We love to talk about entrepreneurship as the engine of Africa’s future.
Governments say it. Donors fund it. Ecosystem builders design programs around it. The message is everywhere: that young people must create businesses, build solutions, and leapfrog into the future. But underneath all that energy is a very specific story about what kind of entrepreneurship counts — and what kind doesn’t.
Many entrepreneurs in Africa aren’t chasing breakthrough ideas just for the sake of it. They’re responding to a system that constantly tells them this is what success looks like: be visionary, be tech-forward, be disruptive. The message is everywhere — in donor programs, government campaigns, and entrepreneurship initiatives. But it’s not just any kind of entrepreneurship that gets attention. It’s the kind that pitches well. The kind that “scales.” The kind that sounds new.
So of course entrepreneurs absorb that.
Of course they reach for big ideas and dramatic solutions.
Because that’s what the system celebrates, funds, and talks about.
It’s not just hype. It’s structural conditioning. And it’s left little room for the kind of entrepreneurship that starts from the ground up: practical, income-generating, often low-tech, and fully focused on fixing what already exists but doesn’t work.
Because in sector after sector, the real opportunity isn’t invention — it’s intervention.
Cold storage that doesn’t exist. Grading tools no one’s producing. Inputs that can’t be sourced locally. Logistics that collapse just when volume starts to grow.
These aren’t side issues. They’re the actual barriers holding entire value chains back. And they’re exactly where serious, grounded businesses can grow — not by chasing something new, but by making something work.
The gaps are real — and so are its opportunities
Take avocados.
Export demand is growing. Farmers are producing more. But over 40% of what’s harvested goes to waste — not because there’s no market, but because farmers can’t tell if their fruit meets export grade. There’s no on-farm grading. No affordable tools. No cold chain. And no off-takers for the rejected fruit who could turn it into things like avocado oil, animal feed, or cosmetic products.
That’s not one gap. It’s several. And every one of them is a business opportunity — not theoretical, not speculative, but grounded in real demand that already exists.
In silk, it’s the same story. Kenyan exporters have European buyers ready to purchase. But they can’t fulfil those orders — not because of pricing or lack of demand, but because the value chain can’t deliver. Too few farmers are rearing silk worms. No one is manufacturing the basic spinning wheels. And too few people are processing the raw material into yarn.
And then there’s all the waste we’re not even noticing.
In banana-growing regions, tonnes of stems are discarded after harvest — even though they can be turned into strong natural fibre for baskets, paper, packaging, or even textiles. The conversion process is simple and can be done manually. A handful of small producers are already working on this, showing what’s possible with basic tools and local materials. But the potential goes far beyond a few examples — it’s an entire supply chain waiting to be activated.
The same goes for fruit waste in markets: overripe produce, peels, and pulp that could become animal feed, compost, or ingredients for low-cost products — if someone steps in to make the link.
These aren’t niche problems or future ideas. They’re real gaps in active sectors — and they don’t need breakthroughs to solve them. They need people willing to step in and make things work.
The makers that are not seen nor supported
The people who are stepping into these gaps — turning waste into value, building missing links, coordinating what’s already there — often don’t look like what we’ve come to expect from entrepreneurs.
They’re not at demo days. They’re not writing pitch decks. They’re not calling themselves startup founders or disruptors.
They’re just doing the work. Quietly. Locally. Often with limited resources and very little visibility. They found a broken link in a value chain and figured out how to fix it — they didn’t wait for external support to get started, but used the tools, knowledge, and materials they already had.
Let’s call them makers.
Not because they don’t innovate, but because their innovation shows up in getting things to function. They make processes work. They make waste usable. They make value chains move. Not in the abstract — but in ways that can be seen, touched, and sold.
They’re not less visionary, nor less ambitious. But they often go unrecognised — mostly because we’ve allowed one version of entrepreneurship to dominate how we look for talent, how we build support, and how we define success.
Misaligned incentives
The problem isn’t just that these entrepreneurs are overlooked.
It’s that the whole system has taught people to aim somewhere else.
Most programs reward what’s easy to spot from a distance — a compelling story, a polished pitch, a market-sized opportunity that fits into familiar categories. Funding tends to follow what feels innovative, scalable, and new. So naturally, entrepreneurs shape their ideas to fit that frame. Not because they’re pretending — but because they genuinely believe that’s the part they need to play.
And so, even those working on practical, grounded problems start to feel like they have to perform a different version of entrepreneurship just to be seen.
It’s not the entrepreneurs who are off-track.
It’s the points of reference we’ve given them.
We’ve told them that success means being original. That the goal is scale. That the right language, the right slides, the right impact and framing will open doors. Meanwhile, the people fixing real problems — the ones that affect production, supply, income, and waste — are often seen as not ambitious enough, not tech-driven enough, not fundable.
But these are the businesses that actually move things forward.
And we’re long overdue in learning how to recognise and support them.
What if we’re looking in the wrong place?
The question isn’t whether innovation matters. It does.
But we’ve come to define it too narrowly — as something big, new, and visibly different.
In reality, a lot of the innovation that matters in this context is about making things work. It’s about fixing what’s broken. Unblocking what’s stuck. Coordinating what’s already there. Not in theory — but in production, logistics, waste recovery, income flow.
That’s where I think many of the real entrepreneurial opportunities are.
And luckily that’s where many entrepreneurs are already working — quietly, resourcefully, and often without recognition.
So this isn’t about lowering the bar or funding second-best ideas.
It’s about seeing value where most fail to look.
It’s about providing the right level of support to the people who are already doing the work ✨