Failing can lead to success

‘If you face the harsh realities, you won’t fail at what you are doing.’

Four top entrepreneurs share the lessons they have learned from their failures with Entrepreneurship To The Point in order to help other small businesses.

Ludwick Marishane, founder of Headboy Industries and investor of Drybath and Letty Ngobeni, founder and CEO of Integrico and Mndhavazi Trading Enterprise agree that failure is inevitable but it isn’t final.

Entrepreneurship To The Point, hosted by Property Point, the Growthpoint Properties initiative, recently plugged into the experience of these four respected entrepreneurs who are not afraid of failure.

Face the harsh truths

Marishane has been rated as the best student entrepreneur in the world and Google named him one of the 12 Brightest Young Minds in the world.

Time magazine ranked him one of the 30 people under 30 who is changing the world.

“From the beginning and for the first four years of the businesses life, the problem was that we were actually selling the product to the wrong customers,” admits Marishane. “This was tough to accept.”

DryBath, a waterless washing system, was designed for people who didn’t have a steady supply of water and couldn’t afford hygiene. Marishane came up with the idea while in high school, but only developed it later at university where he was promoting it to his peers or elders.

“While they liked the idea as a concept, they weren’t putting their hands in their pockets. The moment of truth only came when we tried to sell it to high school kids.”

Marishane says there are harsh realities that you have to face as an entrepreneur. “If you face them you won’t fail, but if you struggle to face them then you are destined to fail.”

Do your due diligence

Ngobeni is runner-up for National Business Woman of the year for Women in Property and a Property Point alumnus. She also owns a chain of butcheries as well as a coffee shop named Cup ‘O Joy, which can be found in corporate buildings such as MTN.

A qualified teacher and chef, Ngobeni left teaching to start her own business and purchased a food franchise in a shopping centre. Having taught business economics and accounts, she thought she knew about business but quickly discovered that there is a big difference between theory and practical application.

“I didn’t get advice before buying, I just trusted the franchisor,” she says. Now she understands the very real value of due diligence.

“If I had known about due diligence, and used the right people to advise me, they would have told me not to buy it. I tried hard to make it work for about a year and a half, but the business failed. I learned a lot.”

With her support system, perseverance and the value she places on mentorship, Ngobeni has used the lessons she learned to find a new direction on her business journey. – Citizen reporter