African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1127 Entrepreneurial Team
And Bob can't afford to pay wages now, so he can only cooperate with others to do business, and there is no better choice than Li Lai Te, his high school friend.

But Li Lai Te also has his own concerns. As a poor student educated through cheap compulsory education in East Africa, Li Lai Te spends most of his time wasting on campus, so he still hopes to have a stable job.

Li Lai Te was assigned to work in a furniture factory, which was not much better than Bob's linen textile factory. However, Li Lai Te considered himself to be a hard-working person. After all, in East African secondary education, students' physical fitness was above the passing line. Although they were not as good as many child laborers in Europe who were forced to work at a young age due to family reasons, they were not nerds who could not lift anything with their hands or carry anything on their shoulders.

This is actually easy to understand. The cost of developing sports in East Africa's poor education system is low. Even textbooks are not needed, nor are there any needs for highly qualified physical education teachers. In addition, there are few class hours, lax management, and sufficient sleep, so most students are in very good health.

So Li Lai Te said: "I feel that I am still suitable for working in a furniture factory. After all, I don't have the hands-on ability like you. Although the work in a furniture factory is a little tiring, it is stable and there is no need to mess around."

Bob advised, "But the room for advancement is small. It's hard to get ahead without connections. But it's different if you start a business with me. We are our own bosses and can allocate our time freely. How much money we make depends entirely on our own abilities."

"I will be responsible for product production, and you will be responsible for sales. With this division of labor and cooperation, we will definitely not earn less than working in the factory. Now that the policy has been relaxed, free choice of employment will definitely be the general trend in the future."

Bob knew very well that Li Lai Te was a good speaker, at least much better than him, and Bob needed Li Lai Te's help in selling his products.

Li Lai Te nodded and said, "That does make sense, but I'm afraid my parents won't agree."

Bob: "Your parents can't control you for the rest of your life. Besides, we are adults now and can make decisions for our own lives. Besides, except for East Africa, most countries in the world are free markets. In this case, it's not shameful to start a business with me. We may be able to create the wealth legends of the United States..."

After Bob persuaded him with both emotion and reason, Li Lai Te finally agreed and said, "How about we give it a try for three days? If the sales performance is good, I will work with you."

Bob nodded and said, "No problem. I will provide the products and you will go to the streets to sell them. We will make a final decision after three days based on the results."

So the two of them started their initial attempts. Bob rushed to produce a batch of finished radios overnight, and the next day Li Lai Te took the rather simple finished products and started his own sales journey, somewhat similar to the salesman who sold CDs on the street or sneaked into schools to sell ballpoint pens in his previous life.

Although the radio that Bob rubbed by hand was rather crude, as an electronic product, radio was still considered a high-end household appliance in East Africa.

After calculating the costs, the two set a relatively reasonable price, which was one-third lower than the price of radios on the market. If we ignore the appearance and source, the specific functions are actually not much different.

To their surprise, the product sold very well. As the most developed city in East Africa, Dar es Salaam has good purchasing power among its citizens. In just three days, eight radios were sold, and the profits were obviously much higher than the daily wages for factory work.

Looking at the more than 20 Rhineland guilders he earned from selling hand-rubbed radios, Li Lai Te was extremely excited: "Bob, this is the first time in my life that I have received such a huge sum of money. I have earned so much in just three days. It is unimaginable if I can do it for a year."

Bob was also very excited: "I said this business has great prospects. There are still many rich people in Dar es Salaam. We underestimated the market potential. There are few people doing this in the market now, which is our advantage. As long as we can seize the opportunity, we can be the first batch of people to try it out. This is much better than working hard in the factory. When we earn more, maybe we can open a small workshop and finally upgrade it to a factory. We can also become big figures at the factory director level." Li Lai Te agreed with Bob's words. After all, tangible benefits are more motivating than any words, and this further strengthened the confidence of the two to start a business. In this way, Bob and Li Lai Te earned their first pot of gold by rubbing the radio by hand.

In the future, these two young people will rely on this business to further expand and strengthen it, and set up their own company specializing in the production and sales of electrical products, which is considered a small achievement.

Across East Africa, there are many people like Bob and Li Wright who choose to start their own businesses, creating a large number of wealthy people. With the injection of foreign capital, the entire East African social economy is thriving.

Of course, due to the small amount of start-up capital, the gap between private capital and state-owned capital in East Africa is still very significant. The East African government controls the lifeline of the national economy. East Africa is still dominated by a planned economic system. The free market can only be regarded as an important supplement to the current East African economy and has little impact on the overall economy of East Africa.

However, it has greatly improved the development of East Africa's service industry, light industry and handicraft industry, making East Africa's industrial structure more balanced and comprehensive.

This was accompanied by local unrest in East African society between 1911 and 1913. The liberalization of market competition directly led to operational difficulties for a number of East African state-owned enterprises, especially many small local enterprises that did not seek to make progress.

Such small local enterprises can easily be replaced by handicraft workshops or other private enterprises, and East African governments have to upgrade and eliminate these enterprises.

The word "unemployment" also began to appear in East Africa, which led to a certain degree of increase in criminal activities in East Africa and an increase in the business volume of East African police stations.

But overall it is within the control of the government. Although unemployment has occurred, it has not become a large-scale problem due to the overheated economy. As long as one is not lazy, one can basically find a job. However, people's hearts cannot stand the test, and there are always people who want to take shortcuts and take risks.

The pros and cons of the new economic policy began to become apparent, but compared with the level of chaos in European and American societies, the overall social order in East Africa can be said to be very good.

In general, East Africa's economic development is now in a vibrant state, and the growth rate of East Africa's industry has even exceeded that of the First and Second Five-Year Plans.

According to common sense, it would be impossible for East Africa's industrial development to achieve results during the Third Five-Year Plan period more easily than during the previous two Five-Year Plans. However, the new economic policies and large loans injected new blood into the East African economy.

During the Third Five-Year Plan, East Africa faced pressure from rapid population growth and relatively lagging overseas market expansion. Against this background, it achieved even more brilliant development achievements than in the first two Five-Year Plans, and the New Economic Policy played a major role.

Ernst was happy to see this happen. Although many problems had been caused by economic development, in order to cope with the problem of insufficient production capacity that might arise in the future World War I, these minor problems could be ignored for the time being and adjustments could be made after the war. Ernst only ensured that the general direction of the country was correct. As for mistakes in details, many of them were unavoidable.

Even without the new economic policy, East Africa will face many corresponding social problems. Any policy should be adjusted in line with the development of the times. A static society is a dead end.

(End of this chapter)