Strive Masiyiwa started with 75 dollars. He then fought for five years in court for the right to build a mobile network.
The Econet founder saved 75 dollars from his salary to start a company, won a landmark Zimbabwean court ruling on telecoms licensing, and went on to build one of Africa’s largest technology groups.
Strive Masiyiwa was born in Southern Rhodesia in 1961. His family moved to Kitwe, a copper-mining city in Zambia, when he was seven. His mother was an entrepreneur, and by the time he was twelve his parents could afford to send him to private school in Edinburgh. He earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Wales in 1984, then returned to Zimbabwe after seventeen years away.
From 75 dollars to a company
After working briefly as a telecoms engineer for the state telephone company, he quit and set up his own company with 75 dollars saved from his salary. He built an electrical engineering business, and as mobile telephony emerged he moved into telecoms with Econet Wireless.
The licence fight
The government refused him a licence to operate. Masiyiwa appealed to Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court, arguing that the refusal violated freedom of expression. After a five-year legal battle that took him to the brink of bankruptcy, the court ruled in his favour, a ruling regarded as a key milestone in opening African telecommunications to private capital.
Econet’s first subscriber was connected in 1998. Masiyiwa started Econet Wireless in 1993 and listed it on the Zimbabwe stock exchange in July 1998. He later founded Econet Global and Cassava Technologies. His story is a lesson in persistence: the right idea can take years in court before it takes a single customer.
