BACK in my local village close to Mozambican border, the sojourn and travails of one Mr Mabanja of Headman Dzobo’s area were crystallised into a village saying, generally describing non-strategic effort which does not yield the desired output.

So if you went hunting and came back empty handed, the villagers would say “waite Mabanja abve Joni akauya nemagaba." No one really bothered to find out why poor old Mabanja went to South Africa in the 1960s and came back only with a few tins, while others brought back enough seed to start economic activity.

Last week, I travelled to Zimbabwe and visited the Harare Agricultural Show and was pleasantly surprised that the country is slowly roaring back to life. Granted, there is still a lot of dirt all over the city but I met so many new refuse trucks collecting garbage all over Harare that I was optimistically impressed.

There was evidence of innovation all over the show starting with new environmentally sustainable tobacco growing techniques to animal breeding and value addition strategies. The key to great entrepreneurial success lies in the ability to innovate.

Entrepreneurship represents one of the greatest opportunities to financial freedom. I have met so many Zimbabweans with very good business ideas but very few have been able to convert those ideas into a business opportunity.

An entrepreneur is someone who sees a need in the market, gathers the resources required and creates and grows a business to satisfy these needs in market. The entrepreneur takes the risk of this venture and is rewarded with profit if it is successful. Entrepreneurship is the ability to perceive potentially profitable business opportunities, the willingness to act on what is perceived and the necessary organizing ability.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor defines entrepreneurship as: "Any attempt at new business or new venture creation such as self-employment, a new business organisation, or the expansion of an existing business by an individual, team of individuals, or established businesses.”

Economists like Schumpeter emphasised the importance of entrepreneurial activity for economic growth, and Zimbabwe needs to promote and create space for this. "Innovation entrepreneurship" in the tradition of Schumpeter, emphasising invention and technological advancement embedded in the organisation.

Previously, I have emphasised savings as a precursor to investing. With real entrepreneurship, one needs to master the art of using other people’s money to create economic activity on a bigger scale. For those who scattered to the Diaspora, going out of the country in itself was a risk taking activity which is an essential element of entrepreneurship.

Demographic factors influence individuals’ decisions to become self-employed and also have a bearing on entrepreneurial intentions. Talking to some business people, I sense a growing level of optimism which has not been prevalent for some time. While most of us have been winging about the state of affairs, astute investors have been taking strategic positions in important parts of the economy.

I have seen solid companies that are emerging out of the difficult economic period. Our old friend Phillip Mataranyika has done great things with his Nyaradzo Holdings. Tawanda Nyambirai has emerged as a player with his TN Holdings. Patterson Timba and Dunmore Kundishora of AFRE swallowed an old entity like First Mutual and they have reformatted it in their own image.

The exploits of Mutumwa Mawere are well known. We have trail blazing examples of Strive Masiyiwa with Econet now one of the largest entities on our stock market. We have Shingi Mutasa and Delma Lupepe across many sectors, Shingi Munyeza at African Sun, Munatsi and Chidawo at ABC, Trevor Ncube in Media and Anthony Mandiwanza at Dairibord.

Pioneering and Innovative firms are governed by an intrinsic orientation towards new ideas; an organic growth orientation, emphasising flexible and incremental growth; an entity orientation; a people orientation, as opposed to a self-orientation on the part of the owners; and a vision orientation, reflecting a sustained commitment to goals rather than just blind opportunism.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’.”

If you're not passionate about what you do, find something you can be passionate about! Don't just strive to make money, strive to make a difference. Significance should be the goal.

While I was in Mutare, the police, with much glee, went on an orgy of confiscating bales of clothing from over hundred homes of flea market traders in an early morning raid in Sakubva. I do not understand why the government hates the poor so much instead of celebrating that they are creating a living on their own without government assistance.

If half this gusto was applied to recovering the $1.5 billion taken from the Reserve Bank by the rich and politically connected, part our fiscus funding issues would be solved overnight. These items sourced with much tears and agony of the poor will now be sold through ZIMRA auctions for the benefit of the rich shop owners. Regularising and formalising these traders would be much more beneficial to the economy than just trying to wish them away.

Survivalists and necessity entrepreneurs engage in entrepreneurship because they do not a have better choice, and opportunity entrepreneurs are seizing a market opportunity. Both groups should have a space to thrive.

David McClelland's studies point to the achievement motive as possibly the single largest factor in the success of an entrepreneur. People with a high need for achievement are characterised by the desire to do something better, faster, more efficiently and with less effort.

The development of an entrepreneurial culture requires an enabling environment. We need to be more tolerant to failure, instead of creating village jokes about those who at least tried. Entrepreneurial activity, particularly new firm creation, can play a crucially important role in economic development in Zimbabwe.