You Don't Build Unicorns with Encouragement and Participation Certificates.

We organize hackathons, bootcamps, competitions, and startup challenges. We hand out awards, take pictures, celebrate winners, and publish success stories. But behind all this excitement, one question remains: what actually happens to these solutions once the spotlight fades?

There is something deeply paradoxical about the conversation surrounding innovation and tech entrepreneurship in Africa, particularly in Cameroon.

On one hand, we are constantly told that Africa's future depends on technology. That young Africans must innovate, become entrepreneurs, solve local problems, and build the next big technology companies.

On the other hand, the conditions in which these same young people are expected to build are sometimes so hostile that you start wondering whether any of this is actually serious.

So, let's ask some uncomfortable questions.

Is innovation really what we need? Can a young Cameroonian start with almost nothing, build a meaningful technology company from Cameroon, and achieve international success? Can you actually build something significant here without privileged connections, substantial funding, or a plane ticket to Europe or North America?

I'm not talking about launching an app, winning a competition, or delivering an impressive pitch to a panel of judges. I'm talking about building something that works, finds its market, generates revenue, survives its first few years, and eventually competes internationally.

And I'm increasingly convinced that the problem goes much deeper than a lack of ideas or technical skills.

1. We Are Building Solutions for Markets That Aren't Ready to Adopt Them

This is probably one of the most overlooked problems in our ecosystem.

We constantly encourage young people to develop technological solutions, yet we rarely discuss whether our markets are actually ready to adopt them.

A startup can build an excellent payment solution, business management platform, automation tool, or innovative digital service. But what is the point if a significant portion of its target audience lacks the digital habits, infrastructure, or financial means to use it?

The numbers tell an important part of the story.

According to DataReportal's Digital 2026 report, Cameroon had approximately 12.6 million internet users at the end of 2025, representing an internet penetration rate of 41.9%. That means roughly 17.5 million people were still offline.

In other words, nearly six out of ten Cameroonians were not connected to the internet.

That is not a minor detail when you're trying to build a business whose economic model depends on mass digital adoption.

We also have to consider purchasing power, digital literacy, technological awareness, and people's willingness and ability to pay for digital services.

There is a considerable gap between the speed at which entrepreneurs are encouraged to innovate and the speed at which the market evolves.

We want to build technology companies in environments where the problem is sometimes not the absence of solutions, but the absence of the conditions required for people to adopt them.

We are asking entrepreneurs to build for tomorrow's market while expecting them to survive on today's purchasing power and consumer habits.

2. Building Technology in an Environment That Doesn't Even Make Building Easy

Let's talk about everyday reality.

Building a technology company requires concentration, consistency, predictability, and a minimum level of operational stability.

But what does a tech entrepreneur in Cameroon have to deal with?

Expensive, unstable, and unpredictable internet connectivity. Power outages that can disrupt an entire working day. Inadequate infrastructure. Administrative bottlenecks. A tax environment that can quickly become burdensome for a young company that isn't generating significant revenue yet.

Electricity access statistics illustrate part of the problem. In 2024, approximately 72% of Cameroon's population had access to electricity. That still leaves a significant portion of the population without access. And access itself does not necessarily mean reliability. Being connected to the grid doesn't guarantee uninterrupted power supply.

Internet access comes with its own challenges, particularly in terms of affordability, quality, and reliability.

The problem isn't simply a lack of resources. It's that entrepreneurs have to spend an unreasonable amount of energy overcoming obstacles that shouldn't even be part of the equation in a more supportive environment.

While an entrepreneur elsewhere can dedicate most of their time to improving their product, acquiring customers, and growing their business, their counterpart in Cameroon may spend part of the day looking for a reliable internet connection, dealing with power outages, or navigating administrative complications.

We simply don't start from the same conditions. Yet we sometimes compare outcomes as if the rules of the game were identical.

3. We May Have Institutionalized the Entrepreneurship Narrative Too Much

We also need to talk about our obsession with competitions, hackathons, bootcamps, incubators, and startup support programs.

To be clear, these initiatives aren't inherently useless. They can help people meet others, acquire skills, validate ideas, and sometimes secure initial funding.

But there is one question we should always ask: what happens next?

What becomes of the projects developed during these programs? How many are still operating six months, one year, or three years after their presentation? How many have found paying customers? How many generate enough revenue to pay their founders? How many have successfully transformed a prototype into an actual business?

Sometimes, it feels as though our ecosystem is better organized around the birth of startups than their survival.

We know how to organize competitions to identify promising projects. We know how to host ceremonies to reward winners. We know how to promote young talents and promising innovations.

But supporting a company for three, four, or five years, financing its growth, helping it acquire its first customers, and enabling it to survive difficult periods is a completely different story.

We celebrate prototypes as if they were already products, and presentations as if they were already businesses.

A convincing pitch deck doesn't build a company. Winning an award doesn't guarantee customers. A three-month incubation program doesn't replace three years of operational challenges.

We need to stop confusing entrepreneurial activity with actual economic value creation.

4. We Sometimes Celebrate Entrepreneurs More Than What They Actually Build

There is another interesting phenomenon in our ecosystem: the excessive personalization of entrepreneurship.

We put the founder in the spotlight. Their story, background, vision, eloquence, and ability to talk about their project become the center of attention. Sometimes, an entire communication strategy is built around the founder before the product has even demonstrated its relevance.

Storytelling gradually takes precedence over execution.

You can become a recognizable figure in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, attend multiple events, speak at conferences, participate in panels, and collect awards without necessarily having built a solution that people actually use.

We need to make a fundamental distinction: being visible in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is not the same as building a successful company.

I'm not saying communication, networking, or the ability to articulate a vision are useless. They matter. But they should serve the product, not become the product.

At some point, we need to return to much simpler questions:

• How many people actually use this solution?
• What concrete problem does it solve?
• How many customers are willing to pay for it?
• Can the company operate without constantly depending on grants and competitions?
• Is the product actually getting better over time?

We need to learn to admire products that work more than people who are good at talking about their products.

5. Before They Can Build a Business, Many Young People First Need to Feed Themselves

This is probably one of the most important dimensions of the conversation, and also one of the least discussed.

Young people are hungry.

They need food, housing, transportation, financial stability, and the ability to support their families. These are immediate needs, not long-term ambitions.

Yet we expect them to take considerable risks, work for months without compensation, reinvest their limited resources into their projects, and believe in a vision whose financial outcome is far from guaranteed.

But with what money?

There is something deeply hypocritical about certain entrepreneurship narratives that present financial sacrifice as proof of commitment.

Young people are told to step outside their comfort zones, take risks, dedicate their evenings and weekends to their projects, stop worrying about making money immediately, and think long-term.

That advice might make sense when you have some level of financial security.

But when you have no savings, no family support, no regular income, and sometimes struggle to meet your most basic needs, the situation is completely different.

The statistics provide some context. According to World Bank data, approximately 37.7% of Cameroon's population lived below the national poverty line in 2021, representing around 10.3 million people. More recently, FAO data indicated that 60.9% of the population experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2024.

Behind these numbers are people making daily decisions about how to balance their basic needs with their ambitions.

And this is precisely where our entrepreneurship narrative needs to be challenged.

Trying to build a business while you're hungry, with no savings, no safety net, and no alternative source of income, is financial suicide waiting to happen.

How can you expect someone to think about customer acquisition costs, growth strategies, technical architecture, or international expansion when they don't even know how they'll cover next month's expenses?

How can you expect an entrepreneur to make sound strategic decisions when they are constantly under financial pressure?

Poverty does not automatically make people more creative. Hunger does not guarantee determination. And suffering is not an entrepreneurial strategy.

We need to stop romanticizing the entrepreneur who works for free for three years, sleeps very little, lives in constant uncertainty, and sacrifices everything for a vision.

That person isn't necessarily a hero. Sometimes, they're simply someone who has no other option.

And the most concerning part is that we've gradually normalized this situation.

We need to understand something: the ability to take risks also depends on the ability to absorb the consequences of failure.

A young person with financial support, secure housing, and a family capable of helping can afford to spend two or three years working on an uncertain project.

Someone who has to support themselves has no such luxury.

They may have exactly the same skills, intelligence, vision, and determination. Yet they don't have the same room to maneuver.

So before talking about entrepreneurial mindset, let's also talk about financial security, purchasing power, and living conditions.

6. Eventually, Time Catches Up With Young Entrepreneurs

This is probably the most human part of this discussion.

Many young people start with incredible energy. They have an idea, a vision, a few skills, and above all, the belief that they can build something meaningful.

They work at night, on weekends, sometimes without getting paid. They develop prototypes, look for users, participate in programs, and try to move their projects forward with whatever resources they have.

But time passes.

At 22, you might still be able to spend several months working on a project without a regular income. At 27 or 30, reality can look very different.

Responsibilities start piling up. Family and social pressure increases. You need to pay rent, support yourself, build a family, meet certain expectations, and simply survive financially.

Meanwhile, your project still isn't making money.

Eventually, you accept a job, take on freelance work, or pursue any other activity that generates income. The project becomes secondary, then slows down, and sometimes eventually dies.

Whose fault is that?

A lack of perseverance? A lack of vision? An inability to execute?

Not necessarily.

We talk constantly about entrepreneurial resilience, but we rarely acknowledge that resilience comes at a cost. We ask young people to persevere without asking what resources they're supposed to use to do so.

Passion doesn't pay rent. Vision doesn't put food on the table. And motivation doesn't replace a viable business model.

It's easy to tell someone not to give up when you're not the one bearing the financial consequences of their persistence.

We need to stop blaming those who eventually choose stability over permanent uncertainty.

Sometimes, abandoning a project isn't giving up on your ambitions. It's simply choosing to survive.

7. Do You Have to Leave to Have a Real Chance at Building Something?

There is another reality we sometimes prefer to avoid: entrepreneurs who eventually find better conditions for building abroad.

Some leave to pursue their education, work for technology companies, join more mature ecosystems, or simply access opportunities that aren't available locally.

And sometimes, after a few years, they return with experience, networks, financial resources, and a stronger ability to build.

That path can work.

But it raises an uncomfortable question: do you necessarily have to leave your country to acquire the means to build something meaningful back home?

Why should a young person have to leave their environment before gaining access to the minimum conditions required to realize their potential?

Why is the international success of African entrepreneurs so often associated with their experience in Western ecosystems?

This isn't about creating an opposition between Africa and the West. Ecosystems are different, markets are different, and opportunities are not equally distributed.

But we need to acknowledge that, for some people, staying and building locally comes with considerable structural disadvantages.

We sometimes sell young people the idea that anything is possible as long as they work hard enough. It's an attractive narrative, but a deeply incomplete one.

Is everything really possible, or have we simply learned to disguise impossibility as a test of motivation?

8. The Real Challenge: Building an Ecosystem Where Companies Can Survive

I don't believe Cameroon lacks talent. I don't believe Africa lacks ideas, creativity, or problems worth solving.

On the contrary, the needs are enormous, and so are the opportunities.

But we need to change the way we think about innovation.

We need fewer symbolic celebrations and more measurable outcomes. Fewer short-term competitions and more funding mechanisms adapted to the first years of a company's life. Fewer success story narratives and more operational support.

We need:

• Reliable and affordable energy and digital infrastructure.
• Better access to the internet and technological tools.
• Tax and administrative policies adapted to early-stage businesses.
• Funding mechanisms that go beyond competitions and occasional grants.
• Public and private markets that are more open to locally developed technological solutions.
• Programs that support companies over several years, not just during their presentation phase.
• Initiatives that provide young entrepreneurs with a minimum level of financial security during the early stages of building.
• A culture that values execution, product quality, customer satisfaction, and economic sustainability.

Above all, we need to accept one thing: not every innovation has to be created to solve an African problem. African entrepreneurs should also be able to build global, competitive, commercially ambitious products from the continent.

We shouldn't limit our ambitions to the geographical boundaries of our current markets.

Conclusion: Stop Asking Young People to Perform Miracles

I remain convinced that a young Cameroonian can build something great. They can develop a technology product used internationally, build a profitable company, and create value from Cameroon.

But I refuse to accept that this should require a miracle, an exceptional ability to endure suffering, or an individual story of success against all odds.

We cannot keep encouraging young people to become entrepreneurs while ignoring the structural conditions that make their success extremely difficult.

We cannot ask them to innovate in an environment where technology adoption remains limited, infrastructure is fragile, and access to growth capital is complicated.

We cannot ask them to build businesses for the long term when they sometimes don't even have the means to finance their everyday lives.

We cannot keep celebrating projects that disappear a few months after the events that made them visible.

And above all, we cannot systematically blame those who eventually give up.

Maybe the problem isn't that young Cameroonians don't know how to build.

Maybe the problem is that we've created an environment where building something sustainable requires far more than talent, discipline, and a good idea.

We don't just need more entrepreneurs. We need an environment where entrepreneurship isn't a permanent act of sacrifice.

Because ultimately, the question is no longer simply whether Africa can produce innovation.

The real question is whether Africa is willing to create the conditions that allow innovators to turn their ideas into sustainable businesses, and those businesses into genuine global economic players.

Until we seriously address that question, we'll probably keep organizing competitions to celebrate ambitions that our environment still doesn't know how to nurture.

You cannot ask a generation struggling to make ends meet to carry the entire burden of a continent's technological transformation.