Opportunity Issue 108

SOUTH AFRICAN FUTURE TRUST
all of them. The first of them was that they felt like they had been a
few rounds with Mike Tyson: all battered and bruised after Covid,
straight into loadshedding and then into other issues. Just one
blow after the other. The second one was based on saying there
are so many things that are required to get my business up and
running. Even if I find my ojo again, I am facing all these different
constraints like access to finance, access to information, access to
marketplace, access to supplier chain and all those things. They
technically understand what they are looking to do, but running a
business is very different to just installing an air-conditioning unit,
for example, and we found a lot of knowledge gaps.
How many entrepreneurs attended the summit?
About 500 business owners were at the conference at Gallagher
Estate and some were exhibiting and showcasing their wares. In
addition, we had some of the bigger corporates such as Samsung
and Core Group that are also part of the ecosystem, together with
funding institutions. Stories of resilience and resourcefulness
provided inspiration.
“Unlocking that latent
potential or energy in the SMME”
What were the organising principles of the summit?
The summit was put together in terms of three key factors. One was
to inspire, let’s get it back and create inspiration because if you feel
demotivated and dejected there is nothing better than somebody
telling their story of how they also felt the blows, but look how
successful they are today. The second component was to get a sense
of what is happening out there through a very interesting panel
discussion with the Gauteng MEC for Economic Development,
Tasneem Motara, with Herman Mashaba (representing both the
public and private sector, being an entrepreneur himself) and
Jonathan Oppenheimer looking at the world of business and the
world of philanthropy. The question we asked ourselves is, if we’re
going to get this right and get the country back on track? The panel
discussion looked at the roles of government, the private sector
and philanthropy and how do we get our act together and start
working together as opposed to pointing fingers at each other.
Finally, our goal was to showcase to entrepreneurs what is coming
in the future. What is shaping the environment and how will your
business develop in the future?
How were the aspects of the future environment presented?
Four master classes were presented. The first one dealt the tech
side, called Innovate or Stagnate. We asked the question: Is your
business tech savvy enough? From simple technology such as pretelemetric
in your delivery vehicles to the use of ChatGPT or AI. What
tech can your business use: data, information, systems, processing
and so on? We had the well-known Dr Adam Pantanowitz, Chair
in Innovation and Director of the Wits Innovation Centre, leading
those sessions. The second master class was led by Rich Mulholland
who spoke about the six deadly sins in your business, things you
should never do. For example, what’s the impact of having too
much pride in your business and never learning from people and
thinking you know everything. We then had Polo Leteka, who
is with the IDF Capital and has invested in countless businesses
over the years. She gave enterprise owners an understanding of
what investors are looking for – in your management team, your
product, your RMD space, how established is your management
team, how solid is your product set, who is your competitor and
what’s your unique different compelling offering? This was a deep
master class in terms of saying get your business ready if you want
to sell it. Richard Sutton wrote the book called The Stress Code: From
Surviving to Thriving and his master class was different from all
the others. While the other three were technical about a business
owner and his business, technology and investments, this one was
more about the business owner himself and looking after yourself.
Was there a follow-up programme from the master classes?
The beauty about all four master classes is that they came with a
tool book which was very specific in terms of help and support.
This included the good books to read by authors that represent
having actually lived it and taken the hard knocks. Every single
delegate left for home with a tool book from every speaker with
Acclaimed author Richard
Sutton presented a master
class at the summit.
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