Latest / TIPS Podcast / TIPS Forum 2024 Special - Sibongile Sithole, Nomthandazo Mpande, Susan Kone and Phumudzo Muthanyi on Barriers for Entrepreneurs

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TIPS Forum 2024 Special - Sibongile Sithole, Nomthandazo Mpande, Susan Kone and Phumudzo Muthanyi on Barriers for Entrepreneurs · TIPS Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, my name is Sibaki Lesi Tane.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the founder of a company called MMPC Project.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: We are specializing in electrical solar installation and smart energy management systems.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, my name is Nom Tanda Zombande.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm coming from Poggy Holdings and Poggy Foundation is a social enterprise.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: We are energy consultants and we also specialize in disability inclusion.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: Hello and good afternoon.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_04: My name is Susan Kwane.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: I'm the managing director and the founder of PWK Waste Management and Recycling.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: We are based in Toyando.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: Our role is to protect Mother Earth because she's the only one that we have.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, my name is Pumu Zomutani, and I'm the managing director of Micah Law, PTY L T D.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Mica Law is co-founded by two young women who are carving out a very important niche in the South African green fashion, recycling, upliftment, and also entrepreneurial space.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: We manufacture bags, accessories, home craft and furniture from recyclable material that are smothering our townships.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we upcycle plus single-use plastics to this leather-like fabric and we create different types of products out of them.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you very much, ladies.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'll start with moving that same order.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Just quickly tell me what is some of the barriers that you are facing as small uh businesses?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: And also on how that how do you think what government should do to improve these challenges that you are facing within the sector?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Finance, anything, the challenges that you are facing.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that the requirement that the financial uh institutions are looking when we are applying for finance are very tight on two things for small businesses.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: For example, as should be the financial requirement or financial record of the company.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard for small businesses to have financials in place if they are still small.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one of the challenges we do face at small businesses.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: As a disabled entrepreneur and also supporting other entrepreneurs with disabilities, one of the main challenges or barriers is access to information and also technology not being accessible to persons with disabilities.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: As we try to ensure that there's access to energy for persons with disabilities in the market, it's difficult to ensure that you're able to reach them because they're not accessible because they're not connected.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons you'll find most of them they rely on the social grant.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not a luxury to have data.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: So even if the information is there but it's not accessible to them, and the opportunities.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: We even have a network where there are opportunities, then the other one tells the other one.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're still using the old model just to ensure that people are aware and are able to access some of the information that is available.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_04: Some of the barriers that I've picked up in my years as an entrepreneur in the waste management sector, it's skills development.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_04: We have a challenge as we are based in a rural area where people don't really know how to access information because they don't have the skills.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_04: Some of the women who are waste pickers are not educated.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_04: Some of them they don't even have tertiary or be able to do financial statements on their own.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_04: So it becomes a barrier because we can't really develop or stand up and compete with some big companies.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: If I want to leak the issue of skills development with technology, at this moment we are using plastics to recycle.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_04: And there is a technology where we can use pylorosis in order for us to produce a biodiesel.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_04: But because we don't have access to finance as well as technology, it makes it difficult for us to grow and to compete in the green economy.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Our biggest challenge in the manufacturing, because we manufacture products.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: So our biggest challenge is access to the market.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's really difficult for us with a very good product which has a great quality to be able to penetrate to bigger markets, to be able to supply other big franchises.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, the single-use plastics that we use are the same plastics that are getting thrown by the same person who produced them.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It would be really nice for the government to open up that channel whereby we work all together.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, the plastic waste that is smothering our townships is also created by the seller.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when it gets to the person who buys it, it's a single-use thing, and then it gets to me, and then I repurposit.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: It would be really nice if it was taken back to them so that they can also raise awareness by saying that it could be reusable so that people can change the perspective of buying a plastic now and throwing it away now.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: I would say challenges because my next question was going to ask what are the rules of your business in your local community and how are you addressing environmental challenges in your local communities?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I was assessing that can save energy and it also save money for our kind and also in rural country as well.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you see the high energy prices or high energy rates in South Africa, how expensive electricity is, but then with solar energy, you do save a lot because it's a lifetime system.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: You only install once and you don't need to buy any units or anything.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And also the maintenance of solar is very affordable.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we reduce cost for our customers and we save energy for them.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: As a consultant in energy, one of the main things is to reduce the waste within the energy space.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we've helped clients who were almost losing their businesses by saving them the energy so they could see profit.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Their businesses came from losses and they had profitability in a number of the clients that we've served.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And also just from a disability point of view, in terms of the community, when we're helping the people who are disabled who are not even thinking of entrepreneurship, we get them to be economically active.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: It supports them now to add value in their lives.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now they're no longer looking at social ground only as a source of income.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: It also helps them to even get educated and understand some of the green economy and what we do, the value of what we're doing to society.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's had some positive spin-offs.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: I must also just highlight that with people with disabilities, what we've also picked up is that we are susceptible to diseases.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And when we active, then we also reduce that.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: So when you take somebody who's been bedridden, you give that person a wheelchair, and now they're able to go to school and be active in community, then they're able to change and you find somebody else now who's like, I'm in town, I'm I'm coming from school, from somebody who couldn't move from the house and who couldn't do anything for herself.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: So those are the impacts of what we currently do.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_04: Our contribution to the community that we are staying with is that we try to promote a clean environment.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_04: The government talks about the good green deeds, which for us it's only starts from home.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_04: So through recycling, we capacitate women who are now becoming waste pickers.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: And we are also intending to open a buyback center soon where local people will be able to benefit from selling the recyclables in order to sustain their livelihood.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_04: We are also diverting waste from the landfill sites, which also assist the government to reach the zero waste to landfill site, as well as trying to make sure that we upcycle all the plastics or try to recycle them so that they can be sold to the manufacturers for future purpose.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think me and the lady next to me should work together.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because what she's saying actually is something that we also do, like we have a very huge impact when it comes to youth, young people in the fashion and manufacturing sector.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just that uh she's doing it the old way by back by back center.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: But um, we also came up with, remember, we said we want to change the perspective of young people so that they can be able to partner with us and cleaning our environment.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Most of our townships are very filthy, and we've realized that a lot of young people don't really know what recycling is.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're usually they usually align it to people who are using drugs, like I don't want to name shame, but you know there's a lot of people who use substances, uh, and then they would sustain their habits with recycling.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So what we do is we have a cleanup and boba campaign.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So where we call young people, and then if maybe it's a five-day cleanup program, then we'll give them a hundred rand per day just to motivate them so that they can come back and then would raise awareness, would teach them about the importance of having a clean environment.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because the spaces where we clean, it's like maybe nearby a primary school where or nearby where we pass by every day and kids are playing there, and then you can see in Gomo they're eating there.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's an interaction of the township, but we all see it, but we turn a blind eye because we are not educated.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we try to do, raise awareness.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then through that cleanup and popper campaign, we give them a hundred Rand and then we also give them a time so that they can be able to buy data or find jobs or anything.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the main program is to raise awareness and educate because we've realized that people don't understand why we should keep the environment clean.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: And in your various businesses, what kind of stakeholders should support you, or where are you making support in terms of stakeholders?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: And what kind of support are you getting right now?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that small business should be supported through access to market, because this is the only solution that can help businesses to grow.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because the main aim we started businesses is to generate profit.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have pipeline of projects, if you don't have clients, you won't make profit, you won't make any sense.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: So currently there is no support that we getting.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me say there's no financial support, but then it's only the incubation or entrepreneurial programs that we do join.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are not government, some are private.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say it's only like incubation where they teach you about business, but also there is no like support that you can see that they gave me that uh tangible support.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say I think for small businesses, we government or any organization or any stakeholders should support businesses through exist share market.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: From our side, the kind of support that we've received in the past, not currently though, but it includes opportunities to exhibit, be able to go to the bigger conferences like your mining in Daba, where it's like 70,000 to get there, and as a small enterprise, you won't be able to pay for that much.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: So government then would fund you to go there and sort of even fund you to do the whole exhibition setup, and including export readiness license, we we've done that so that we can if there's saturation within the the market.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: If I can be honest, if I compare my cost and the bigger companies, their costs are so low, and sometimes you wonder where do they get their stuff, and when you check even at wholesale, they even pitch their prices lower than the wholesale price.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: But from a support point of view, I think set asides should be where we compare apples with apples.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: That means I compete with an entrepreneur that buys from the same shop as I buy.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: We buy at the same price, and we know that we're competing, and because we've got the skills and everything else, we just need to deliver and make sure what we deliver has quality.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: From a government point of view, like I say, uh set asides would help.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: I believe the new approachment policy is covering that, and it should be practiced though.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: It shouldn't be just uh on the paper and not being implemented, covering also the persons with disabilities.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Most of our entrepreneurs are at a very infant stage, they still find themselves.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: So incubation mostly doesn't cover people with disabilities in terms of making sure that it's accessible to persons with disabilities.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we're hoping to start up incubators across the country that would just focus on ensuring that there's entrepreneurs with different skills, but all disabilities being accommodated.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_04: When I look at the kind of support which I think we really need as a waste management and recycling company, we need more incubation.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_04: The waste industry is growing and there are many opportunities that are there.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_04: So if we are taken through incubation programs, we really think that will play a good role or a major role in the green economy.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: We also need financial support from both the government as well as private sectors, because with that we are able to pay for insurances and to buy the resources that we are still lacking.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_04: Technology also plays a very crucial role at this moment.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_04: We need cashless technology to pay the waste pickers.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_04: We need to use Sage or finance systems.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_04: So we are still lacking because we don't have enough information or knowledge.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: Climate change is something that everybody is talking about.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_04: But if we are even trained to talk about the resilience or the mitigation, because waste management is also part of mitigating the climate change.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: So we need to start being capacitated so that we can go and share the information with our communities.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_04: We are very fortunate to highlight that we got support from different stakeholders that we are working with.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_04: Secular Energy has also funded us to develop our site, and they gave us a donation of almost 500,000, which we have made, constructed a wall, and we're still gonna go to phase two so that we can have our warehouse.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_04: Then we can be able to store our products.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_04: Petco is also helping us with some resources.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_04: Cedar is going to provide machinery which will be prototyping the bricks which we'll be making out of plastic and glass that we are collecting on a daily basis.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_04: And we also have Indalo Inclusive, where we were part of the Siaweka group.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_04: So they also funded us in 2023.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: So the government and the municipalities, the local institutions, we are also working hand in hand with them.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: And also in issues like awareness campaign.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_04: We are also part of the Coroni Hotel, which is one of the Pierre Mount.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_04: We are doing waste management services, and we are under their enterprise development program.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_04: So we really believe that there is life in this sector, and we should keep on pushing until we get it right.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: There's some good news.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we also got support, financial support, but the government has never tapped on our structure as yet.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I hope uh with the motivation and I'm hearing from this side, we'll also get there too.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we were incubated by Discovery for a period of a year, and then after we graduated, they gave us a grant funding to help set up our production space with a few machinery equipment and material, which gave us a great start because it was just from idea stage, and now we're growing to a mini micro business.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: But then now, with the support that we've gotten in terms of sales, because that's the only funding that we've gotten, and then now we've been operating through sales.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we've been operating for the past three years.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But then we would really like for the government to also come in because now it will help me to be able to create a sustainable job for these young people who are working with us part-time.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've got 16 young people that only come when I have projects.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't have projects, then they have to sit at home.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if the government would come in at least and help us with a working capital or anything that would help me to be able to sustain these jobs.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because all we want to do is to create a job.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the support would be really great.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: The support we've gotten it was from like the ESD programs that we would usually work with corporates, but the government we haven't gotten anything, and we are asking please to can we can we also be funded as well.