WHAT IF COLONEL SANDERS HAD FEARED TO SET UP KFC BECAUSE OF HIS AGE

 Recently I heard a group of friends who were eager to go to KFC. This is a frequently visited place especially the youths ( university students are culprits here). It got me thinking, how was KFC started ? It was started by Colonel Sanders during his retirement when he was broke. He remembered that he had mastered a secret recipe for chicken. He marketed it to different companies but was rejected several times. Did he give up? No. He was determined and the rest is history.

There is a lot we can learn from Colonel Sanders. He started KFC at the age of 65 years. What a wonderful man and entrepreneur who did not regard age as a limitation to his creativity. For the past 5 years I have been involved in training countless youths and groups across the country about financial literacy and enterprise development. I should acknowledge that Ugandans are very hard working people. No wonder Uganda is ranked as one of the most enterprising countries in the world. However most of the small businesses do not see their second birthday. There are several reasons but today the focus is on age. Research shows that over 70% of Ugandans are below 30 years. One of their biggest challenges is lack of access to decent employment opportunities. The question is who will set up the industries that will create jobs for the youths? 

The key issue is at any age a person can set up a business. On a number of occasions I have interacted with some university students about the importance of financial literacy and entrepreneurship and some of them have taken the matter jokingly. The unemployment dilemma is real and whether one is a student or not they should care. Why is this so? Over 400,000 university graduates are churned out every year from over 40 universities in the country. These universities have the same courses and this means there is a lot of competition in the market. So if a student is at university and scares he or she is not bothered by the state of affairs in the job market then it is a bit scary. 

Bill Gates and his friends started Microsoft as a project at university. Today this company has impacted every industry in the world. What started as a project has propelled Bill Gates into one of the wealthiest men in the world. The question is what if he had undermined his project since he was a youth. Mark Zuckerberg of face book is another young billionaire. In a nation with the youths as a majority many of them are unaware of the power they hold to change their communities. They are waiting for external circumstances to alter their landscape. I have met graduates who have lost faith in their degrees. They have put all their faith in the marks they got in exams. 

Now advancement in age should not be a barrier when it comes it starting a business. Many senior citizens have started strong business consultancies after their retirement. These include schools, Business Development Consultancies and hospitals. A case in point in a leading consultancy in this country which has won several awards .It was started by a former banker and now employs over 60 employees.

The above show that age is just a number when it comes to starting a business. If others have done so, what stops us?

For individual and corporate financial literacy training contact :

Coach Phillip Kiryowa

Personal Finance Coach 

Master Trainer, Bank of Uganda 

Founder, Advanced Empowerment Link

+256752615916

For Financial Freedom and Sustainable Enterprises

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