Starting your own business is always harder than you think, even for the highly qualified professions such as lawyers. For Yanga Giyose, the managing director of the emerging corporate and commercial law firm Giyose Incorporated Attorneys (GIA) situated in Morningside, Sandton, it was the inaccessibility of the corporate sector that turned out to be much harder than he had anticipated.
“I expected at least some interest from corporates and medium-sized companies, so the lack of reception and response was surprising. There was a general reluctance to entertain even the most minimal opportunities for young lawyers,” he says
Many of his peers would have turned back to the easier career path of aiming to become a partner in an already established law firm. But Yanga found himself motivated by thoughts of how far he had already come. He was raised by his single-parent mom in the small and quiet town of Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape in a home where they often had to make do with candles instead of electricity. After discovering a passion debating and presenting arguments in school, Yanga pursued his law degree at the University of Johannesburg and was admitted to the Gauteng bar in 2015.
Two years into his legal career, Yanga decided to step out and start his own practice with a colleague. His main motivation was a desire for independence, at the time his employers were too reliant on Road Accident Fund cases, a stream of work he saw as uncertain. Yanga wanted to take control of his future and embraced the risk. When a friend offered him financial support to tide him over the first few months, Yanga and his business partner took the leap.
The learning curve was very steep. He quickly discovered that legal expertise alone wasn’t enough and running a business demanded a whole new skill set. From knowing the fundamentals of cash-flow management, corporate governance and business-cycle planning, Yanga had to rapidly upskill to keep the practice afloat.
The partnership did not endure, but Yanga resolutely decided to push ahead on his own. As soon as it became clear just how hard it was to break into the corporate world, he took on any legal work he could find, including lots of private and family law matters.
It took time, a lot of hard work and resilience, says Yanga, before he finally was given an opportunity for some commercial law work for a medium-sized financial services provider. He gave it everything he had, and today, seven years later, the firm still counts as one of GIA’s clients.
Another game changer for GIA was joining Business Partners Limited’s supplier development programme. GIA was spotted by the Business Partners Limited commercial property division as a talented team when they were contracted to do some collections services, and they were prompted to apply for the Business Partners Limited supplier development programme.
Through the financial support component of the programme, GIA was supported with office space, accounting services and business software. “But the game-changing support was the mentorship,” says Yanga. A business mentor was assigned to help GIA develop a comprehensive marketing plan.
“We were able to get our corporate governance and financial fundamentals on track,” says Yanga. Today, GIA is in a stronger position than ever to pursue its two main strategic aims. First, to embark on an intensive client-acquisition drive and second, to build the GIA team by recruiting bright young legal talent with the same hunger that Yanga once had for breaking into the corporate world.
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