Last week, BongoHive hosted the second Entrepreneurs in Residence session for Women in Tech Zambia Accelerator Programme Cohort 6, bringing founders together for an honest and practical conversation on what it really takes to build a sustainable business beyond the product or idea.
Held on Thursday, 27 August 2026, at BongoHive in Lusaka, the session, themed “Building the Business Behind the Business,” focused on two areas that are often overlooked in the early stages of entrepreneurship: governance and founder resilience.
As businesses grow, founders are faced with responsibilities that go beyond developing products and winning customers. PACRA obligations, tax compliance, co-founder dynamics, team management and increasingly complex decisions can create significant pressure. The session created space for founders to confront these realities while gaining practical tools to navigate them.
The conversation was led by Lukonga Lindunda, CEO of BongoHive, and Mutale Kabumbu, Managing Consultant at Renaisense, with Mariah Tembo facilitating the session. Through a fireside chat and small-group discussions, the speakers shared lived experiences around the growing pains that come with building and scaling a business.
Beyond the Business Idea
A key theme throughout the session was the recognition that the skills required to start a business are not always the same skills needed to sustain and grow one.
Founders reflected on the realities of making important decisions under pressure, navigating co-founder and team relationships, and knowing when a business needs more formal structures and systems. The discussion also explored the gap between knowing what needs to be done, such as addressing compliance requirements, and actually taking action.
The session encouraged founders to view governance not simply as an administrative obligation, but as part of building a stronger and more sustainable business.
The Founder Behind the Business
The conversation also brought the human side of entrepreneurship into focus.
Founder responsibilities can come with anxiety, overwhelm and decision fatigue, particularly when entrepreneurs are balancing multiple priorities at once. Mutale brought attention to these emotional patterns and shared practical approaches to building self-awareness and resilience.
Rather than treating wellbeing as separate from business performance, the session explored how a founder’s personal capacity can directly influence the quality of decisions they make and their ability to lead effectively.
Turning Reflection into Action
The session closed with a practical challenge for each founder: identify one governance or compliance task to complete before Demo Day and one personal practice to sustain them through the final month of the programme. These commitments were written down as part of the “One Task, One Practice” closing activity.
For the founders of Cohort 6, the session was a reminder that building a successful venture is about more than the pitch deck. It is also about putting the right structures in place, having difficult conversations, making better decisions and developing the resilience needed to keep going.
Building the Business Behind the Business formed part of the Women in Tech Zambia Accelerator Programme Cohort 6, supporting women founders as they prepare for the next stage of their entrepreneurial journeys.
