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We've long lamented over how secretive Africa's startup communities are, especially South Africa and its crown jewel, Cape Town, which is supposed to be a beacon for the continent's entrepreneurial community. As an emerging market with defiant ambition we love to draw parallels between promising African innovation hubs and Silicon Valley, and yes there is promise, but we are sorely lacking openness, a cornerstone trait of successful entrepreneurial ecosystems.
A lack of openness is perhaps as much a symptom of a ... 
In 2010 China was the place of choice for foreign investment in the tech sector. Fast forward to today and it's an IPO ghost town, with less money and deals than a mid-level casino. At the heart of this "decline" in foreign interest are a number of factors.
The Next Web states that political unrest, audit checks and internet censorship are but a few reasons for investor hesitation while Bloomberg pips rising employee and land costs as lowering China's "attractiveness as ... 
We have the pleasure of presenting the Accelerating Entrepreneurship in Africa report compiled by the Omidyar Network, the philanthropic foundation established by Pierre Omidyar -- the founder of eBay -- in partnership with global strategy consulting film, Monitor Group. This epic 48-page report is the result of a three-phase research project launched in 2012 aimed to better understand the state of entrepreneurship in Africa.
The project started with a survey of 582 entrepreneurs across six Sub-Saharan African countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, ... 
You will be hard pressed to find anyone in Africa who doesn't agree that a wave of something big and game-changing is coming. In fact, the way the world is turning, it's a school of thought that seems to be a soaring fire bird -- it is starting to feel like everyone is thinking it.
Innovation is the key energiser. Having leapfrogged with wicked-smart and insanely useful mobile solutions, it seems the continent has no choice but to build ... 
The Yuppiechef success story has been well documented, but until now, no one has been able to explain exactly how the kitchen utensils e-tailer has managed to evoke the type of fervent support that has catapulted the Cape Town company well into cult territory. Yes, cult. Exhibit A: a Pinterest page dedicated to customers who have submitted photos of their pets in Yuppiechef packaging.
The running theory is that Yuppiechef has mastered the art of customer service. It's a strong hypothesis. ... 
Africa has a pretty impressive tech startup scene. Very few people know about it because the companies that are being built aren't exiting for millions of dollars. Well, not all of them.
The continent has, in the last decade, seen a mobile explosion that beats the developed world. Yes, connectivity is still an issue that needs resolving but somehow the tech innovators are building products that have seen interest from the likes of financial juggernaut Visa and are winning innovation ... 
Here’s the thing: if you do a cold-call pitch to a Venture Capital (VC) investor using email, your proposal is already at the bottom of the pile before anyone has even read the subject line. The reason: VCs mostly rely on warm referrals from within their trusted networks to generate dealflow, as this acts as an automatic filter and increases the quality of proposals. It also says a lot about an entrepreneur that goes through the trouble to "stalk" a ... 
In light of the recent ban on working from home imposed by Yahoo's newest CEO, Marissa Mayer, it's got the debate up and running once again: is it better to work from home or at the office?
When thinking about startups, I'd like to add my two cents and argue that running a young company remotely is a very real and attractive option for many an entrepreneur. Not only because the technological tools exist to share and collaborate on documents, communicate ... 
Phil Heath is the current face of professional super heavyweight bodybuilding. A two-time, back-to-back Mr. Olympia, Heath has pushed the limits of the human physique to its extreme.
It takes a special type of drive, some would say "crazy", to make it in the sport of bodybuilding. Heath embodies this drive as well as the unrelenting spirit found in many an entrepreneur taking on the challenges of building a business from scratch.
Whether you're sculpting a physique, or crafting a business, ... 
Trying to get an investment amount out of a startup in South Africa is nearly impossible. I used to think that it's because the amounts are so little that the startups are a tad embarrassed to state publicly that, truth be told, their companies aren't really worth that much.
But that cannot be the case. We know of companies that have received hundreds of millions in funding, but choose not to make the figures public. Why?
Surely this cannot be a case ... startups | entrepreneurship | startup-news | ecommerce |
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