ABSTRACT
The profits and indeed the overall performance indicates a high degree of variability between the various categories of entrepreneurs, as well as between entrepreneurs within the same category. The discussion of experience of entrepreneurs is normally within the production and technical framework: managerial and marketing experience is seldom considered. Marketing experience though could be considered as relevant to those who had entered manufacturing from trade. A critical entrepreneurial mentality and all round ability seem to be the essentials for success. The learning process, unknowing and conditioned by the carrot and stick from the market place, reinforces the pleasurable and profitable process while by the same process the painful stands discarded. In order to cover economic uncertainties encouraged by administrative policies reflected in raw material shortages, inadequacy of licensing facilities, each entrepreneur tried to get, when the going was good and he was in with the authorities, an exaggerated number of licences.
