CHAPTER 11
Resourcefulness
Observing Situations and Skillfully Addressing Difficulties
Camilla Ljunggren
Founder, Pluring, JA Alumna, Sweden
My JA Experience:
“I joined the JA program at 16 and soon realized it would be more fun if I had an idea of my own for a product to sell. I started to think about products I could make and realized it wasn’t so easy to find an idea. One day I was in my kitchen taking a glass of water and noticed the dirty dishcloth on the tap. It hit me right then, why are we hanging dirty dishcloths over the water tap? Next, my small, young cousins were visiting at our summer home by the sea, and they couldn’t reach the hook to bring down the towels in the bath. So they pulled really hard and the hook broke. So I started thinking about why we hang dirty washcloths over clean water taps, and why we hang towels through a hoop too high on the wall for children—and through those questions I started to discover a new product idea for my JA company.
“I designed a completely new kind of washcloth and towel hanger, one where you pushed the towel through the center of a ring and it stuck there, and you could attach the ring hanger on any wall. A manufacturer helped us do the prototype, and we started up. It was so much fun to sell the product, meet customers, and hear their feedback. It wasn’t the kind of feedback you get in school. There you get a grade on a paper, but I was getting people telling me this new hanger is so smart and useful. I found that amazing. I did JA that first year and had so much fun I decided to do it another year. In the second year my product was importing leather sandals made by a youth group in Kenya. And I had a new goal: to reach the JA Europe championships, which were going to be in Paris. We won the JA Sweden competition, so we made it to Paris and were the first runner-up there.
“I’m turning 34 years old on Sunday, and I’ve been in business 16 years already. It was not my plan at the beginning. I was supposed to be a lawyer. So it was really JA that changed my mind. I learned how much fun it was to run my own company!”
My Career / Business:
“I continued to run the company after the JA program ended because I couldn’t say no to my customers who just kept calling to say they wanted to order more of the product. So I decided I had to continue, and I started my own company. I also decided that everything I earned in the company would be reinvested in the business to make it grow organically. When I started the JA company, I put in 10 Swedish kronor, about one dollar, and I’ve never had to put any more money in since.
“Early on we began doing our own manufacturing. It’s mostly by robotics, so we have a very lean manufacturing setup. We also decided to go into the big retail stores with the product, which we branded Pluring. The first store in Stockholm that took the product was a very large store in the middle of the city. The sales went very well. We’ve been on their top 10 sales list every week for almost 15 years now. Of course we have many other retailers who carry the product and it has become quite well known in Sweden and the Nordic countries. We also export all over the world. I want to continue growing this way: manufacturing the products ourselves in Sweden and shipping them around the world.
“I’ve had offers from large corporations to sell, but I decided not to because for me, it has never been about the money. I run the business because I like it, I think it’s fun, I meet interesting people, and I’m not in it just for the money.”
My Advice to Young People:
“Whatever you choose to do, you must know that it takes time. I can tell you in 10 minutes how I built our factory and it sounds so easy. But it’s not easy. It takes time. It’s taken me 16 or 17 years to do this.
“I will also say that it’s important to surround yourself with great people. I have a network of about 400 top leaders in the world who I can ask for advice, in different areas. I really think it’s important to work with other people and learn from their experiences and listen to their advice.
“The last piece of advice is to have fun in whatever you do. That’s the most important thing in life—have fun and be happy.”
Daniel Antwi
Founder, People Initiative Foundation, JA Alumnus, Ghana
My JA Experience:
“The best decision I ever made was to join the JA Club in high school, at St. Augustine’s College, in 2003. As a student who studied business in high school, I had an inquiring mind on business-related issues. Upon hearing there was a business club on campus that ran a lot of entrepreneurial programs, I became interested and quickly joined. One other convincing factor was that the patron of the club happened to also be my business management studies teacher. Hence I was very convinced that the JA Club was the right place for me.
“2004, I was elected marketing executive of the JA Club. When we started up, there was no cash in our coffers, so we had to think of ways to raise money. As a team, we came up with something that I think had never been done by any high school club in Africa. We floated shares in the school for students to buy with their pocket money.
“We needed to raise the cash in order to produce our school’s banners and other paraphernalia which most of the students wanted to wear during the sports competitions. In the central region of Ghana where our school was located, sports competitions were very competitive, and strong rivalries existed between the various schools. Our strategy, which I led as the marketing executive, was to go to classrooms and talk about our upcoming share offering and what the students stood to gain as shareholders. We also went to the dining halls and made announcements, and posted flyers on school notice boards. Our shares were oversubscribed, and we raised a lot of money. We immediately used half of the cash to buy shares in the Ghana Oil Company, as a reserve, and used the rest to produce our sports paraphernalia, which was in high demand. We made a lot of revenue with good profit margins.
“Today I am a social entrepreneur, and looking back I can say that joining the JA Club in high school was my magic step. My public speaking skills, business acumen, marketing skills, and people skills were all unleashed as a result of my association with JA.”
My Career / Business:
“I developed a passion for entrepreneurship at an early stage as a result of my association with the JA Club in high school. However, my early professional career, spanning seven years, was spent with two great companies, Hewlett-Packard and Guinness Ghana Breweries, where I learned a lot of leadership and management skills. After that corporate experience, my partner and I established People Initiative Foundation, which creates programs to promote cultural diversity while nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents, and ideas of young people who are making positive change across Africa. Our foundation’s initiatives include TEDxAccra, Africa Internship Academy, and Africa Dialogues. We also have a Social Impact Consultancy which has done extensive work for organizations such as Reach for Change Africa and Smart Africa.”
My Advice to Young People:
“I started early as a young entrepreneur and made a lot of mistakes. They all turned out to be blessings in disguise for my journey. So as a lifelong JA-preneur myself, here are 10 nuggets from my own experience that I want to share with future social entrepreneurs.”
“Have an idea with social impact value—that addresses a social issue.
“Know the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to solving the world’s pressing issues, and align your social innovation with any of the SDGs to contribute to global change.
“Begin small, with your current resources, but have a big picture in mind.
“Remain focused on your target and stay within your track to ensure impact.
“Connect with other impact hubs and innovation labs to gain new knowledge and ideas.
“Take a chance and work with all social innovations that come your way.
“Volunteering can be a game changer in the ecosystem of creating social impact.
“Passion, time, and skills, not cash, are your biggest assets in the early stages of your journey.
“Financial viability, in the early stages of your journey, may not be clearly defined.
“Believe in yourself and discover your strengths.”
Boris Kolev
Cofounder, DigiMark, JA Alumnus, Bulgaria
My JA Experience:
“I was first introduced to the JA program when I was just 12 years old. I think it was the seventh grade. We had some extracurricular activities, and we had to choose from three. One of them was the student company. A few friends from my class and I signed up. The first day the teacher came and said the students were going to make a business, and we asked are we going to earn money, and he said yes. So that was interesting. He brought us the JA books and we started the class. So we had our first company—and went to the national competition. We were the youngest team there. We didn’t get any awards that year, but we were very motivated. The second year we were very motivated again, and we wanted to get the prize. We didn’t win the best company award, but we did win four prizes: best marketing plan, etc. The third year we were even more motivated. We did the Company Program again and had a very interesting product. We produced business cards made from CDs. We won the Bulgarian national competition with this, and went to the international competition in Brussels. There we won third place for all of Europe. It was one of the most motivating moments of my entire life. We were one of the poorest nations in the competition in 2005, so it was very motivating to beat the big countries like Germany, France, and the UK. We felt very patriotic.
“I personally won another JA competition in 2006. It was an essay competition, and they sent me to the United States to the Junior Leadership Conference in Florida. More than 500 JA kids from all around the world were there, and it was very cool. I was 17, and I fell in love with the U.S. So, I came back and took all the English classes, the SAT exams, all the exams needed to go to the states to study. I was accepted at a few good schools, but a few months before I was to go we had an accident in my family and I lost my father. It was a few weeks before I turned 18, and all my plans just disappeared. I was left with my mom and my little sister who was eight, and I had to find a job very quickly to help my family. I was an 18-year-old kid with no diploma, and it was difficult to find a good job. The first person to give me a hand was Milena Stoycheva, who as you know is the CEO of JA Bulgaria. She asked me to help them with the computers in the JA office. So my first job was actually in the JA office in Sofia. She couldn’t give me a big salary, but it was enough so I could help my family. And then Sasha, who as you also know was the board chair for JA Bulgaria, and the CEO at Hewlett-Packard, called me to say there was an internship available at HP. She was a very important person in Bulgaria, and I didn’t know her, but she just called and said: “I’m Sasha from HP, and I know what’s happening in your family and I want to help you. We have an internship position at HP which you can have.” So I got into HP with the internship, which was very helpful. So JA Bulgaria and HP Bulgaria gave me so much help.”
My Career / Business:
“I told my classmates, we’ve been doing this JA Company Program for many years, so let’s continue it as a real company. I put the word international in the name and registered my first company as JT International. I was just 18 years old. We started off just doing more website work. But I soon realized the market needed something more innovative than just website design, so we searched for other technologies and services to get into. I looked around Europe and discovered Bluetooth marketing, which led to the creation of our second company, BlueMark.
“We’ve been in business 10 years now, working under the group name DigiMark. We also have investments in other tech companies. I spend a lot of time in that investment company trying to find new companies to help. Our CEO is my original partner, and he is managing all the teams so I’m able to travel overseas to find new business. Today DigiMark has 30 employees, and we’ve opened offices in Portugal and the U.S.
“Finally, I am in the JA Europe Alumni Club. I stay very involved with JA in Bulgaria and the rest of Europe because I owe a lot to JA and it provides a valuable network. For example, we currently have three good clients from the JA Alumni Club in Europe. It’s also happening here in Bulgaria. The alumni are young, but they are all in good positions: in companies, in government, and in politics. We all work together because we know and trust each other. So JA has provided this amazing network of alumni.”
My Advice to Young People:
“One very important thing I learned from my JA experience—set up big goals, and even if you don’t reach them you’ll be far ahead. It’s very motivating to know that if you work hard, success will come.
“From my experience, I will offer one final piece of advice to young people everywhere: Join JA as a student, or even as an advisor. Believe me, it will be one of the most important and rewarding activities you will ever undertake.”
Alex Kyalo
Founder, Tapifare Kenya, JA Alumnus, Kenya
My JA Experience:
“Ten years ago when I went through the JA Company Program, I had little knowledge of what impact it would have on my life. My experience in the Company Program was the real start of my career. JA was my first ‘teacher’ in what the global market really is.
“Starting with the setup of the company structure and the division of responsibilities, I remember with pride becoming the corporate secretary and human resources vice president. It was exciting to have such a key role in my first-ever company engagement. Next came product development involving the packaging, branding, and sales of our products, with the flagship being honey from our beehives. The entire 19-month life cycle of the company was fun, but it also included very important business lessons that are still relevant in my day-to-day operations today.”
My Career/ Business:
“My career took a nonconventional path due to my experience at JA. Having undertaken a technical degree program at university, I never expected to start off as an executive assistant to the managing director of Kenya’s largest motor dealership. However, as a career launching pad, nothing could have been better for a 22-year-old. My experience there led directly to my taking the helm of Tapifare Kenya in 2014. My new company has the mandate to develop a distribution network across Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Burundi, and Rwanda for Ctrack-Inseego, the worldwide fleet management and tracking service.
“I took the path of doing a start-up business because I saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to successfully build and run a business—with the support of a global leader in the field. Creating a company from the ground up, and becoming profitable within 12 months, was a tall order. At six months I already had an active team of well-trained technicians, a branded vehicle carrying out demos with potential clients, and a market research department that could identify worthy customers for our products. Fast-forward to 2017, and Tapifare Kenya is a fully operational and profitable business. This was an entrepreneurial gamble that has truly paid off!”
My Advice to Young People:
“To be young, at this time in Africa, may be the greatest gift you could ever have. Nearly half of the top 10 fastest-growing economies worldwide are in Africa, making it fertile ground for budding entrepreneurs.
“Don’t be afraid to fail, and when you do fail, simply ‘fail better’ next time. Young people should recognize that entrepreneurship often comes with a lot of stumbling blocks along the way. It’s all about how we learn to do better next time, without giving up.
“Go the extra mile with undivided focus. Young people must seek to be ‘extra’ if they want to be successful. You cannot be average in your decision making, or in your level of focus, and expect to reap maximum benefits from your endeavors.
“As an entrepreneur be ready to solve a real problem, build a global product, and hit the road running without looking back. Accept counsel from industry experts and mentors, don’t be afraid of criticism, and don’t accept conventional wisdom.
“Most importantly, volunteer as a mentor to JA (or similar organization) to give back to your younger brothers and sisters by sharing your experience. It costs nothing to impart your knowledge and experiences to others—and you have everything to gain by giving back what was received completely free from JA.”
Benjamin Kainz
Founder, Young Care, JA Alumnus, Sweden
My JA Experience:
“In the beginning, I didn’t think about having my own company. I saw myself studying and then working for a big company. That was my plan, but then we were invited to join the JA program. It sounded interesting, so I, with three other friends, started the program. We put a lot of effort into the program. We started with an idea that one of my friends had—bricks that looked like Legos toys, but much bigger so you could build real walls with them. They worked just like bricks, but you didn’t need any mortar. It seemed like a good idea, but it was more difficult than we imagined. We created the whole concept and then saw that the investment to bring it to market was too big for the first year. Anyway I think that experience gave us the most practical education we got that school year because it was the first time we had to do something ourselves, without anyone saying how or what to do. In JA you see the results of what you do. You put effort into something, and you quickly see what you get back. You also make contact with new people outside of the school. I think the whole process provided the most benefit we got from the school year. It was fun, and there was a bit of a competition with other teams. We thought the competitions were quite fun, and we did quite well. We only brought the product to the prototype stage—but we actually won the JA Company of the Year award in Sweden. At the end of the year we even had a meeting with the founder of IKEA, and he really liked the product also. So it was great fun and a great learning experience.”
My Business / Career:
“We really liked the way the JA program worked, and we had one year left in school, so we decided to start a real company for our last year. The business idea was inspired by a personal situation. My grandmother was living a few hours from my home, and my grandfather was retired and living in Germany, quite far away. I saw them only a couple of times a year, and I saw that many other students had the same situation as my family. They also had elderly relatives living in another city or another country. At the same time, we knew it was quite hard for young people to find a part-time job. In the care sector, for example, there are a lot of legal requirements. So we thought about combining those two problems: care for the elderly and finding employment for young people. So we started our company, Ung Omsorg, or Young Care, just before we graduated from high school. It was to be a summer project at first, and I actually entered the university to study economics. But I quickly became a university dropout as I was too interested in my project—my new business.
“We saw this need all across the country. I’m not sure we really saw it as a market at first. It was just something that was needed, and we tried to do something about it in an organized way. The idea was quite simple: we wanted to hire young people to provide light care for elderly people, take a walk with them, talk to them, sit and read the newspaper out loud, just comfort them—an exchange experience between the generations.
“We went to the local government in our hometown and had a little luck. We found one politician who liked our plan, and he got the project approved. The municipality paid for the service, and we got some sponsorships from local companies. We advertised the jobs for something like $7 an hour, we trained the teenagers in what to do, and had our first 20 employees in just a few weeks. So we started up our first pilot program in our hometown in Sweden.
“Today, 10 years later, we have over 900 employees with projects all over Sweden. In the beginning we didn’t really see it as a business. We just thought it was a nice summer project, but it’s turned out to be a strong and growing business. We could operate like a nonprofit, but early on we realized we didn’t want to be dependent on charity or the funding of foundations. We thought if Young Care is going to survive in the long term, there must be someone willing to pay for the service—just like any for-profit business. So we operate as a legal for-profit business and promote Young Care as a private company trying to do good work for society.”
My Advice to Young People:
“Of course, start with an idea you believe in. Something you really feel strongly about. Otherwise after a few years you may get bored or discover there is something else you want to do more. In my case, for example, after 10 years in business I have more energy for my company than when I started.
“If you want to get practical, I see a lot of young companies fail because they start selling too late. When you first come up with your idea, start talking to prospects or those who have a problem you hope to solve—because their early feedback may highlight some problems you can correct early on. Then you can focus on the right strategy for your business from the beginning. So start selling early.
“Give yourself lots of opportunities to get lucky! I mean it’s important to meet up with people who know a lot about your field or market sector. You never know who can open doors for you or teach you things. For example, we didn’t really have any experience in the healthcare sector, and we had to learn fast from other people.
“And finally, I would encourage young people everywhere to consider doing something in the healthcare sector. As the population ages, there’s a big need for new people and new solutions. It’s a huge problem in Sweden and most other countries too. But it’s also a huge opportunity for young people to get inspired by working with the elderly—and become social enterprisers to find new solutions in this fast-growing market.”