Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa October 2018 | Page 62

INSPIRATION
Failing can put an entrepreneur
on the path to eventual success
F
our top entrepreneurs share the lessons they have learned
from their failures with Entrepreneurship To The Point in
order to help other small businesses.
Discover valuable lessons in entrepreneurship, perseverance,
and purpose shared by:
• Ludwick Marishane, founder of Headboy Industries and
investor of Drybath
• Letty Ngobeni, founder and CEO of Integrico and
Mndhavazi Trading Enterprise
• Vere Shaba, director of engineering consulting firm Shaba
Green Building Design & Engineering
• Juan Pienaar, founder of Apex Media, Founding Partner of
Thought Engine
Failure is inevitable but it isn’t final; every stumbling block is
also a stepping stone to success.
Entrepreneurship To The Point hosted by Property Point,
the Growthpoint Properties initiative, recently plugged into the
experience of four respected entrepreneurs who are not afraid
of failure.
These successful business people have failed, learned from it,
and used the lessons to power them forward in their business
journeys. (You can listen to the Entrepreneurship To The Point
podcast for their stories at https://www.ettp.co.za/ppmedias/
point-session-26-july-2018/).
Face the harsh truths
Ludwick Marishane is the
founder of Headboy Industries
and inventor of DryBath, the
world’s first waterless bathing
lotion. He has been rated as the
best student entrepreneur in the
world and Google named him
one of the 12 Brightest Young
Minds in the World. TIME
magazine ranked him one of the 30 people under 30 who is
changing the world.
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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
“From the beginning and for the first four years of the
business’s life, the problem was that we were actually selling the
product to the wrong customers,” admits Marishane. “This was
tough to accept.”
DryBath was designed for people who didn’t have a steady
supply of water and couldn’t afford hygiene. Marishane came up
with the idea while in high school, but only developed it later
at university where he was promoting it to his peers or elders.
“While they liked the idea as a concept, they weren’t putting
their hands in their pockets. The moment of truth only came
when we tried to sell it to high school kids.”
Marishane says there are harsh realities that you have to face
as an entrepreneur. “If you face them you won’t fail, but if you
struggle to face them then you are destined to fail. My personal
definition of failure is when you get to the point that you stop
trying. There is nothing wrong with that. When there is evidence
that a specific idea in a specific market at a specific time will
not work, keep an eye on it and, maybe in future, a variable may
change. It’s also about timing and luck.”
One of the key lessons Marishane has learned along his
journey is the importance of the scientific method. “I believe
that engineers and scientist make the best entrepreneurs simply
because of their process of thinking. When you have an idea of
value, with the potential to create economic value, you need to
test that theory. A business that has failed is one where you have
been a bad scientist. Know why a business didn’t work. If you
don’t know why then you have failed.”
Do your due diligence
Letty Ngobeni is founder and
CEO of Integrico (Pty) Ltd and
Mndhavazi Trading Enterprise
(Pty)Ltd, runner-up for National
Business Woman of the year
for Women in Property and a
Property Point alumnus. She
also owns a chain of butcheries as
well as a coffee shop named Cup ‘O Joy, which can be found in
corporate buildings such as MTN.