-
Guts and Grit: The Compelling and Inspirational Stories of Six Successful Ghanaian Entrepreneurs
How can a nation address the menace of a growing number of unemployed youths? Why is the private business endeavour perceived largely as a big risk? What does it take for one to brave the storm and establish a flourishing enterprise? This book highlights the success stories of some of Ghana’s current entrepreneurs despite all the obstacles they have faced. Guts and Grit serves as a revelation to our public officials and the society at large towards a behavioural change in how private enterprises are seen, regarded and treated.
The frank and engaging case studies provide the catalyst for dismantling the obstacles to achieving business success. The success stories so freely shared offer a source of inspiration and a springboard to the young people who would be willing to take up entrepreneurship.
***
“Guts and Grit is a book that chronicles the gut-wrenching stories of entrepreneurs who have braved significant odds to build viable businesses in a developing economy context.
In choosing to write this book, Alex Banful, the author could not have made a better choice. The choice of entrepreneurship should not be surprising, given that there is at least four decades of scholarship to demonstrate that entrepreneurship, new business venturing, and the development of small and medium enterprises are crucial to Africa’s growth.
Guts and Grit will soon become a leading cross-over entrepreneurship textbook that will be useful
for executive training, undergraduate and postgraduate training programmes in Africa and other emerging economy contexts.” − Prof. Robert E. Hinson, Ph.D., DPhil.; Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Kigali, Rwanda
₵100.00 -
Failing To Win: Hard-Earned Lessons from a Purpose-Driven Startup
In 2009, Canadian entrepreneur Mike Quinn packed his backpack and moved to Lusaka, Zambia on a mission to find African entrepreneurs building scalable, high-impact businesses. There he stumbled across two South African brothers who had founded a business to help unbanked smallholder farmers receive mobile payments in a market where cash was king. After convincing his retired parents to mortgage their house and lend him $100,000, Mike joined as a co-founder of Zoona and became CEO for nine of the next ten years.
With his partners, Mike built a network of more than 3,000 entrepreneur agents across Zambia and Malawi that enabled millions of unbanked consumers to send and receive $2.5-billion in money transfers and remittances. Headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, Zoona raised over $35-million of venture investment and operated on the leading edge of Africa’s emerging fintech ecosystem.
Mike’s remarkable story gives a rare and honest glimpse into the workings of a pioneering African startup through the lens of a purpose-driven entrepreneur who went “all in”. Zoona faced tremendous adversity along the way: currency crises, investment round collapses, ruthless pushback from the major mobile network operators, and a continuous internal struggle to discover and execute a growth strategy that matched the company’s billion-dollar ambition. It was by failing to win that Mike learned what entrepreneurship is all about, and it was what motivated him to double down and try again.
“This raw, honest account is a must-read for anyone thinking about starting a company and for every entrepreneur who feels alone in the journey.” — Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder & General Partner of Hustle Fund
“Startups are hard. Most people understand this. However, most people don’t understand why. Mike’s story is a rare glimpse into how challenges present themselves — and ultimately how to overcome.” — Matt Flannery, Co-Founder of Kiva & Branch
“In a rare look behind the scenes, Mike shares a vivid picture of the other side of leadership we don’t talk about enough. As he aptly describes ‘founding, failing and winning’, this book highlights the risk of taking that all-important first step, embracing failure and ensuring you learn the transformative lessons critical to success as an entrepreneurial leader.” — Fred Swaniker, Founder of African Leadership Group
“This story is a gift for entrepreneurs and indeed anyone wanting to learn about the first generation of African fintechs that paved the way for future companies to thrive.” — Katlego Maphai, Co-Founder & CEO of Yoco
“Mike’s humility, resilience and depth of knowledge of how to build a pan-African business are unique, and his testimony of experience is an important short history of the fintech boom on the continent.” — Elizabeth Rossiello, Founder & CEO of AZA
“Failing To Win is a captivating account of an incredibly talented and unusually forthright entrepreneur who built an ambitious purpose-led company that started in Zambia. At Oxford I have taught the Zoona case study to countless MBA students to show how fundamental principles of entrepreneurship can be meaningfully applied in a novel context. It just takes courageous and smart individuals who are not afraid of failing (in order) to win.” — Thomas Hellmann, DP World Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Oxford’s Saïd Business School
“Innovation has gone global, and is transforming people’s lives around the world. But startups are risky. Sometimes they scale and sometimes they fail. In Failing To Win, Mike shares insightful lessons from his journey at Zoona about what it takes to operate with integrity, impact and inspiration in the new Frontier of Innovation.” — Alex Lazarow, Author of Out-Innovate: How global entrepreneurs – from Delhi to Detroit – are rewriting the rules of Silicon Valley
Price range: ₵145.00 through ₵160.00Failing To Win: Hard-Earned Lessons from a Purpose-Driven Startup
Price range: ₵145.00 through ₵160.00 -
Mastering Digital
“Exact source of knowledge: it points out the power we have sitting in our pockets and our hands to turn around our fortunes and increase visibility.” – Samuel Twum, Software Engineer, South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, South Africa
“Digitization, automation, optimization, disintermediation and robotization is now happening in all industries. Mastering Digital highlights some important facts.” – Kwame A. Opoku, CEO, Reset Global People, Ghana
“A great recommendation for all seeking to grow in this era of rapidly advancing technology.” – Isaac Ashong, Pastor and Businessman, USA
“A rejoinder for us all!” – Amaka Okoye, Award-Winning Broadcast Journalist, Nigeria
“The blueprint every individual and or business needs as a fundamental in growing their personal and professional brands on the digital space.” – Lucas Escalada, Fashion Designer, Equatorial Guinea
“Outlines in simple terms the power of understanding and leveraging insights from various social media platforms to deliver bespoke products and services to clients.” – Derrydean Dadzie, Ghana Chamber of Communications, Ghana
“A good primer on how to start and grow your digital footprints.” – Tito Magero, Data Engineer, Kenya
“A light onto our path in the digital journey.” – TRIGMATIC, Renowned Musician, Ghana
₵100.00Mastering Digital
₵100.00 -
The UT Story: Humble Beginnings – Vol 1 (Hardcover)
How does an Army Captain who failed to obtain a ₵20 million (about $20,000) loan from the banks, set up a successful finance house and cause such a monumental paradigm shift to the lending culture of a country?
Capt. Prince Kofi Amoabeng(Rtd) defied the odds to found Unique Trust Financial Services Limited, which was later rebranded to UT Financial Services Limited and metamorphosed into a Bank (UT Bank) under the UT Holdings Umbrella together with subsidiaries in Germany, South Africa and Nigeria.
In this first instalment of a series of memoirs, PK, as he was affectionately called by his fiercely loyal and dedicated team, shares an inspiring, in-depth, no-holds-barred, behind the scenes, unabashed account of how and what made UT a household name and impacted so many lives.
Written with George Bentum Essiaw, a tenacious, talented writer and filmmaker, The UT Story: Humble Beginnings is replete with profound lessons in entrepreneurship and leadership, employing an effective mixture of orthodox and unorthodox methods grounded firmly in time-tested military principles.
Whatever your background or occupation, this book will fascinate and inspire you to dare.
₵200.00 -
Tour Guiding: The Ultimate Guide to Theory and Practice
**Available from 16 October, 2021
Guides are tourism professionals who lead their guests through the most interesting parts of their region. It is their task to engage visitors and to help interpret the sights that they visit. They please tourists by telling interesting but relevant narratives and respond in proactive ways to their complaints and requests. Guides are trained to always have enough knowledge and insight about the subject of the tour and ensure the safety and satisfaction of their guests.
In this handy resource book, two seasoned practitioners have combined their working experience of a lifetime. What makes this book priceless is that it is enriched by over two decades of guide training experience as well as engagements with colleague guides, tourism professionals and a cross-section of tourists.
“The scope of coverage is vast and will be very useful as a general guidebook for any reader seeking access to our history, geography and our rich cultural heritage.” – Mrs. Stella W. Appenteng, CEO, Apstar Tours Limited
“Tour guiding is a bridging process around which the tourism experience revolves. This book comes to edify our tour guides on the substance and mechanics of their profession. It comes at a time when the industry has become more dynamic and in need of accurate, adequate, culture-nuanced interpretations.” – Tata Nkunu Akyea, Tourism Consultant & Tour Guide Extraordinaire
₵75.00 -
General Acheampong: The Life and Times of Ghana’s Head of State (Hardcover)
A magnificent book…brilliant in shedding light on some of the most important but little known dark passages in our national history…worth reading by anybody who truly seeks knowledge about our recent past.
₵200.00 -
A Roof Over One’s Head: A Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Wealth Creation
If you’ve ever been interested in Real Estate investing, it is difficult not to notice the lack of practical information around the subject, especially in our part of the world.
Of course, there are real estate books worldwide, but most of these are not location-specific and some of the advice is simply inapplicable to relative to our reality.
I wrote this book so that Ghanaians and Africans, for that matter, will have information that speaks to our experiences with building and acquiring property to make a profit and in our collective quest towards bridging the housing gap on our continent.
This book teaches how to:
- Invest in Real Estate
- Identify Profitable Property
- Finance your Investments
- Add value to your property
- Create wealth through Smart Property Management
₵250.00 -
The Pastor (Work People Do Series)
This is a story book for children. As part of the Work People Do series, this book tells interesting ways about how pastors do their work
₵35.00 -
Inside Out: Autobiographical Memoirs
The author recounts a journey that starts in a small town in Ghana, through an academic and professional career in finance in Canada and the United States, culminating at the Ministry of Finance in Ghana where he served as Technical Advisor to three different Ministers of Finance from different political parties.
The memoirs depict the complexities of decision-making that combine technical know-how with political reality using several instances of policymaking and financial transactions that he led at the Ministry. For the technical reader, the author recounts a 25-year history of his involvement in many key initiatives of financial market development in Ghana.
The sweetener in Inside Out is an interesting case study of how to navigate political transitions and maintain relevance as a senior advisor to Ministers in a “winner-takes-all” political environment.
₵150.00 -
The Path of an Eagle – Despair, Hope and Glory: Autobiography of Daniel McKorley (McDan)
Daniel McKorley’s autobiography offers a powerful yet gripping insight into the life of the author and, for the first time, enables a window into his total life experiences, the summation of which the public knows.
Having taken his time to detail his life story, the book offers a step-by-step account of his life and how the various experiences of his upbringing have shaped his current station and situation in life. His is a life of contrasts in which his successes in business and professional life sharply contrast with his life of poverty growing up.
The overall structure of the book and the sequencing of the chapters makes for easy and enjoyable reading, and the everyday realities recounted in his words should both evoke empathy and identity in the reader. If the title of the book insinuates comparisons with the eagle and its ways, it is because the author mimics the bird in its tendencies and has charted his life to reflect the fortunes of an eagle – a fitting simile given that the author’s name means “an eagle” in his native Ga tribe of Ghana.
This book is an enchanting piece worth every reader’s time.
₵140.00 -
Perseverance Conquers All: The Autobiography of Kantinka Kwame Donkor Fordwor
As a very poor boy, Kantinka sustained himself in school by selling firewood. He walked four miles every day from village, Breman, to Kumasi to attend school. He recounts how by dint of hard work, he sailed through elementary and secondary school to the Graduate School of Wharton even though fate had prevented him from doing sixth form studies. He recollects how at St. Augustine’s College, Cape Coast, he was cured of a strange disease by a traditional priest. His beloved wife had to discontinue her studies to help him complete his. Kantinka thus passed through a darkness of life which continued in his working life.
His decision to provide a house for the Executive Chairman of the Capital Investments Board, in order to save the Board huge sums of money in rent payments, was so maliciously interpreted that he was editorially castigated and lambasted. His ingenious polices that eventually helped to raise the capital of the African Development Bank from US $200 million to US $100 billion was rewarded with his dismissal as the President of the Bank.
He incurred the ire of his enemies for the appreciation he received from three Kings of Asante Kingdom.
Perseverance Conquers All portrays these midnight sides of Kantinka’s life to let his sun shine brightly. His wife gave him six children any father could wish for, whom he educated as a very responsible father. Providence made him help Ghana in its financial difficulties when he became the virtual Minister of Finance during the reign of Colonel Acheampong. His input to the progress of the Catholic Church has even been more monumental as explained beautifully in the book. Kantinka is indeed the sun at midnight.
Reliance on God, patriotism, philanthropy, hard work, good family life, good parenthood, honesty, and magnanimity is what this life story portrays. This is a book that all must have and read: the student as well as the teacher; the Christian, husband and patriot.
₵90.00 -
Intermediate Algebra (10th Edition)
The Bittinger System for Success—Make it Work for You!
Building on its reputation for accurate content and a unified system of instruction, the Tenth Edition of the Bittinger paperback series integrates success-building study tools, innovative pedagogy, and a comprehensive instructional support package with time-tested teaching techniques.
₵75.00 -
Complex Variables with Applications (3rd edition)
The third edition of this unique text remains accessible to students of engineering, physics and applied mathematics with varying mathematical backgrounds. Designed for a one or two-semester course in complex analysis, there is optional review material on elementary calculus.
- Thorough coverage of applications and motivation of theory.
- Accessible text with strong engineering applications.
- A comprehensive solutions manual is available for professors, containing worked-out solutions to every problem in the book.
₵75.00 -
Ladies Calling The Shots
The new Nigerian Cinema, Nollywood, owes its global admiration in part to its open-arm attention to gender balance. As talented and beautiful faces won audiences over, many female professionals drew attention to the strength and spectacle that endeared this pivotal industry to audiences around the world.
Niran Adedokun’s Ladies Calling the Shots has perhaps drawn the most critical attention to the role of female directors in Nollywood. From Lola Fani-Kayode’s pioneering work to Amaka Igwe’s bold narratives, to the work of Mildred Okwo and Tope Oshin. This book is an ode to the Ladies who call the shots in Nigerian film.
₵85.00Ladies Calling The Shots
₵85.00 -
A Guide to Autopsy Practice in Ghana (Hardcover)
This book is meant to guide the Ghanaian resident doctor, district and regional medical officers, medical students, non-medical personnel such as police detectives and traffic officers and lawyers through the rudiments of autopsy practice. It sheds light on the benefits of the autopsy, autopsy practice and the laws that govern autopsy practice and general academic dissections. It also discusses religion and the autopsy and is thus useful to religious leaders and curious general readers who may not belong to any of the above stated professions.
In addition it discusses the rudiments of death certification with relevant examples and will be useful to nosologists and other health officials responsible for collecting and coding data related to cause of death certificates. It entrenches the role of the clinical pathologists who is a part of the clinical team by introducing the perspectives and relationship of various clinicians to autopsy practice.
₵100.00