Monday is World Entrepreneur Day, and we are celebrating the creative minds, makers, and risk-takers who are using their companies to make significant improvements in their communities.
Here are four of South Africa’s very own who are paving the way for other entrepreneurs:
Kegan Peffer
Peffer is the chief executive of Adoozy Power. The business boasts Africa's first contact-less power bank rental network and allows customers to utilise smartphone power on the move.
“Born out of the pandemic, we started the company in 2020 based on the realisation that there has to be a solution to the panic one feels when their phone battery dies.
“We thought, surely others also feel anxious when their phone has no power? Also, in looking at the country’s pain points around power supply and the need to stay connected during lockdown, we were certain this was a solution that could work,” said Peffer.
Damian Michael
He is the founder and chief executive of Innovo Networks. This is a level 1 BBBEE voice, data and cloud communications service provider.
It is celebrating 10 years of keeping the doors open this year, which is difficult for any start-up, especially because South Africa has the highest start-up failure rate in the world.
“It’s been a tough ride, but my curiosity for disruptive tech and passion for helping other businesses differentiate with cost-effective ICT has kept me looking forward. Ten years already, not too bad for a shy, quiet Indian boy from Durbs,” said Michael.
Nathalie Schooling
Schooling is an author and chief executive of award winning customer experience agency, nlightencx.
She was one of the first persons and woman in South Africa to pioneer the customer experience movement. People thought she was crazy when she opened the doors of her CX agency in 2005.
According to Schooling, people thought the endeavour was too risky. “I didn’t listen to the naysayers, as tempting as it was. That would have been the easier choice. I decided instead to go for what I believed in.”
Louis Fourie
Fourie, co-founder of Venture Workspace, is blazing a trail in addressing the demand for a much greater range of co-working spaces in Cape Town’s suburbs (now in Claremont, Constantia, and Somerset West - and recently inaugurated in Fourways in Johannesburg).
Going to work for the entrepreneur and being of service to a community is tremendously rewarding for him because of his passion for people and hospitality. He frequently compares it to owning an office hotel.
“I love coming to work and being a part of an environment where people from different backgrounds, cultures and industries socialise and get together—the CEO of a company can chat to the graphic designer in the office next door. There’s this mingling of industries, and that’s not something that would happen in your traditional building.”
IOL