Johannesburg. 29 November 2017. The South African Breweries (SAB) has announced the winners in its annual SAB KickStart Boost Awards. SAB KickStart Boost is SAB’s youth entrepreneurship development programme which has been running for the past 22 years.
CAPTION: 2017 SAB KickStart Boost winner, Legogang Lekalakala of B-MA Servies (left).
The overall winner is Lebogang Lekalakala with a prize of R500 000. Lebogang is the owner of B-MA, a business, based in Pretoria, that services and repairs BMW and Mini Cooper vehicles that are no longer under motor plan.
Second place in the programme competition was awarded to Zama Buthelezi, owner of The She Creative House CC, a vegetable farm owner that specialising in sustainable farming practices, based in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Zama receives a R400 000 prize.
Third place was jointly awarded to Nthabiseng Lemena, owner of clothes manufacturing business, Lemena TN Solutions (Pty) from Welkom in the Free State and Tshepo Mdake, owner of Shangilia Boutique Spa, a beauty and wellness business, based in Hammanskraal in Pretoria. Nthabiseng and Tshepo share a prize of R300 000.
Cash prizes will be invested in each business and in addition, the winners will receive further business mentorship, looking specifically at market access opportunities within SAB and other private and public organizations.
The winners were four of nine finalists in the SAB KickStart Boost Programme to participate in an 18 month long programme which offers a combination of business skills training, business development support, mentorship, zero interest seed capital loans, and grant funding.
The adjudication process to select the top entrepreneurs was length and judges, which consisted of SAB leadership and independent business mentors, had a tough decision to make. The winners were selected based on their personal as well as commercial performance during the programme, which included their business growth based on the capital injection, the number of jobs created, as well as the potential and sustainability of the businesses to grow further.
Additionally, judges took into consideration the leadership qualities that the finalists portrayed. “It is important to back people who will be ambassadors of the SAB KickStart programme as their businesses reach new heights. Legonga, Zama, Nthabiseng and Tshepo portrayed all of those qualities. We are extremely proud of them,” says Phumzile Chifunyise, Enterprise Development Specialist, SAB and AB InBev Africa.
This year’s SAB KickStart Boost Awards theme was, “Fuelling the fire of youth business”. “As SAB, we believe that we are at the very core of what youth businesses need to grow. We don’t believe in short term interventions, and so every element that we impart into youth businesses is an opportunity to elevate and to take youth businesses to the next level,” says Chifunyise.
The SAB KickStart Boost finalists underwent an intensive business skills boot camp in September 2016, and for the remainder of 2017, they embarked on the individualised mentorship programme that focused on personal and business development. An interactive approach was followed to implement the development, which included business development toolkits, templates, readings, case studies, real business challenges to solve.
SAB partnered with the Awethu Project, a local SMME investment company, who assigned a mentor to the entrepreneurs on a one on one and group development basis. The entrepreneurs plotted a growth strategy that was linked to their required financial support. The mentor was pivotal in seeing the growth strategy through alongside the entrepreneurs, and provided technical guidance on how to best to allocate resources and grow their businesses.
Collectively the finalists created a total of 36 jobs - 25 permanent and 11 part-time - since being part of the SAB KickStart Boost Programme. As a unit, the finalists employ a total of 61 employees.
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About SAB KickStart
The programme is SAB’s flagship programme that has been running since 1995 and focuses on youth owned businesses. It is focused on investing in youth entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35.
The programme backs black entrepreneurs with existing, emerging businesses in key industries that are aligned to supply chains.
There are two programmes within the SAB KickStart offering – SAB KickStart Boost and SAB KickStart Ignite.
SAB KickStart Boost is a supply chain readiness programme that’s built around a key objective: Enabling high potential youth owned business to become suppliers of various organisations in the private and public sector, thereby fast-tracking the transformation of the economy. We back entrepreneurs with existing, emerging businesses in key industries to be ready for and to access supply chains, and as a result grow into sustainable businesses that create jobs.
Eligible business have been operational for a minimum of 18 months, in the post-revenue stage (sales made and concept proven), generate at least R200 000 than R5 million in revenue per annum, employ a maximum of 15 employees (temporary or fulltime or a combination), be at least 51% black owned and managed, and demonstrate high growth potential that is scalable, with a sustainable competitive advantage.
SAB KickStart Ignite supports disruptive innovators that have innovative businesses and products that have high potential to grow into viable businesses that can solve our business challenges and can grow to be future creators of employment. Eligible entrepreneurs receive technical product and business development support which includes one on one mentoring, prototyping, commercialisation, and financial support where required. SAB KickStart Ignite acts as a pipeline of entrepreneurs for more advanced programmes such as SAB KickStart Boost.
