Editor, Re: Ample follow up needed for start-ups (The New Times Feb 22) Instead of awarding $2,500 to 20 startups, I would recommend vetting/awarding one or two companies with potential to grow. Not to discourage anyone and not to be critical of the business ideas that come in some of the competitions, truth be told, these young people need to work/intern for real companies (even small or medium) for a couple of years before venturing out into business. Business is cutthroat and we shouldn’t hype these young folks that you can start an IT company with $2,500 with no prior experience and succeed. The likelihood is very, very slim. Miracles do happen but rarely. Just remember that they will be competing with global startups that have had access to $250,000 in terms of grants, venture capital funds, or capital from FFFs (friends, family and/or fools) just to come up with a prototype; another $1-2 million to come up with a product and means to market it, including flooding the product(s) on African markets. Again coming back to the writer’s point, let us be consistent, not make this business plan competition a beauty contest of sorts and not make it a day/evening event but rather a complete life cycle. We don’t want these young compatriots to take their little app to the bank with a winning business plan only for the bank analysts to destroy them completely. Rebounding from such an experience is an uphill task! Al
