Investec-supported Startup School is empowering individuals with the entrepreneurial skills to grow their own businesses, create much-needed employment and contribute to national prosperity.
South Africa’s chronic and daunting unemployment crisis has taken a particularly heavy toll on the country’s youth. The World Bank reported in 2021 that nearly eight million young South Africans aged 18 to 25, are without jobs. Entrepreneurship has emerged as one of the solutions to addressing this crisis. It creates jobs while nurturing a culture of self-reliance and innovation, and contributing to economic growth.
However, aspiring entrepreneurs need to be empowered with the necessary skills and confidence to navigate the entrepreneurial landscape successfully. In 2016, several prominent and successful South African entrepreneurs founded the Startup School Entrepreneurship Development Programme in response to this need, with the goal of facilitating, supporting and encouraging entrepreneurship in South Africa.
Empowering entrepreneurs for success
Startup School exists to stimulate entrepreneurial thinking and support entrepreneurial activity through the provision of an online holistic entrepreneurship development programme that delivers innovative education and development practices.
The programme empowers aspiring and emerging entrepreneurs, depending on where they are in their entrepreneurial journey. It assists them to build entrepreneurial skills, refine their business thinking and concept, realise their business ideas and grow their businesses into sustainable and resilient entities. Besides providing inspiration, motivation and business knowledge, the programme aims to support their individual personal development and provide a confidence boost for emerging entrepreneurs.
Startup School offerings
Candidates require an existing business or sound business idea and the ability to navigate a digital environment, together with the passion for learning and self-development towards successful entrepreneurship.
The course includes:
- Entrepreneurial training: The practical and interactive course contains learning activities that guide an entrepreneur through key aspects of business principles, practical business skills, entrepreneurial thinking and innovation. Each entrepreneur is provided with a portfolio of learning materials that they can keep and refer to. Performance is tracked and measured through the programme’s unique edtech platform.
- Community and coaching: The course provides access to an online community and experienced business coaches, allowing participants to gain insights into the challenges and successes of entrepreneurship.
- Customised support: Through a proprietary digital platform, Startup School tracks and customises support for entrepreneurs, helping them succeed by adapting to their individual needs.
- Pitching competition: The programme culminates in a pitching competition, where the top entrepreneurs can pitch for prizes up to R100 000. The entrepreneurs are shortlisted and the finalists pitch to an online judging panel. Winners are announced at the online graduation ceremony and prizegiving.
Impact metrics reveal project value
Since its inception, a significant number of emerging entrepreneurs have been enrolled in the flagship 12-week, online entrepreneurship development programme. More than 11 000 applications have been received, with close to 4 000 of these applications being received in September 2023 for the September intake, demonstrating the growing interest in the programme.
Over 2 400 entrepreneurs have been enrolled in the programme, and more than 2 000 have graduated. Millions of rands worth of startup grant funding has been awarded over the course of the programme’s 17 grant funding rounds.
Measurable impact metrics demonstrate Startup School’s successes. One out of four programme alumni have significantly expanded their businesses, reflecting the programme’s efficacy in fostering sustainable, job-creating entities. Eight out of 10 alumni describe their journey as an “authentic and organic experience of self-discovery, discipline and professional development”. Eighty-eight percent of programme graduates reported that the programme exceeded their return-on-investment expectations, indicating the high level of satisfaction of the programme’s value.
Investec Head of Corporate Social Investments Setlogane Manchidi
“Through Startup School, we are not just investing in education. We are investing in dreams, aspirations and the limitless potential of South Africa’s future entrepreneurs and the many other people they will employ over time.”
Addressing South Africa’s unemployment crisis and fostering sustainable job creation is not an easy goal. However, the programme has successfully empowered entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, with 21% of alumni significantly increasing revenue and employment opportunities.
This has a direct impact on addressing unemployment and stimulating broader economic growth. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 52 alumni entrepreneurs created 78 new jobs, proving the programme’s capacity to teach participants how to navigate challenges and create employment opportunities.
Navigating programme challenges
Manchidi provides insight into some of the project challenges that emerged and how these have been resolved.
He says that the process of identifying and selecting candidates with the most potential for success presented a challenge in the early days of the programme. This was resolved by applying a rigorous application process to ensure that the right candidates are admitted to Startup School, maximising the impact of the programme.
To ensure that students are adequately motivated and prepared to tackle the content of the programme via a digital delivery, the organisers implemented a boot camp phase during the first two weeks of the programme. This equips students with the basic necessary knowledge and skills, ensuring that they are comfortable and capable of progressing successfully. Candidates who do not successfully complete this phase are not permitted to continue with the programme until they are ready to do so.
“We hope to cover the unique and different challenges facing local start-ups, with local business case studies and input, to enhance our overall offering.”
Investec Head of Corporate Social Investments Setlogane Manchidi
It is not always easy to sustain student motivation and accountability throughout the 12-week programme. Startup School’s response to this has been the introduction of a personalised coaching strategy that plays a critical role in nurturing the success and personal development of participants. It focuses on accountability, motivation and mindfulness, and is individualised to increase engagement and deliver more positive outcomes.
A key challenge for the project has been to secure financial support for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. Startup School provides entrepreneurs with grant funding opportunities. Besides the R100 000 grant funding prize awarded at the end of each presentation, the programme’s annual prize funding competition awards R1 million in funding to winning Entrepreneurship Development Programme graduates.
These financial incentives further empower entrepreneurs to realise their business ideas. “The prize funding needs to be grown substantially to support as many promising entrepreneurs as possible. We are continuously looking for potential partners to help grow this fund,” explains Manchidi.
Increasing future programme value
Looking ahead, the programme will consider follow-up support for its graduates as well as ways to increase its local course content.
“Many of our alumni have appreciated the course but have expressed the need for post-course support in the shape of content, coaching and networking opportunities for entrepreneurs. Independent review has also expressed the need to work harder at localising the content for entrepreneurs operating in a South African context and environment. We hope to cover the unique and different challenges facing local start-ups, with local business case studies and input, to enhance our overall offering,” concludes Manchidi.
Startup School aims to extend the programme to many more entrepreneurs over the next few years. This will require the support from more partners who share Investec’s vision of a robust and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem in South Africa.
Startup School graduate success story: A business reinvented
Nokukhanya Mncwabe is the co-founder and CEO of Matawi, an environmentally impactful company that challenges the vast irrigation water consumption needed to produce alcohol from base ingredients such as grapes and wheat. Instead, it produces mead, which uses water exclusively for production, reducing the water required to produce its alcohol to less than 10% of traditional alcohols.
Matawi prioritises water conservation, promotes responsible production and consumption, and creates employment and income-generating opportunities to help alleviate entrenched poverty and inequality.
The company’s commitment to placing the planet and people on par with profits has required a more thoughtful rollout, which was initially supported by the founders’ capital contributions. Investec affirmed the value of this approach, awarding Matawi R100 000 for the most promising pitch in the Startup School incubation programme.
Mncwabe says that Startup School invigorated her journey as an entrepreneur. Critical thinking prompts from her coaches challenged her to rethink her business strategy, demonstrating how the programme can reshape and strengthen an existing business.
Setlogane Manchidi
Head of Corporate Social Investments (CSI)
Setlogane.Manchidi@investec.com
Source: The original version of this article was published in the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2023 (26th edition)
