anzisha Entrepreneur Survey 2016 from the Anzisha website.

[Image – CC Jacob Edward]

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