Founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana has advised prospective entrepreneurs to be mindful of the risks involved in starting a business.

With funding being the foremost challenge for startups, Regina Honu emphasised that prospective entrepreneurs should calculate their risks before deciding to take their ideas to the next step.

"When there are no safeguards, no sort of support from different places, then your risk appetite has to be calculated. If you take too much risk and you bite too much, and you make that one wrong move, you’re back to zero".

She said coming out of such difficult situations can be challenging because the economic environment in the country is not conducive enough for risk taking.

She was a discussant on Joy FM's Super Morning Show. The prime focus of the discussion was on the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta's statement to the effect that there are no more vacancies in the public sector. His statement was made against the background of a huge unemployment rate among the Ghanaian youth.

https://youtu.be/sMYu5gGbI3U

The Finance Minister, speaking at last Friday’s Springboard-Ghana Cares Youth Dialogue in Accra, urged the youth to venture into entrepreneurship because government is already spending 60% of total revenue on salaries and emoluments of public sector workers.

As a social entrepreneur, Regina Honu said starting a business and making sure it survives the economic test of time, and having a strategy are two different ballgames altogether.

She explained that there is more to starting a business than just putting a product on the market.

"You really have to have some type of strategy. Understand your market, understand the market needs, understand your brand positioning, all of that".

Educating fervent listeners on the steps involved in launching a business, she said that Small Business Owners need to have the right knowledge in terms of the requisite regulatory framework needed for operating their business.

"You’re supposed to get a certificate from AMA, depending on the type of business that you are doing. It can get overwhelming when you’re starting and trying to get your feet on the ground. We have certain young people that would not want to go through all of that. And then when it gets to funding or capital time, they don’t qualify because they don’t have all these things in place".

She further advised entrepreneurs to not only rely on the Ghanaian market, but rather spread their products and services outside the shores of Ghana.

She said that depending on the type of business one offers, the Ghanaian market may not be huge enough to make one successful.

"So you have to be very creative in being able to create a product that draws the market that you have and also look at being global. Because if you just focus on this small market, you are limiting yourself. So how do you ensure that you have a local business but a global presence? It is very important in today’s world," Regina Honu stressed.