Navigating the Modern Economy: Uniting Entrepreneurship and Family Business

All journeys have a starting point.

My journey into the world of families and the businesses they own began with the passing of my father and the taxi business he bequeathed to our family. The challenge that came with managing the business as a family forced me to look for answers to what I soon discovered to be an age old problem.

While sharing my research in Business Families | Someone has to lead helped marshall my thoughts and bring structure at a personal level to what is a vast and complex topic, I inadvertently opened another door into the world of entrepreneurship. Specifically the world of new, survivalist ventures founded by  township entrepreneurs that were displaying all the signs of being a family business without either the entrepreneur nor the family involved aware of the dynamic at both an entrepreneurial level and family level that was evolving.

My response was to launch KiPiDi, a non profit company focused on teaching entrepreneurship to township entrepreneurs, and building a community of like minded individuals from which all could draw support. My new book Entrepreneurship Starts Here | Know it Practise it Do it is both a companion and extension of the KiPiDi Entrepreneurship Bootcamp.

I make a bold statement when I say all businesses at the bottom of the pyramid in South Africa are family businesses, it’s a matter of survival. I’ll also go out on a limb and state that business education (from whatever source) targeting this segment ignores the development of skills in family business management.

Teaching these two domains in isolation, especially at the bottom of the pyramid where in all likelihood family business management is not on the agenda, ignores a vital opportunity to integrate both disciplines and deliver an intervention that increases the chance of entrepreneurial success. It’s hard enough starting a business on your own, but it’s even harder when your family’s survival is both dependent on its success while “interfering” with the day to day operations.

KiPiDi through its Entrepreneurship and Family Business Bootcamps delivers an integrated approach to teaching  Family Entrepreneurship where family, family business, and entrepreneurship overlap. Entrepreneurial success is dependent upon the development of the skills located in the business domains of entrepreneurship and family business. This knowledge and these skills and  must be made available to all South Africans wherever they are located in the pyramid and not just to the privileged few with access to institutions of higher learning,