Here are reasons you should slow down in 2019.

If you are like me and you believe that time is life and time wastage is suicide, slowing down is very hard. However, in my entrepreneurial and life journey so far, hitting the brakes is sometimes more important than flying at 150 mph.

In two venture I co/founded, slowing down or not slowing down was the difference between success and failure.

Venture 1: Food@ALU.

In September 2017, one month after starting in ALU, I got an entrepreneurial solution to the lunch crisis for the international community members on campus. ALU Rwanda was a blue ocean, cooked food was not available on campus, and the international community members were getting tired of supermarket snacks. My solution was easy to make, and the end product was accepted by the market when I tested it. One week after the idea, I bought raw materials in bulk and started production. After some sales, news of my venture spread wide enough and got to the ears of Student Ventures Program (SVP). I forgot to mention that SVP had temporarily disallowed food ventures for food safety concerns. Gbam! Meetings with the SVP lead to request exemption failed, and I soon had a failed project and losses.

Venture 2: Afro Mpenzi to Iyawa Foods

Afro Mpenzi started fast like Food@ALU. I got Nigerian clothes, sold to friends, realized there was a way to spread Africa’s culture through fashion and I started. I began to collect orders and research fashion and culture across Africa. Big ideas were flying; domain bought, I bought fashion apparels from as far as Madagascar, I was on high-speed. This time, however, I spoke with the SVP along the way, and Ms. Lysette, my adviser through the process, kept trying to get me to slow down, reflect and understand my business very well. As I did, I began to see the logistical nightmare, demanding hours, and worse that I wasn’t even excited about fashion as a channel for promoting African cultures. There was no future for me in Afro Mpenzi. I began to realize that I had set the business up for failure from the very beginning, just like a chunk of the previously failed businesses I ran. After reflecting and doing some serious research, I decided to pivot to the snack industry -a story for another post. That was how Iyawa Foods was born, and so far it has been my most sustainable ventures with a future and an end goal.

In conclusion, I still firmly believe that procrastinating is terrible, and you should execute your idea as soon as possible, but at the same time it is vital always to slow down, understand what you are going into, understand yourself, envision a future and know the cost of getting there before you start the journey. Moving fast doesn’t mean you are moving in the right direction. Think on this

I hope you take this lesson into the new year and I wish you the best as you do so.