Inspiring stories from young entrepreneurs

South Africa’s young entrepreneurs are increasingly recognised as critical drivers of change, positioned at the intersection of solving the country’s severe unemployment crisis and advancing a sustainable green economy.

However, they often face significant barriers to success which initiatives such as the Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE), a national programme established by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and managed by Universities South Africa (USAf), addresses by fostering an entrepreneurial culture across all 26 public South African universities.

Four dynamic young business owners and innovators shared their journeys as part of a panel discussion facilitated by Ms Ntsiki Mkhize, Stakeholder and Partnerships Manager: EDHE, USAf.

They were speaking at the official launch of the Mr Price x EDHE Waste Innovation Challenge at Durban University of Technology’s (DUT) Midlands Indumiso campus. The competition aims at mobilising students, alumni and researchers to design commercially viable start-ups that convert plastic waste into green economic opportunities.

The panellists were Ms Duduzile Mathabela, Entrepreneurship Development Programme Manager at the Mr Price Foundation and entrepreneurs Ms Hlengiwe Ngubane and Mr Sekelo Shude, on stage, and Mr Gift Lubele and Ms Tiffany Mokoteli, who joined virtually.

“It is imperative to hear from students who are currently running their own businesses and hear about their challenges as well as their successes,” said Ms Mkhize. “We can all learn from their inspirational journey from idea to getting a product to market.”

“If you ask young entrepreneurs the one thing they really want, they generally reply ‘funding’. I always push back to tell them it’s not funding they initially need; the first thing is infrastructure. The second, equally important, is access to markets. Would-be entrepreneurs need to ask themselves the following questions: ‘Who is your customer?’, ‘How quickly can you get to them and validate your idea?’ and ‘Are you sure that once you’ve set up your business, your customer is actually willing and able to pay for your service?’”

Mr Lubele believes that African countries are lagging behind their international counterparts when it comes to AI implementation: “It’s really sad as Africa is home to more young people than anywhere in the world. There is a massive gap in how AI could help local entrepreneurs in South Africa, not only better flesh out their ideas but to really accelerate the impact. My message to anyone wanting to start their own business is to find a way to really integrate AI into their companies.

“When you first start off with your idea, you don’t initially have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. You need to brainstorm your idea with AI. For an example, say your idea is to build an app that helps informal waste pickers, take that information and put it into a generative AI tool, defining that the context is South Africa.

“After that comes the actual building of your business and, again, there are many tools you can use for this, such as lovable.dev, base44 or a bunch of other platforms. Within a short space of time, you’ll have a fully functional minimum viable product (MVP). AI can be used in plenty of other ways as well, from helping you find the right audience to working out who is your ideal customer. I cannot emphasise enough just how imperative it is that entrepreneurs on the African continent start operationalising AI and infuse it into how they run their businesses. Entrepreneurs need to learn something new in order to understand what the future is of the industry they are involved in.”

In conclusion, he referenced Nike’s 2025 “Why Do It” ad campaigns aimed at Gen-Z, which make the point that greatness may be something you plan but most of the time greatness is something you try.

“My recommendation to young entrepreneurs is to go and try something. If you fail, so what? Failure does not decrease your chances of success; if anything, it increases them. Just go and do it.”

Ms Tiffany Mokoteli, the director of Tiffany Mokoteli Enterprise, is studying fashion design at DUT and is affiliated with its innobiz Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

She has developed a nano-silica fabric finishing, a chemical treatment for textiles that reduces stains, absorbs bacteria and extends the fabric’s lifespan. Her current focus is on sportswear textiles.

She explains how her innovation will create both environmental and economic impact: “Our product will be able to be recycled or reused so it won’t land up in landfills, causing land pollution. We also plan to build our factory in a rural area, purely to help alleviate the unemployment often found in these regions and impart much needed skills training.”

Her message to those who want to start their own businesses is simple: “Don’t allow perceived problems to stop you from trying – you may not have all the information, but you can always ask and always learn. Surround yourself with a support system. Never limit yourself or think you are too small for an opportunity.”

So how did the idea for her business come about?

“I am an architect by profession and was familiar with seeing tonnes of construction waste on site which was often disposed of in landfills. Doing research for my Masters, I visited a company using waste products to manufacture bricks – recycling in-house. I saw a gap in the marketplace which led me to the idea of developing a digital construction management platform that offers real-time site monitoring, material tracking and document coordination.”

She said that the software is still in development and that a challenge will be persuading the construction industry to switch from traditional systems to digital products.

“We are looking into growing our software, not only locally, but also penetrating the global market, and we want to partner with stakeholders in the private and government sector in order to create policies that govern the construction industry and are stricter on construction waste as to how it is disposed.

“We need to create ideas with lasting impact, not only for the current time but also for the future generation. If we’re not doing it now, we are putting them at a disadvantage in the future.”

It was living in Umlazi that inspired the idea for his business: “Growing up in the township, I knew about the challenges within the waste space as well as the limited refuse collection from the municipality side. You would see piles of litter and waste discarded and dumped into local streams. It was this that drove me to find innovative solutions, leading me on my green entrepreneurship journey to help improve living conditions in these townships. Plastic was a major problem, contributing to global warming. I started research and came up with the concept to recycle the plastic into bricks and pavers.

“At the moment we are looking to scaling up our business and to ensure we have buy back centres in each and every community. Many informal waste pickers have to travel long distances to sell their recyclables – we need these places in the areas where people live. This will lead to income generation while helping create plastic free communities and reducing toxic environmental impact.”

His advice to others who would like to follow in his footsteps: “Do your research, remember to protect your ideas and look for opportunities. Carefully select the people you want to align yourself with. It can be a very lonely journey so it’s very important to have partners that will keep pushing you on your journey.”

In conclusion, Ms Mathabela said that the Mr Price Foundation goal is to make 500 000 youth economically resilient by 2035 through skills development, entrepreneurship training and education, according to its FY2025 Integrated Impact Report. She referenced the fact that South African’s plastic waste consumption annually is almost double the global average*.

“This is why we have sponsored the Mr Price Foundation x EDHE Waste Innovation Challenge. I’m passionate about entrepreneurship and believe that it could have a catalytic role in changing the landscape of South Africa going forward.”

Janine Greenleaf Walker is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.