How I Became an Entrepreneur
Early life lessons prepared me to launch a new business that disrupts the market. Take, for instance, the 1998 FIFA world cup before I turned ten years old. The memory is still fresh. My passion for football inspired discipline under pressure. Determination to see every minute of the action clashed with daily chores, chief among them fetching water from a stream four kilometers from my home. I had to plan ahead to keep enough water in the house during games. Looking back, it was my first lesson in time management.
Such was my life with an industrious grandmother who took me in when I was two years old. We lived in the western region of Cameroon, where she farmed and practiced subsistence agriculture. After school or when school wasn’t in session, I worked on the farm. On Sundays, after church, we sold our crops in the local market.
Besides providing food and shelter, my grandma was a parent to me when I went astray, when I was in pain or when I had doubts. Strong, smart and determined, she also assisted my uncles, aunts and cousins when they fell on hard times. If they needed food, she came through even if it meant stretching her own limited resources. Ample harvests kept food plentiful. We never suffered a famine. But money was often scarce.
At nine years old I started my first business, selling water at a local market to earn money for school tuition and Christmas gifts. The only time in the week that I could sell water was Sunday after church. My grandma approved but asked a question that brought competition into focus or the first time. “There are many people with wheelbarrows selling water at almost every market intersection,” she said. “How are you going to sell water without a wheelbarrow?”
She was absolutely right. Selling water was a crowded and competitive space on Sundays. Adults controlled every intersection. Armed with wheelbarrows, they set up shop with at least 50 liters of water, far more than I could carry. Like water spouts in a desert, they lured thirsty customers. The going price was 20 FCFA (Central African CFA Franc) a liter.
How could I compete with all these goliaths, I wondered. Seven or eight residents from my neighborhood sold goods in the market. I reckoned they would buy from me. I set my first revenue forecast at 80 FCFA every Sunday after church, or 50 FCFA in a worst case scenario.
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The first three weeks furnished a useful lesson as sales fell far short of forecast. My grandma’s question echoed in my head while I stood at market intersections with less than five liters of water. I watched with admiration as people left their sales kiosks to buy water from my competitors. When their water ran out, I got some business.
I noticed, meanwhile, that when operators of market stalls wanted water, they often had to close down or else send a salesperson on an errand. That’s when inspiration struck. Instead of standing at intersections waiting for customers when my competitors ran out of water, I broke with tradition by taking my water to customers where they worked. I proposed delivery schedules so that they wouldn’t leave their posts to quench their thirst. Innovation disrupted the marketplace. I increased my sales five-fold to 25 liters. Soon my average take on Sunday rose to 500 FCFA!
With revenue from water sales I was able to buy chewing gum that I resold at school every day during breaks. I paid 350 FCFA for a pack of gum and sold it for 500 FCFA. I enjoyed a monopoly for a year because other students were unwilling to embark on a business that was uncommon and discouraged. In time I was selling a pack of gum daily. I even allowed students to buy gum on credit that the school store wouldn’t offer. So students bought from competitors only when I ran out of gum.
Meanwhile, I brought friends and classmates into my growing water business. We scaled up our capacity to supplement scheduled deliveries with on demand sales. Customers quickly got used to water coming to them instead of vice versa. Competitors selling water out of wheelbarrows at intersections lost business to us. Wheelbarrows were not easily allowed in market aisles and established vendors were too old to cart water or too stuck in their ways to enlist a young sales force.
The water business confined to Sundays became a Red Sea. Daily revenue from chewing gum sales became my Blue Sea. Combined revenues filled three piggy banks, one for Christmas gifts, one for clothing and one for tuition in the upcoming school year. I was earning more than 500 FCFA in net income each school week from chewing gum sales alone. In the large scheme the amount of money was small, to be sure, but the principle was huge. I saw up close the rewards from market disruption.
At age ten I was on my way but I still had a lot to learn, not least that risk does not have to pan out as expected to pay rewards. Successes and failures shape entrepreneurial judgment. Both have played vital roles in my overall development process.
About the Author
Gilbert Mbeh is an Award-wining entrepreneur, Founder/CEO of AbegYa, an information-rich digital marketplace where Africa consumers and providers can interact for services.
