Charles Odii the Executive Director, SME100Africa launches a new book – “21 Questions on entrepreneurship”. This book is unique as it provides real answers to questions posed by entrepreneurs that Charles encountered through his SME100Africa journey. Charles is the Founder of SME100Africa – A a social enterprise, with the aim of ensuring African entrepreneurs succeed regardless of their socio-economic background, has grown to provide over one hundred thousand African Small and Medium Enterprises with access to finance, markets, capacity development, mentorship, networks, skills, resources and most importantly information.

Charles Odii explains, “this book is written from my extensive experience gained over a decade of starting and running a business in Africa, international travel and engagement with thousands of entrepreneurs (who have sat with me and sent me emails to ask critical questions from “how to structure businesses, to how to develop marketing strategies that support their products in niche markets and more”). The book also contains questions from my online series “Ask Charles”. The questions are extensive and aim to provide information on how to be a successful entrepreneur.”

The book will be released on August 12th 2020 – International youth day, and will be available nation-wide for purchase as well on Amazon, Flutterwave, Jumia, 100connect and more. For enquiries you can visit: www.charlesodii.com.

You might be thinking, This sounds too good to be true… but here are a few takeaways from the book:

1. A Positive Attitude: This book will surely change your mindset as an entrepreneur. It goes way beyond teaching you the practical steps but it makes you aware of the opportunity you can leverage on for your business to succeed even through some failures.

“Ask Charles. Yes, Do it! He is the one who has the experience, the knowledge, the humility, the patience, and the passion to give you the needed advice. As he writes: “business is a dark room”. Charles’s book is the light, the guidance for all willing to start a business and become an entrepreneur. With this book, he chooses to answer the basics of how to fight your business monsters. It is a practical, easy-to-understand, and use, way of learning.

When asking for advice, it is important to consider who you ask. Charles Odii is a role model. His own story gives him all the credibility needed to advise you on how to; grow your potential, engage in a successful business, learn from your failures, and believe in success.

As early as possible it is crucial to get a mentor, but a good one is hard to come by. If you read this book, you will feel that you have found your personal – virtual – mentor who is always there in your pocket or on your devices to answer all your dilemmas and challenges. So keep it and share it with others, as you may not be the only one who needs these insights, and this book fills the gap.”

Veronika Pistyur

Co-Founder Bridge Budapest

Hungary

2. Your Whys: Being an entrepreneur isn’t as easy as ABC. It requires your time and effort. It goes beyond harvesting a passion but also building results; is it profitable? Are you scaling? Now, this brings us to your Whys. This book makes you break down your Whys and with this, you get a bigger picture to why you’re starting a business.

“The most important factor is to find your “WHY?”.

Why should I be an “Entrepreneur”?

Inspired leaders regardless of their size of business or industry, know their “WHY?”; that is how they communicate from the inside out.

I do highly recommend reading the book “21 Questions on Entrepreneurship” as it will provide you not just the “WHY” but also the “WHAT” and “HOW’”.

Dawood Marafie

Board Member Kuwait National Fund for Development of SMEs

3. TURNING YOUR PASSION INTO A BUSINESS: Starting a new business as an entrepreneur is an emotional rollercoaster. There may be days where you “fail” and feel like giving up and that is okay. Yes, passion is good, but that won’t convert into a revenue stream without a solid business structure. The “21 questions on Entrepreneurship” shows you how to structure your business to help you make a living out of what you love.

“This book should be mandatory reading for all entrepreneurs, and the same goes for business owners who desire greater entrepreneurial instincts. I am delighted to be able to share this book with you, with the hope that you find it incredibly helpful when structuring better business concepts for your own business.

I applaud Charles for his achievement – and for his continuing contributions as a mentor and entrepreneur who devotes his time immensely to build the motivated community in Africa, and is a critical friend to many members of Nigeria’s start-up scene.

21 Questions on Entrepreneurship elaborates on all the possible challenges a nascent entrepreneur might face at the beginning of their journey, with a wide range spanning building company culture, finding market positions to dealing with the possible legal problems. This is an excellent book. If you are an entrepreneur, 21 Questions on Entrepreneurship is the book for you.”

Mandy Chung,

Co-founder,

Women in IoT, Taiwan

You can preorder the book here: www.CharlesOdii.com

It will be officially out on the 12th of August 2020. Get your hands on it before it’s sold out.

Here are some other reviews:

“One of the most rewarding career paths is entrepreneurship: following your passion, being your own boss, getting to be a leader, disrupting markets, and making tons of money! It’s true, that’s what most literature about entrepreneurship tells you: entrepreneurship is awesome!

What they don’t always mention though, is that 9 out of 10 start-ups fail. The leading cause of failure: incompetence and lack of knowledge and experience.

Most entrepreneurs spend half their career learning from their mistakes. Luckily, people like Charles Odii and
organisations like SME100Africa will save you the hassle of failure and take you straight to success.

Charles has travelled the world and gathered knowledge from entrepreneurs all over the globe. After listening to the challenges of his compatriots, he tailored it to the African experience and aggregated it in this A-to-Z guide of being an entrepreneur”.

Joey Zeenny
Digital entrepreneur, co-founder of Gtlogic,
Crab Notion, Lebtivity, Jellyfish Labs,
Lebanon

“Do you value the perspective of entrepreneurs? Read as Charles delivers perspective gained from entrepreneurs all across the world. What you can find inside are applicable lessons from Charles to aid your entrepreneurial journey.”

Todd A. Rose,
Liaison for the International Visitor Leadership Program, a professional exchange program
funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
USA

“If you want to hear it is easy to be an entrepreneur, then this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you want a realistic manual on entrepreneurship this is a must-have!

The 21 Questions are answered with details that help clarify concerns on issues like funding, taking risks, start-up
resources as well as providing the reader with templates on essentials like business plan, entrepreneurship checklist, choosing the right location and coping as an entrepreneur.

In this compilation of responses to “Ask Charles”, Charles Odii, founder of SME100Africa, has delivered a well
thought out, comprehensive and useful guide for today’s entrepreneurs.”

Nonny Ugboma,
Executive Secretary, MTN Foundation
Nigeria

For more information or enquiries you can visit www.charlesodii.com or call Damilola (P.M.) on 08177743650 or email [email protected]

Our attention has been drawn to widely circulating stories incorrectly stating that our Managing Director, during a recent presidential hearing in Abuja, testified that the bank mistakenly transferred N573m to the account of a church and the said error was not discovered for 4 years. We feel it is in the public interest to state emphatically that there was no transfer of  N573m into this account, mistakenly or otherwise.

To provide further clarity, during a maintenance upgrade of our systems in 2016, a defective file led to the aggregation of multiple unrelated entries into a single balance under the affected customer’s name in one of our reports. This aggregation occurred only in the weekly automated report to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit. It had no effect on any customer account balance or statements and therefore was not immediately identified. Our Managing Director clarified to the Presidential panel that the system generated report was incorrect and that there was no mistaken transfer of N573 million. He also submitted comprehensive documentary evidence to this effect.

We appreciate that comments may have been misconstrued and therefore believe it is important to emphatically clarify the position that there was no mistaken transfer whatsoever, as stated above. FCMB continues to fully cooperate with the panel, and has been entirely transparent in its reporting. We remain committed to ethical and professional conduct at all times.

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State has commended the Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu for his support to the state in combating COVID-19. This came as BUA presented three new emergency response ambulances to the Delta State Government.

Representative of BUA and Group Head Corporate Communications, BUA Group, O’tega Ogra while presenting the vehicles to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa noted that the support is part of BUA’s effort aimed at combating the pandemic in the country.

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa in his response described the Executive Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu, as a true philanthropist and said the donation was timely to check the spread of COVID-19 in the state.

Okowa said: “One very good thing that I must put on the note is that we did not make a request, and the gesture is how you know those who are philanthropic.

“We did not make any request; he just called and said, as part of his assistance to various states, that he wants to make a donation to the state. “That is how you know people who genuinely from their heart, want to be of assistance to the people, and I am very much aware that the Chairman of BUA Group has done quite a lot. I think it is a very good gesture; we are very happy as a state and on behalf of the government and people of Delta State, we appreciate this and we believe that if Nigeria can continue to have more men like him, I’m sure that this country will be a much better place for us.”

“At this time, we need a lot of logistics for movement, being able to move patients from one point. The ambulances are very useful to us and we are very grateful. It is coming very timely.  We have had donations but this is the first time we are having three at a time from one group and we truly appreciate that. And we are glad to hear that he is assisting many other states,” Okowa added.

Delta is the third state in the South-South and one of several across Nigeria that have benefitted so far from BUA’s COVID-19 efforts which seek to provide additional support and assistance to various efforts and interventions across the country. So far, BUA has committed over 7billion naira in cash, donations, infrastructure, foodstuff and medical supplies to the fight against COVID-19.