Major boost for Ghanaian entrepreneurs as Tony Elumelu Foundation lends support

Thirty-six Ghanaian entrepreneurs are billed to receive US$5,000 each from the Tony Elumelu Foundation based in Nigeria.

The seed capital is to help the entrepreneurs to nurture their ideas and make it viable and ultimately make their businesses successful.
The Ghanaian entrepreneurs are part of 1,000 entrepreneurs from 51 African countries who are in the 2015 class of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme (TEEP). They have subsequently met in Ota, Nigeria, for a two-day boot camp.

Speaking at the boot camp, the founder, Mr Tony Elumelu, said: “Entrepreneurship is not a short-term journey and I am pleased that we can help these emerging leaders, as they seek to join me in transforming Africa. My commitment towards creating a thousand new entrepreneurs, who can change Africa forever, has now become a reality. This is only the beginning.”

Mr Elumelu also challenged the entrepreneurs to strive hard to ensure their businesses were successful since that would be the best return on the investments he was making in their lives.

“I want to go to Zambia when I am 80 years old and meet someone who shows me their manufacturing business or financial institution and tells me that it was built starting with US$10k from Tony Elumelu. That’s what this is about and that’s what you owe me. The return I want from this US$100 million investment is your success, because your success is Africa’s success.”

He further urged the entrepreneurs to keep in mind five basic principles;: hard work, discipline, long-term focus, savings and partnerships as they were key to the success of their businesses.

After the boot camp, the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme will focus on providing the seed capital and support for the entrepreneurs to put into practice the knowledge gained from the boot camp and the 12 weeks of training carried out prior to the event. It will also continue to foster increased collaboration between them and the rest of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Network as it seeks to promote cross-border trade within the continent.
Access to finance

The Director of Finance and Investment of Heirs Holdings, Mr Sam Nwanze, said as entrepreneurs it was necessary to be able to create value in order to generate cash for the business.

“In order to generate cash, you need to create value. It is not enough to have a business idea,; that idea must create value,” he said.
Mr Nwanze added that in looking out for capital, entrepreneurs must have the managerial capacity, a clear and articulate strategy that showed their competitive advantage, a governance system framework on how the business would be run

“You need to clearly know how the capital will be used and the returns that you will get on it. It is also necessary to understand the risks involved with whatever capital you are raising from different sources,” he said.
The TEEP programme

The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme is the flagship programme of the Tony Elumelu Foundation and has seven pillars: startup enterprise toolkit, mentoring, online resource library, boot camp, Elumelu entrepreneurship forum, seed capital funding and alumni network.

The entrepreneurship programme is open to applicants from all sectors and businesses must be start-ups from 0-3 years old and focuses on top five sectors, namely agriculture (30 per cent), education (nine per cent), commercial/retail (nine per cent), Information and Communications Technology (ICT) (seven per cent) and healthcare (five per cent).

TEEP is a ten-year programme where 1,000 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs will be selected every year till 2025.

 GB