A vision, passion and the drive to succeed are the ingredients for a successful entrepreneur, according to mentor Muzi Mtshali.
However, because of a lack of mentorship, often dreams of owning a successful business are doomed before even beginning. This is where Entreprenerdy South Africa steps in.
Mtshali, who is the CEO and partner of Entreprenerdy South Africa, cannot stress enough the importance of mentorship programmes for entrepreneurs.
Entreprenerdy South Africa is part of Entreprenerdy, a Norwegian-based company that offers entrepreneurs mentorship and support.
Mtshali told Vutivi News that he met the founder of the programme, Dr Yngve Dahle in 2016.
He said Entreprenerdy has helped around 1000 entrepreneurs in the country through various programmes, such as its Entrepreneurship Management System.
It was designed to manage the process of entrepreneurial business development, he said.
“It focuses on managing and documenting activities both within a project and the communication between a project and the (programme’s) mentors.”
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A platform on its website offers services and tools to assist entrepreneurs. And its services are free.
Mtshali said entrepreneurs needed to take a “resource-based view of their business”, as this helped understanding what opportunities existed.
He said the next step was “effectuation” where an entrepreneur identified the next best steps to achieve their goals, including its purpose, resources, business model, objectives, tasks and forecast.While the programme was initiated in Norway, he said it has worked in South Africa.
“In South Africa we have had the pleasure of working on the South African Breweries Kickstart Boost Programme, where 500 entrepreneurs participated in a 12-month programme,” he said.
“The final three were to become suppliers of SAB.”
However, he believed having a mentor was crucial.
“There needs to be mentorship provided for entrepreneurs within the SMME sector,” he said.
“Funding institutions are not aware of the issues on the ground, so in many instances the funding criterion excludes a lot of start-ups.”
Mtshali also touched on the importance of market access.
“When doing enterprise development, it would help a great deal for enablers to go further by providing access to markets,” he said.
“We need a solid enterprise development eco-system that includes government as well as the private sector.”
