Entrepreneurs build their businesses under severe difficult circumstances.

If you wait for the ideal situation to start, you may wait a while.

I think at the core of what defines entrepreneurs is the ability to thrive under difficult conditions.

I meet entrepreneurs saying to me I don’t have money so I can’t start. This is a genuine concern given that most come from poor backgrounds.

But I have seen successful entrepreneurs who started with little and against all odds managed to build good businesses.

Entrepreneurs make a plan to get some money so that they can start, they take part-time jobs, being waiters, extra shifts at work, start side-hustles, they fundraise from others, they bootstrap, they enter business plans and pitching competitions.

There is a well-used South African saying among farming folk: ‘n boer maak n plan, meaning a farmer always makes a plan in a sticky situation. Basically it is about improvising to solve problems.

It means figure it out.

If something is scarce, find a substitute.

If it does not work this way, make it work another way.

You do not have money? figure it out, make a plan.

Entrepreneurs are MacGyvers, they use “extraordinary talent for problem solving.”

They are resourceful and resilient.

Is there a problem? There has to be a way.

When without, ’n boer maak ’n plan.

Figure it out.