A cohort of 49 student entrepreneurs in the pre-incubation programme at the innobiz Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, were recently put through their paces in an intense Business Start Up training regime spanning five days.  

The Centre, under the office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation, and Engagement, alongside its partner Nedbank provided a thorough business startup regimen aimed at equipping the student entrepreneurs with the know-how to operate their startups.  

Kicking off the five-day long training, the student entrepreneurs’ adaptiveness to sudden change was put to the test when the innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Manager, Ms. Ntokozo Ngcobo sent the group on an impromptu 3.5 kilometres hike through the woods within the vicinity of the host venue, African Enterprise Conference Centre.  

With most student entrepreneurs and innobiz staff not dressed to match the rigorous outdoors, this was a lesson in navigating the curveballs that entrepreneurship is more than likely to throw at those pursuing it by embedding entrepreneurship concepts with practical real-world experiences.  

The incubatees learned to identify market problems and develop business solutions while emphasising adaptability, resourcefulness, and the value of trusting team members.  

Entrepreneurs highlighted the importance of creativity, resilience, and teamwork in overcoming business hurdles. The program proved instrumental in instilling trust and emphasising the need for teamwork in the world of entrepreneurship. 

The program’s practical approach has effectively instilled a deep understanding of the importance of collaboration and trust in the entrepreneurial journey, setting a strong foundation for the future success of the participants. 

Ms. Ngcobo emphasised the importance of teamwork, urging the student entrepreneurs that 

they would be able to do it all alone and should accept that at some stage in their businesses 

they should align with partners aligned with what they need in their enterprises. 

“You cannot do this business thing by yourself, particularly here in South Africa where people 

have a tendency of thinking they can do it by themselves because if they share with others their 

idea will be stolen, or rob them, but you must screen, and vet people, take time to make the 

decision of who forms part of your team. 

“You must understand the value that the person brings to your business, so teamwork and 

collaboration is key, and as you are hiking discuss how your business needs a partner according to 

the gaps in your businesses,” Ms. Ngcobo explained to the student entrepreneurs. 

The first session of the business start-up training titled Business Plan for Start-ups, aimed to hone the skills of the entrepreneurs in crafting and presenting their business plan and was led by Business Support Coordinator Mr. Mukelani Ndlovu who delivered a detailed presentation on the subject.  

Mr. Ndlovu said that the business plan session was key in assisting entrepreneurs in structuring their business plan from connecting the dots from the Lean Canvas, starting from the problem that they were solving to the alternative and solution that they were providing to their consumers.  

“We also assist them in how they plan to market their business, how they intend to go about reaching the clientele, managing that clientele, and also escalating that clientele. The business plan also covers the vision and mission of the business which outlines why this business exists and the vision the entrepreneur seeks to achieve,” Mr. Ndlovu highlighted.  

As a part of this important session, the entrepreneurs were also taught how to project their finances either quarterly or annually, and anticipate how they would go about accumulating a projected amount of money for the business.  

“The session assisted a lot in enlightening the entrepreneurs in terms of the journey they’ve decided to take and to prepare them for the challenges that they might encounter. It also helped them a lot to understand the entrepreneurship space as people who are still new in this space in term of the structures they need in place for their businesses to prosper,” Mr. Ndlovu added.  

The Business Plan for Start-ups session also covered the significance of how entrepreneurs should go about attracting funds to their businesses, with a well-structured business plan making it easier to attract various funding sources.  

Having learnt how to pitch their businesses to potential investors during the Hackathon held earlier in the year, the student entrepreneurs were afforded more tips on polishing pitching their business in a presentation titled “Pitch Deck and Innovation” by Mr. Thintani Dlamini, an innobiz DUT Business Support Coordinator. 

“The importance of pitching for our student entrepreneurs is the need for them to know how to sell their businesses to the potential investors or clients, so the pitch presentation training assists with equipping them with the skills of presenting their business ideas to investors or clients. 

“Therefore it is very important as an entrepreneur to know how to sell your business or ideas, as this is a key aspect in the business environment because if you are unable to sell your business it will be a challenge for you because even if you have a good business if you don’t know how to sell that concept to whoever might be listening to you,  your business growth might be stunted,” Mr. Dlamini said.  

Another key element for start-up business is how entrepreneurs can market their enterprises accordingly and to the right audience with Mr. Ntandoyenkosi Mpofana, innobiz DUT Stakeholder Relations, Marketing and Communications Manager putting on a thorough presentation titled “Marketing and Action Plan.  

“Given that the audience were owners of start-ups, it was understood that we shouldn’t try to look at spending quite a vast amount of money and effort into trying to market a business yet you’re using a platform that is not per your audience and will obviously exhaust your resources,” Mr. Mpofana explained. 

He said that one such example was the desire of entrepreneurs to try and get a company website off the ground immediately, without noting that their efforts and services were still in an elementary phase in which they can market their businesses for free on social media. 

Mr. Mpofana said that these social media platforms include the Meta platforms and WhatsApp Business particularly looking at the behavioural patterns of humans always swiping and tapping into normal behavioural economics instead of deviating from them.  

“The importance of the discussion was on identifying and defining what marketing is, the spine and foundation of marketing, also known as the Marketing Mix, where we spoke of the four P’s, which are the Price, Product, Promotion and Place in which we emphasised the old adage of finding the right product, with the right price, given at the right place to the right people. 

“Using that we leveraged on that idea and insight and we unpacked and deep dived on how a start-up could see marketing both as a penetrative function and a supportive tool. We also spoke of how to detail your marketing plan, how to promote it, the type of language to use to align with the segment you are trying to market to,” Mr. Mpofana expounded.  

In Mr. Mpofana’s presentation, careful attention and emphasis was also paid to the target market particularly how to segment the target market and avoiding generalisation by race or a specific niche, but detail it by being clear on whether it is influenced by purchasing power, financial power, and behavioural elements of the specific segment that could satisfy the entrepreneur’s marketing efforts. 

Ms. Fundiswa Zuma, Strategic Relationship and Consumer Education at Nedbank, presented on Financial Literacy for start-up businesses and commended innobiz and DUT for boasting entrepreneurial initiatives for students given South Africa’s high unemployment rate.  

“Unemployment is a crisis and we need a lot of people to be in the entrepreneurial space so that if they are not finding formal employment they have some kind of way of getting a consistent income,” Ms. Zuma explained.  

Delving into the critical aspect of managing a business’s finances diligently, Ms. Zuma said that 80% of small businesses failed due to bad cash flow management which was a domino effect of unfixed personal finances as a lack of financial literacy.  

“Financial literacy is a foundation of good, growing, and successful business because we need to look at the things we have normalised as the normal way of managing finances, of running a business, whereas it’s not. We are doing that because we have not been given such training and workshops. 

“We need to teach them how to manage their personal finances, so that they do not bring the mistakes from their personal finances into the business finances,” Ms. Zuma elaborated on the significance of sound financial literacy.  

She further stated that student entrepreneurs should be mindful that entrepreneurship was not a hand to mouth initiative, but the planting of a seed and idea that students should not look only at employment but explore the possibilities of starting their own businesses.  

“A business is not only feeding that individual student, but it’s another way of building generational wealth and living a legacy for the next generation, not just our families but our country as a whole because economically we are bleeding.  

“Majority of South Africans are looking for opportunities to spend money rather than opportunities to invest and save money and through businesses we are actually teaching the students to invest and the earlier the better, because once you get comfortable with the employment concept it’s very difficult to get out,” Ms. Zuma expanded.  

She also touched on the significance of reading credit agreements, whether personally or for business, urging the entrepreneurs to honour their agreements in order to keep their credit scores healthy.