Adesemi was the start-up vision of Monique Maddy.

Monique was born in Liberia and raised in

the United States. Her vision was to, “blanket the entire developing world with affordable
wireless telecommunications services.” (Maddy, 2000) Maddy’s article offers deep insight into
the pros and cons such as emerging-market risk, negotiating, cultural differences, and
bureaucracy involved in conducting business in the third world.

Adesemi’s infrastructure-related challenges were many. Any third world country the company
would first operate in would prove to be expensive because there would not already be
infrastructure readily available. Adesemi chose to startits operations in the country of Tanzania.
At the time, Tanzania was home to almost 30 million people with only 120,000 phone lines. The
country’s telecommunications infrastructure was almost nonexistent. In fact, Adesemi’s
engineers expressed that the network would have to be completely wireless because of the
physical infrastructure deficiencies.

Political or governmental challenges when conducting business in other countries, especially less
developed countries, is one of the biggest obstructions to the success or failure of the business.
Adesemi’s challenge was procuring the necessary licensing to operate and receive commissions
for the business they would be creating for the local telecommunications company. The
company soon learned the hard way that doing business in the third world is not the same as
doing business in developed countries. Third world nations present a particular problem where
the lines of ethical business practices can become blurred. A business will be faced with quite a
bit of waiting, pushing, and cajoling, in order to get anything done. This can take weeks,
months, or even years to get through stonewalling.

Adesemi also had to deal with political differences among its own staff. Conducting business in
another country meant that Adesemi pooled management and experience from many different
countries. Employees from the same nationalities tended to bond together against other
nationalities. Without a melting pot of different nationalities that knew how to work together,
Adesemi was faced with the stereotypes attached to different cultures working together. Maddy
describes the different groups issues with each other stating that the Scandinavians were
regarded as cold, the British as snobby, the Tanzanians inept, and the Americans as arrogant.
The political and governmental challenges were evident in how the employees interreacted with
each other and how the business was constantly stonewalled by the government.

Third world entrepreneurs face many problems in raising capital for their overseas ventures.
Maddy separates these emerging-market venture capitalists into two separate and unequal
groups, Do-Gooders and Do-Wellers. Do-Gooder venture capitalists provide equity capital and
loan capital to generate economic prosperity in emerging-market countries as well as to help
stimulate further influx of capital from other investors. These investors want to promote growth
at their own pace by putting little money into these start up businesses, which allows little
opportunity for real return. Do-Wellers on the other hand, believe that business is a high-stakes
game. These investors see untapped opportunity in the third world, and they want to seize it.
They understand that the business is high risk and they are looking for a high reward.

The problem that these two groups of investors create is that the Do-Gooder investors, while they
understand emerging markets and are familiar with the government rules and regulations, are
terrified of the inherent risk and enmesh the company in their own bureaucracy and rigid
methods of investment and analysis. The Do-Wellers on the other hand, have limited experience
with emerging market countries, but they are patient and willing to pour money into an
investment that looks like it might be a big score.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) help to shape and implement democracy in developing

countries’ entrepreneurship. NGO’s offer a people-centered approach to service delivery,
advocacy, and empowerment. NGO’s play a crucial role in international development by
funneling development funds from individual donors and from wealthy countries into less
developed countries. Because NGOs are idealized for “doing good” and are not concerned with
profit or politics, they play a role in development and encouraging entrepreneurship. (Eric D.
Werker, 2008)

A culturally divergent workforce is another area of doing business abroad that presents its own
set of complications. Maddy explains that she anticipated a diverse workforce would present a
strong and heterogeneous front, where different mind-sets would create new and exciting
solutions to problems. Instead, however, the diversity created more problems than it solved.
The disagreements among the employees from different countries were based on stereotypes and
mistrust of each other. The misunderstandings created from the cultural diversity of the Adesemi
team took up much of the author’s time in settling disputes that were never fully resolved.

New businesses in a foreign market need local partner relationships to establish and make their
company credible in the eyes of the locals. The author refers to local partners as, “next-door
neighbors”. Local alliances are a large part of having a successful business because they provide
a local knowledge of customers habits and key government and industry players. This
relationship, however, is more useful in the beginning, or start up, of the company. Established
ventures soon lose the need for the local relationship.

The “Old Boy Network” proved to be very important to Adesemi. The author partnered with an
old classmate for her company. Adesemi was tied up in not getting answers on a local level from
the local telephone company but after speaking with an old professor, who happened to be
working with the president of the World Bank on a project, a settlement was negotiated between
Adesemi and the government. The author was even able to start raising money for her company
from the consulting firms and investment-bank recruiters on campus. The Harvard School of
Business alumni network was extremely useful to the startup of Adesemi. Having the Harvard
School of Business alumni network available opened many doors and created many opportunities
that would otherwise have been closed to Adesemi.
There are many lessons to be learned from this article about conducting a lucrative business
abroad. The potential for new business is extremely high in newly developing countries. The
ability to get the company running and functioning profitably however, is another story
completely. A knowledge of the local customs and government, the ability to find and retain
local relationships, and successfully navigating business in these new environments are all key to
a successful business.