Expert Financial & Business Insights for South Africa
Strategic analysis from Idea Accelerator and ready-to-publish content from Financial News Daily.
A woman visited Costa Rica on a surfing holiday but had problems with the surfwear which kept coming off. She came up with an idea to make swimwear a suitable for women surfers. Before long she had a surfwear line available in surf shops and other outlets.
People wish they could come up with new business ideas but hit a brick wall. It’s as though the creative imagination has gone on holiday. Continue reading “The heart of creative thinking – for new business ideas”
A man in Auckland, New Zealand, retired after 40 years in a timber manufacturing business and now together with his daughter has started The Village Market. The idea that Laurie Saunders and his daughter Jo Saunders came up with is to try reproduced traditional thousand-year-old village markets. They want potential customers to experience everything they including site smell and taste. Laurie believes that small markets is the way small businesses start out. Continue reading “Do you have a creative vision for developing small businesses?”
Growing up in Kalk Bay, Cape Town, my mother used to make delicious pickled fish. Being so close to a real, working fishing harbour she was able to buy fresh fish for frying, baking and pickling. My father had a ski boat and he would catch various fish which could be pickled such as Cape Salmon, white Steenbras and yellowtail.
On Sunday we ate delicious pickled fish for lunch. But this pickle fish was not made in Cape Town where one would expect pickle fish to be made but was rather made in Bloemfontein in the Free State. Interesting, isn’t it, that a small business in the heart of the country has come up with an idea to produce pickled fish and make it available in various convenience stores and butcheries. Continue reading “A tool that helps you decide if your new business idea is viable or not”
Have you ever found a diamond in the ground, in a river or deep beneath the sea?
I have never met anybody who stumbled across a real diamond in nature. Most diamonds anyway are found in restricted areas that are demarcated for mining. I suppose if you, for example, lived along the Orange River you may have heard stories about the old diamond prospectors who came across these precious stones in the river. Continue reading “Where do small business ideas come from?”
One Saturday afternoon I went to a one-hour photo lab to have an A4 size print made. These days the term “one-hour” is a misnomer because the print was done and dusted within 10 minutes. While I was waiting for the print, I looked around at the cameras and accessories in the one-hour photo lab. A camera in one of the display cabinets caught my eye. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. After so many years, the “Polaroid” instant camera was back. Continue reading “The past may be a rich source of new business ideas”
I visited a coffee and cake shop in Parys, Free State, called Plumb Bakery. This coffee and cake shop has been operating in the main road of Parys for several years. It’s become quite pricey and so I decided on my next visit into town from where we were staying next to the river to have coffee at the competition, which has been set up recently, at a coffee and French-style cuisine restaurant called La Vie en Rose. When I asked the manager, who by the way was a local detective moonlighting on a Sunday for the owner, what sort of business volume each of the shops experienced, she told me that it was about half. Continue reading “How does your small business stack up against your competition?”
I took four people on a fishing trip along the Vaal River near Parys. All were beginners who had never caught a fish in their lives before. Neither had they paddled an inflatable raft upstream. But after some basic instruction they were able to paddle the raft about a kilometre up the river. The two fishing guides who were with us did not paddle – they steered and navigated the raft through the river waters. Continue reading “Can you count on beginners luck in starting something from scratch?”
A young woman began acquiring valuable business skills as a restaurant chef and manager. She worked in restaurants in Johannesburg and at private game lodges. A country girl at heart, she eventually ended up in the small Free State town of Parys and got a job as an assistant manager at the Ruby’s restaurant. The owner was more interested in relocating to Cape Town and the young restaurant owner seized this opportunity. She decided to buy out Ruby’s restaurant. Now she is building on this fine dining restaurant’s reputation and is loving it. Continue reading “Protect and grow your most valuable asset”
To start something new that you know virtually nothing about can be terrifying. Staking your money and your life on starting a new venture of any size requires dealing with fear of the unknown. How do you overcome your fear of starting something from scratch?
Being able to see things in perspective can be valuable. With the right perspective you can control and manage your fears. When you do manage your fear you will be able to go into your new venture with quiet strength and confidence. Continue reading “How the story of the giant can help you address the terror of starting your own business”
Some official was supposed to be inspiring young men and women about small business but ended up making nasty, unkind remarks about the origin of business people in the country. Sadly, this official was just displaying typical ignorance. The official even made some off-hand comment about certain people having “business in their blood”, which was a sweeping generalisation.
This is the kind of nonsense that is spouted from uninformed people who merely display prejudice and inaccurate thinking. But do you really have to have business in your blood to be a successful small business person? Continue reading “Does business have to be in your blood?”
