HEVA Breakfast Meet 2024

We had missed the practice of in-person meet-ups where we get to learn, share, and catch up with our investment portfolio of businesses and grantees. We are grateful that our first engagement of 2024 was the HEVA Breakfast Meet. We invited a room full of our creative entrepreneurs and grantees to spend the morning with us and discuss “Navigating Economic Uncertainty: Resilience and Success Strategies for Businesses.” How can we continue to lead and operate in preparation for imminent hard times? 

Stephen Gugu honoured our invitation to lead us through this talk. A whizz in bridging the gap between African entrepreneurs and investors, a lecturer, an angel investor, and an entrepreneur himself, Stephen was able to share a wealth of information that transverses both business and life in general. 

Some of our key takeaways from the session on how to respond when the economic tides are rough are to build a more resilient you and build a more resilient business. How? Self care, focus on cash (cash is king, especially in the wake of difficulty), and shift to edge thinking. 

We take immense pride in the businesses that we work with. These are enterprises that have weathered a pandemic, navigated through electioneering periods, and charted unexplored economic landscapes. Running a business is often described as a lonely journey, where the challenges of figuring out every aspect can be daunting. Recognising this, we are intentional about planning more future sessions like this and creating platforms for entrepreneurs to interact, share and establish a network of mutual support.

All the best! See you at the next meet.

Helpful materials for entrepreneurs that were shared during the session:

• Edge Strategy written by Alan Lewis and Dan McKone 

• Blue Ocean Strategy written by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim

• The consequences model from The Decision Book written by Kristian Kreiner and Soren Christensen