Nairobi, Feb. 1 -- "For start-ups, suicide is a more likely cause of death, rather than getting killed by the competition," says Alex Mativo, winner of the Queen's Leadership Award. "Don't worry about the competition, just get the basics of the business right," says the young Kenyan Ted X 'value of design thinking' presenter.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves" was how William Shakespeare expressed the same idea in his play, Julius Caesar, over 400 years ago.

Smart perspective for every Kenyan business is to treat every day like it's day 1. This is one of the mantras of Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos, treat each sunrise, like it's the first day of their new start-up. As the sun comes up, begin with a clean slate...