Hello! So you’re thinking about starting a new business in South Africa? You’re not alone! In 2011, South Africa had an estimated 5,579,767 small business owners, accounting for around 12m jobs. Whilst these figures are encouraging, the reality is that South Africa has one of the highest business failure rates in the world, at 75% (source: SME Research).
How can you make sure that your start-up is successful? There’s probably no guaranteed formula, but you can try to maximise your chances of success.
Before you start
Evaluate your idea objectively
Do you have a unique product or service offering. Can you offer a better way of doing things? Can you make money from it?
Do your research
Realistically, will you be able to make a profit? How is the market sector trend at the moment? Who are your competitors and what is the market pricing?
Assemble your team
May business fail due to a lack of business support. Maybe you’re a great innovator, but need to work with someone with presentation skills? Or you’re great at delivery but don’t have time to meet with new customers. Whatever your need, make sure you have the right people supporting you. StartupHero will form a valuable part of your team, whether it’s designing your logo, brand, and website, or doing your book-keeping and accounts to make sure you have full visibility of your cashflow.
Finalise your business plan
This will be a working, ever-changing document. It may change, but it’s important as your guiding document and communication tool, and essential if you need to apply for funding. The StartupHero team is happy to assist you with this, if needed.
Register your company
After you have selected a name for your business, you will need to register it to comply with the law. We know that as an entrepreneur, you have a lot to manage, and your time needs to be spent on running and growing your business, instead of finding time that you don’t have, to research, experiment and understand the CIPC Companies Act of 2000, SARS, Department of Labour. StartupHero is your company specialist. We’re here to help you start, run, and grow your business. We believe in long-term relationships with you, our client.
From the moment you chose to register your companies through us, we’ll assist and fast-track your statutory PAYE and VAT registration, CIDB and Import/Export Licences. Key to starting up a business is your image and brand – we offer professional and affordable logo design, stationary and website design with web hosting.
Critical to your business are the finances. This is where StartupHero is a truly cutting edge solution provider. We offer cloud-based accountancy, bookkeeping, and payroll, so wherever you choose to work, you can still manage your finances, invoices and receipts! To help run and grow your business, you may opt to have regular management reports produced by your dedicated chartered accountant.
Business compliance
Many South African business owners have issues with business compliance, often feeling that there are too many complications and red tape. Keeping up with the regulatory and legislative requirements is time consuming for business owners who need to spend their time on developing their business. But get it wrong, and it can become costly, and even cause a business to fail, or miss out on a big government tender. StartupHero offers a full range of business compliance services. This includes:
- Tax / SARS – We will register your company with SARS. We can help if you have employees, to deduct the correct tax from them and pay it to SARS each month. If your business has an annual turnover in excess of R1 million, StartupHero will also help you with your VAT registration.
- Labour laws – As an employer, we’ll help you to comply with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. StartupHero will also register your business with the Department of Labour for your contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).
- NHBRC – Is your business involved with constructing homes? StartupHero will register your business with the NHBRC, which is a mandatory requirement of The Housing Consumers Protection Measures Act.
- CIDB – Are you interested in tendering government construction projects? StartupHero will register you with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), a statutory body to stimulate sustainable growth, reform and improvement of the construction sector.
Logo design
Logo design is far from an easy process. A company logo is a brand’s identity, to the extent that, more often than not, a logo is more identifiable than the brand’s name! The logo design process requires thinking, artistic inputs and systematic planning. That said, it’s often counter-productive to try to design the perfect logo from the outset before you’ve even made your first sale.
The logo can evolve as your business grows, but should still present the right image to appeal to your target customers. Rather than spend a huge amount of time and money on a logo, that may need to change in a year or two, StartupHero can work with you to design a professional logo to get you started. From R950 you can have a professional company logo in 3 days, saving you much time and money that can be diverted to the rest of your startup requirements. Add R1,000 for a complete identity pack, including stationary design and x500 printed business cards to get you started.
Website design
You’ve got your business identity, through StartupHero’s logo design and identity pack offer. But you most likely need a website and email addresses. Sure, you can use your personal gmail account, but reputation and image is everything.
StartupHero can help. We’ll design you a 5-page website and give you some email addresses to get you started – you just need to provide the content. We’ll even host the website and your emails for a monthly fee. Order online.
Accountancy, bookkeeping, tax and payroll
We are Xero-certified accountants.
