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Archive for February, 2007

Idea Borrowing - Should we be concerned?

To my surprise, while browsing the business section of an airport news agent last week I cast my eyes on the latest UK version of the Marketing Week magazine. On the cover is a picture of Stelios, the entrepreneur behind Easy Jet, the UK version of the no thrills airline idea and various other Easy branded businesses.

As you can see from the images below, the design is very similar to that of my book cover for Release Your Inner Entrepreneur. Is this simply a case of different designers coming up with a similar idea, near duplication of a great design or a plain case of copyright bridging?

VS

This type of thing is seen all too often. Off course the two images are not exactly the same and yes both really originate from the original Super Man idea so you can’t call it duplication. So personally I prefer to take this as more of a compliment as this not only significantly reduce potential stress and time wasted on unsuccessful inquiries.

As entrepreneurs we are often so scared that someone will steal our ideas that we forget that the real key to a successful product is only about 10% dependent on the product itself and 90% dependent on how well we bring that product to the market and manage our growth from there.

Reduction in BEE regulations for small and micro enteprises

It looks like all the research, articles, failing businesses, lack and of start-up capital and lack of confidence in small business circles have finally convinced the SA government that perhaps it’s not realistic to burden start-ups with miles of empowerment red tape. Entrepreneurs and most countries still find the start-up phase of a new venture extremely challenging, so much so that in a country like the UK where so much is being done to support small business in terms of resources, support, reduction in regulations and many other areas, there is still a staggering 60% of new firms which don’t make it past year 2 and 80% don’t make it past year 8.

The SA government recently announced their decision to substantially increase the thresholds for exempted microenterprises from R300000 to R5m, and for qualifying small enterprises to between R5m and R35m.

It must be a huge weight of the shoulders of small firms who take on huge risks to build new firms which in turn create jobs and contribute to the countries GDP, to now be free from the burden of empowerment compliance.

Lets see if our banks will now open their eyes and more importantly their pockets to support the South Africa’s entrepreneurs.

With recent research by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicating as can be seen here that woman in South Africa are more entrepreneurial than men, the first question we are likely to ask is why this is?

If we look at the various factors that contribute to business start-ups, there may be a whole number of factors that may play a role hear.

1) Men in South Africa are traditionally bread winners looking of more secure employment.

2) Statistics show that men are still better educated than woman and this may mean that woman see entrepreneurship as a viable alternative considering their educational backgrounds.

3) The research shows that entrepreneurship is especially strong amongst African woman. Apart from the possible assumption that black African woman are simply more entrepreneurial than the rest of the population (which may be true or not true) it may also mean that this segment of the population may be forced to find ways of creating additional income streams for their families.

4) Leading from the point that woman are still lagging behind in the education stakes, but yet are more entrepreneurial, does this mean that there may be something lacking in the way that South Africans are educated? With so much emphasis being placed on getting the right education to find the right job, there may be no space for entrepreneurial thinking to make an impact.

Whatever the reason, it is something to be celebrated that our woman are taking the lead and making things happen.

The management writer Tom Peters have for years been saying that woman are better employees and managers within organisation. Now it seems that woman are also successfully making the transition from management to entrepreneurship.

Multi million $ and £ investments in performing technology ventures around the world has become almost common practice again over the last two years. Few investors or small firms may have envisioned this following the bursting of the Internet bubble and crashing of technology stocks over the last decade, but it now seems that confidence, albeit a bit more cautious than the nineties version, has now been restored.

To many South African entrepreneurs the large amounts invested in start-ups abroad may have seemed like more of a mirage, we know its there but still out of reach. This dream came a little closer to reality last week when HBD venture capital fund founded by South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth invested R15m in IncuBeta, an Internet marketing company found by Vinny Lingham, well known amongst bloggers and technology lovers in South Africa.

It is very reassuring to know that there are still plenty of funding sources available for the right idea. Technology start-ups in particular now has more support than ever before with the likes of HBD, The Innovation Hub, Enablis and many other venture firms ready to invest in solid ideas with international growth potential. One can not help but think that internet giants EBay, Google and yahoo! are indirectly to thank for this following their ongoing string of high profile and higher priced buy outs of successful Internet companies such as, YouTube, Flicker, SKype, PayPal and Picasa bit to name a few.

Congratulations Vinny for pulling this one off and I trust that as far as SA start-ups go this will be the first one of many success stories.

Business idea of the week: Climbing walls for swimming pools

This week we look at this great little idea, which seems tailor made for the South African summer.

By this time of year apart from the vocational refreshing dip in the
pool most of us have run out of excuses to stay in the water for longer
than five minutes. What else is there to do once you have played all
the ball games you can think of and have perfected your handstands or
and bull fights. Enter the poolside climbing wall.

A modular system of 3' x 3' (1 x 1 m) fiberglass panels allows walls to be configured to fit any pool width and height. The panels include rock features, inset and protruding handholds, which can be moved around to vary climbing difficulty. Although the default color scheme is aqua (blues and greens), custom colors are available to match a pool's surroundings.

Any poolside product obviously needs to be very safe. AquaClimb states that its walls are safer than slides or diving boards, since children start off in the water, instead of running around the pool's edge. Also, AquaClimb frames tilt over the water, keeping falling climbers away from the side of the pool. The company recommends roping off a 10 foot area from the AquaClimb to establish a 'drop zone'. The walls don't come with weight or age restrictions, and are sturdy enough to hold adults.

Prices start at R 75 000 and average delivery time is four to six weeks, with demand obviously peaking during the summer months. Customers include public swimming pools, summer camps, residential pools, schools, recreation centers and water parks. AquaClimb is manufactured by Pyramide USA Inc., a leading sport climbing wall provider based in the USA. The company currently only has international dealers in Australia and Western Canada, and welcomes dealer applications (dealers@aquaclimb.com).
Website: www.aquaclimb.com

Upside: No licence dealer in South Africa yet, so opportunity
to become the sole agent. With a massive market of not only homes but
also schools, clubs, pre-school facilities, health clubs and just about
anywhere else where you'll find water and kids (both young and not so
young), its difficult to see this not working.

Downside: Its difficult to see the downside on this one but marketing
and advertising cost could be fairly high in the start-up stages with
a strong sales team being a must on this one. Health n safety issues
will need consideration.

Verdict: Fantastic opportunity, easy to start, not yet available in South Africa, get there first and you have a winner.