| Bustling business career started at 12 | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/bustling-business-career-started-at-12 | Bustling business career started at 12 | You could say that Thobile Ntswana started her business career at the age of 12. Growing up in Eshowe in KwaZulu-Natal, her father’s shop was a stone’s throw away from her school. Naturally, she spent her afternoons after school there. Her father was a teacher, so to him the shop was a side business. For Thobile, however, it became an all-consuming thing. She proved so useful in the business that she started doing more and more, until she was the one hiring, firing, ordering stock and generally running the show. | 2019/07/28 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Busy entrepreneurial husband and wife never stop growing | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/busy-entrepreneurial-husband-and-wife-never-stop-growing | Busy entrepreneurial husband and wife never stop growing | Some entrepreneurs shift in and out of working for other people throughout their careers, but Hesley and Bart de Klerk are of the kind who simply have to do their own thing. Both of them have only ever worked for someone else once for a few months before embarking on their entrepreneurial careers. | 2019/07/28 10:00:00 PM | | |
| From wheelbarrow deliveries to SABS accredited workshop | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/from-wheelbarrow-deliveries-to-sabs-accredited-workshop | From wheelbarrow deliveries to SABS accredited workshop | Not many successful factory owners can remember their first delivery vehicle as a wheelbarrow. OJ Matonsi recalls the time in the Tsakane Township in Brakpan when he welded steel window frames in his backyard and had them delivered to local home owners in a wheelbarrow. He had no car, and had to hire a bakkie to buy his raw materials from the Johannesburg steel merchants. | 2019/03/25 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Sky's the limit after aeronautical entrepreneurs gain property foothold | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/skys-the-limit-after-aeronautical-entrepreneurs-gain-property-foothold | Sky's the limit after aeronautical entrepreneurs gain property foothold | Location-sensitive businesses, usually retailers, often find themselves at the mercy of landlords who are aware of the fact that the business is dependent on the specific spot in which they trade. If the landlord refuses to renew the lease, the business can lose millions. | 2019/03/25 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Business built from scratch on trust and determination | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/business-built-from-scratch-on-trust-and-determination | Business built from scratch on trust and determination | The stylish, timeless furniture in the Classic Work Life showroom in Houghton, Johannesburg, conveys such a sense of luxurious durability that you’d think the business behind it must be a corporate itself. | 2019/02/20 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Small home-based business grows into bottle-making powerhouse | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/small-home-based-business-grows-into-bottle-making-powerhouse | Small home-based business grows into bottle-making powerhouse | What began as a tiny home-based business selling cool drink in novelty bottles to corner stores has turned into ATL Blow Moulders, a multi-million-rand a month plastic moulding business owned by a Johannesburg husband-and-wife team, and the growth of the business is showing no signs of slowing down. | 2019/02/20 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Determined entrepreneur hits gold-mine by pursuing his dream | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/determined-entrepreneur-hits-gold-mine-by-pursuing-his-dream | Determined entrepreneur hits gold-mine by pursuing his dream | Dave Coleman always wanted to be in the movies. He still remembers his school mates’ laughter when he revealed his ambition to them, but it never stopped him from dreaming. Eventually, he did not become a movie star, but it was through movies that he propelled himself out of poverty and into business success in a career worthy of a movie plot. | 2018/12/19 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Imagine starting a business and a degree at the same time - this entrepreneur did | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/imagine-starting-a-business-and-a-degree-at-the-same-time-this-entrepreneur-did | Imagine starting a business and a degree at the same time - this entrepreneur did | When Prashun Sharma, owner-manager of the glass and aluminium company Aluminium Doctor, decided to start his business seven years ago he faced an overtraded industry teeming with informal bakkie operators. | 2018/12/19 10:00:00 PM | | |
| 74-year-old pioneering entrepreneur ready for his next venture | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/74-year-old-pioneering-entrepreneur-ready-for-his-next-venture | 74-year-old pioneering entrepreneur ready for his next venture | Rolly Nkawe’s first job was as a cashier in a municipal bottle store in Soweto at a time when black South Africans were not allowed to hold liquor licenses. The experience gave him the urgent wish to own his own business one day. | 2018/11/20 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Lighting the way for the revival of SA manufacturing | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/lighting-the-way-for-the-revival-of-sa-manufacturing | Lighting the way for the revival of SA manufacturing | G Light is an inconspicuous factory in an industrial area called Sebenza near Edenvale in Johannesburg. But behind the face-brick facade and the staff of 32 beavering away at their LED lighting assembly lines, lies an amazing story that encapsulates the arc of manufacturing history in South Africa. | 2018/11/20 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Entrepreneur’s big dream within reach after incremental growth | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/entrepreneur’s-big-dream-within-reach-after-incremental-growth | Entrepreneur’s big dream within reach after incremental growth | Lorraine Chitate always loved travelling and tourism, but for a long time her dream of owning her own hotel or resort one day seemed out of reach, until a chance meeting with a guest-house owner changed her life. | 2018/10/29 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Seriously serial entrepreneur tackles the tourism industry - and thrives | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/en-za/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/seriously-serial-entrepreneur-tackles-the-tourism-industry-and-thrives | Seriously serial entrepreneur tackles the tourism industry - and thrives | It says something about the resilience of the tourism sector that, in a very difficult year economically, the De Ja View Exclusive Guest House in West Acres, Nelspruit, had managed to double its business from last year. | 2018/10/29 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Entrepreneurial spirit passed from mother to daughter, and taken to a new level | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/entrepreneurial-spirit-passed-from-mother-to-daughter-and-taken-to-a-new-level | Entrepreneurial spirit passed from mother to daughter, and taken to a new level | Looking back, Unathi Nkomo realises that she must have got her entrepreneurial spirit from her mother, although she was never really aware of it growing up. | 2018/08/21 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Father and daughter a formidable team in cut-throat industry | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/father-and-daughter-a-formidable-team-in-cut-throat-industry | Father and daughter a formidable team in cut-throat industry | For Leonie Finch, taking over as general manager of the family’s powder coating business was somewhat daunting not so much because she would be one of the few female owner-managers in a very male-dominated industry, but because she would one day have to fill her father’s considerable entrepreneurial shoes. | 2018/08/21 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Friendship culminates in thriving car workshop | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/friendship-culminates-in-thriving-car-workshop | Friendship culminates in thriving car workshop | Two friends who started their own mechanical workshop in Rustenburg eight months ago with one employee have already employed three more mechanics to keep up with the demand. | 2018/07/25 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Slow, patient struggle pays off for SA’s only community TV station | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/slow-patient-struggle-pays-off-for-sa’s-only-community-tv-station | Slow, patient struggle pays off for SA’s only community TV station | Twelve years ago, six idealistic people crammed into a small room at the back of a film school in Observatory, Cape Town, to start the community television station Cape Town TV. | 2018/07/25 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Fresh approach helps furniture business thrive | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/fresh-approach-helps-furniture-business-thrive | Fresh approach helps furniture business thrive | When Etienne Erasmus started his furniture-hire company, Rain Productions, there were a lots of competitors in the market, but they were old and staid, and failed to update their stock and keep up with the times. Etienne, on the other hand, was 24 at the time, and thought the industry could do with a fresh approach. | 2018/06/26 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Tech entrepreneur ready to revolutionise SA healthcare | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/tech-entrepreneur-ready-to-revolutionise-sa-healthcare | Tech entrepreneur ready to revolutionise SA healthcare | For all its underdevelopment, lack of public resources and scarcity of skills, South Africa presents massive opportunities for entrepreneurs who are able to spot ways in which technology can solve problems that would otherwise take generations to overcome. | 2018/06/26 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Dream of helping others put food on table fulfilled | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/dream-of-helping-others-put-food-on-table-fulfilled | Dream of helping others put food on table fulfilled | With his stellar career as an electrical engineer and hard-earned top academic achievements David Mmpanyana could have easily stayed on in his comfortable corporate job, but the yearning to build a business of his own was too strong. | 2018/05/30 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Perseverance leads to lucky break | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/perseverance-leads-to-lucky-break | Perseverance leads to lucky break | At first glance, the way that Anthony Doyle landed his thriving Col’Cacchio pizzeria franchise outlet at the L’Corro shopping centre in Northcliff, Johannesburg, seems very lucky. | 2018/05/30 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Down-and-out single mom makes come-back, and empowers thousands of women | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/down-and-out-single-mom-makes-come-back-and-empowers-thousands-of-women | Down-and-out single mom makes come-back, and empowers thousands of women | When Brenda Fredericks became a single mom after a difficult divorce, the last thing she ever wanted to do was work on another garment again. She and her ex-husband ran a clothing business and all she wanted was to move on from that painful period of her life. | 2018/03/25 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Low-key, constant innovation drives manufacturer’s success | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/low-key-constant-innovation-drives-manufacturer’s-success | Low-key, constant innovation drives manufacturer’s success | Nowadays high-profile inventors such as Elon Musk are revered and celebrated as important economic players. But the low-key, incremental innovation that happens every day in thousands of workshops is arguably even more important and not adequately acknowledged for its contribution to economic development and wealth creation. | 2018/03/25 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Amazing last-ditch push turns business around | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/amazing-last-ditch-push-turns-business-around | Amazing last-ditch push turns business around | Even by the standards of business owners, who all go through some nerve-racking months, Mark and Liza Graham’s experience is in a league of its own. | 2018/02/27 10:00:00 PM | | |
| The power of life-long learning in business | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/the-power-of-life-long-learning-in-business | The power of life-long learning in business | Delia Cupido is living proof of the power of life-long education in business. The 57-year-old owner of four growing private schools in Cape Town is clearly at the top of her game, yet she is once again ready to take her business to the next level through an entrepreneurial development programme that she has just completed. | 2018/02/27 10:00:00 PM | | |
| Elevator business on its way to the top | | https://www.businesspartners.co.za/bpi/entrepreneurs-growth-centre/success-stories/south-africa/elevator-business-on-its-way-to-the-top | Elevator business on its way to the top | Martin Jessen’s business started with his experience of being confined to a wheelchair for a few years just as he was starting school. The needs of people with disabilities and the importance of access and mobility were imprinted on his mind. Little did he know it would lead to a formidable business, and one that is today competing successfully in an industry dominated by multinational players. | 2018/02/04 10:00:00 PM | | |
