Abstract
This study investigated how entrepreneurs apply strategic management in practice,
when making strategic choices to build ventures with sustainable competitive
advantages and wealth creation.
Literature was reviewed on the concepts of entrepreneurship and extending to
technology entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurship landscape in South Africa.
Literature extended to strategy and particularly, strategy in the context of Small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The study adopted a qualitative research approach
with semi-structured interviews, conducted among fourteen education technology
entrepreneurs. The interview questions explored the primacy of strategy in startups
and how entrepreneurs of these ventures strategise.
The key findings revealed that respondents acknowledge the primacy of strategy and
the need for having a strategy in place. However, in the formative years of startups,
strategy is not the focus for most founders because of the lack of knowledge,
experience and resources, and their focus is on the day-to-day running of the venture
until the businesses are more self-sustaining. Strategy becomes important in the later
stages when the business case is validated and when founders bring external people
on board. In contrast, more experienced founders, particularly those involved in their
second or third startups, emphasise, more, the need for a strategy in place from the
outset. With the most SMEs, the overall process of strategising is unstructured,
informal, intuitive, and often in an irrational approach.
Recommendations include how entrepreneurs can become better strategists and how
to incorporate strategy at the outset including areas to focus on. Recommendations
extend to include how entrepreneur organisations and bodies and mentors completely
do away with the template-based strategy approach in which founders simply
complete the blanks.