Abstract
The study outlined how the microenterprises overcome numerous challenges common to startup through “open development” characterized by collective sharing of knowledge, tools, equipment and workforce amongst competing microenterprises. Also, by belonging to trade/professional associations that ensure that knowledge becomes a public good that can be accessed by everyone who needs it. The study also found out that majority of the microenterprises experienced scaling-up within few months to around three years from inception, while only a few scaled up only after three years. This paper shows strong positive relationship between variables capturing open development activities (internal training programmes within enterprise, knowledge acquisition from competitors within the cluster, intra-family learning and training, open innovations) and incidence of scale-up. Incidence of scale-up was captured using significant increase in the size of the enterprise, capital base, business activity or turnover or gross sales relative to start up. The study concluded that clustering of small businesses in Africa facilitates open development which the papers shows to be a potential avenue to overcoming the popular financial constraints commonly associated with small firms and can be an enabler of industry growth.