Seeing what others overlook

Entrepreneurship is often associated with having a great idea, starting a company and making money. But the starting point is usually much simpler: notice something that isn’t working and ask whether it could work differently. Entrepreneurs pay attention to frustrations, inefficiencies and unmet needs. They don’t necessarily have all the answers. What sets them apart is their willingness to investigate the problem, imagine an alternative and take action. A powerful example emerged from one of South Africa’s most visible challenges of recent years.

The WiBox story

During the country’s load-shedding crisis, University of Cape Town postgraduate students Brian Gadisi, Alan Gie and Thembalethu Hadebe experienced a problem familiar to millions of South Africans: when the electricity went off, so did their internet connection. For students and people working remotely, this was more than an inconvenience. Losing connectivity could interrupt work, learning and communication. The founders could have simply accepted it as another consequence of load-shedding.

Instead, they asked a different question: Do we really need to keep everything powered – or do we just need to keep the Wi-Fi running?

That insight led to the development of WiBox, a compact backup-power solution for routers and fibre connections. What began as a practical solution to a problem they were experiencing themselves developed into Arion Power, with products reaching major retailers. They didn’t set out to solve South Africa’s energy crisis. Instead, they identified a specific problem created by the crisis and asked whether they could solve it. They solved one problem within a much bigger problem.

And that distinction is at the heart of entrepreneurial thinking. The lesson is not that every problem should become a business. It is that entrepreneurs learn to look beneath the obvious problem to find the unmet need. That ability to notice, question and act is increasingly valuable in a world where circumstances change quickly. The problem that needs solving today may not be the problem that needs solving tomorrow. Entrepreneurial thinking requires us to keep looking, listening and adapting.

Entrepreneurial leadership is bigger than entrepreneurship

This is where entrepreneurship becomes a leadership issue. You don’t need to be a business owner to think entrepreneurially. An employee who challenges an inefficient process is demonstrating entrepreneurial thinking. A manager who identifies an unmet customer need and turns it into a new service is doing the same. A team that finds a better way to use limited resources is creating value. The common thread is ownership.

Instead of saying, “That’s not my problem,” entrepreneurial leaders ask, “What can I do about it?” This mindset matters inside established organisations just as much as it does in start-ups. South Africa needs people who are willing to challenge the status quo, experiment, learn from failure and turn ideas into action.

We shouldn’t romanticise the struggle

Challenges should not be romanticised simply because they can create entrepreneurial opportunities. Unemployment is not an opportunity to the person who cannot find work. Water insecurity is not an opportunity to the family struggling to access clean water. Inequality is not an opportunity to someone who has been excluded from economic participation.

Entrepreneurs are not substitutes for effective government, infrastructure or public services. They are part of a much bigger ecosystem. Good ideas need access to finance, skills, mentorship, markets, infrastructure and supportive policies if they are to become sustainable businesses. Creating that environment is a shared responsibility. The role of entrepreneurial leadership is not to suggest that individuals can solve every problem themselves. It is to encourage more people to recognise where they can make a difference – and to have the courage to act.

The opportunity for Society

Society doesn’t simply need more people who want to start businesses. It needs people who are willing to take responsibility for creating solutions. The WiBox story captures this mindset beautifully. Three young people encountered a problem that many others had simply learned to live with. Rather than accepting it, they looked at it differently, identified a specific need and built a solution. That solution became a business.

So perhaps the question we should be asking is not, “How do we fix all our problems?” That is too big a question for any one person, business or institution. Perhaps we should ask: “What problem can I help solve?” Because meaningful change doesn’t always begin with solving the biggest problem. Sometimes it begins with noticing one small problem and refusing to accept that it has to stay that way.

Blog written by Monique Raaths