Before he started Hostalite Ltd, which is now a successful web hosting company, Dickson Mushabe was a struggling entrepreneur.
In his maiden book, titled I am Not Sorry For My Mistakes, Mushabe describes the challenges he encountered while starting his businesses and how determination and perseverance propelled him to where he is today.
He describes how he did not give up even when his plans failed. Mushabe appreciated the lessons failure taught him thus the title of his book I Am Not Sorry For My Mistakes.
The 34-year-old traces his long entrepreneurial journey, from trying out tomato farming to running a barber shop, starting a video library and finally setting up an ICT firm.
Mushabe started farming tomatoes in his home village in Ntungamo district, western Uganda, during his Senior Six vacation. His small tomato farming business was inspired by a need to make money, which saw him leave for Kampala in a search for a job that proved futile.
“This soil you see is full of money,” his father told him, telling the youngster he was literally stepping on money all the way to Kampala and back to the village.
When he joined Makerere University for his bachelors degree in science and quantitative economics, Mushabe started a barber shop, but it did not last long as he lacked the business acumen to run it successfully.
However, Mushabe did not give up and he soon started another business — a video library. At first, it was successful but it closed down after he tried to expand it in a bid to make more profit.
“It depleted all my savings,” he writes, adding, “It was a decision I painfully regretted.
“There is a Runyankole proverb that says Oshwera abuuza, which means that before you take a bride, you must do your research well, find out as much as you can about her life before you make a decision. The wise men or women of old who came up with this proverb wanted to avoid mistakes based on a reliance on assumptions,” the author writes.
The closure of his video library did not deter Mushabe’s, instead, it was an incentive to try even harder. His greatest asset was his refusal to admit defeat.
After completing his studies at university, Mushabe started the East African Community Online Directory (EACOL), an online directory that lasted only a few months.
“I believe it failed partly because my team and I were young. I later learnt that our failure had resulted from being desperate and over-anxious. The two do not mix well in business,” Mushabe writes.
Later on when he was a bit older and wiser, Mushabe found his business grounding after seeing a gap in Uganda’s ICT sector and he set up Hostalite, a web hosting company.
His company currently employs 12 full time staff and hosts about 700 websites.
Mushabe uses his personal experiences to offer valuable advice about running a successful business, which makes I Am Not Sorry For My Mistakes an essential read for those wanting to start a business or those who already own their businesses.
In the book, the author shares his views on the importance of branding, managing business finances, customer care, having a winning team and building business partnerships.
“This is a story that is vivid, comprehensive and humorous from page to page. Every entrepreneur should read it to avoid business pitfalls,” said William Tsimwa Muhairwe, the former CEO of the Uganda National Water and Sewerage Corporation.
However, the book has its shortfalls. For instance, Mushabe does not give dates for the major events in his life such as when he joined and completed university or when he started each of his businesses.
Also, the book would have been better with more details as it is just 51 pages long. It reads like a summary of Mushabe’s seemingly eventful entrepreneurial journey that spans many years. Generally, the book is a quick read.