It is no secret that entrepreneurial activity in South Africa has been oppressed by numerous large economic factors in South Africa such as poverty and the lack of business education.
Some entrepreneurs rise up through these circumstances and launch their business anyway, just to realise, that now they have new hurdles which are obstructing them to enter the formal marketplace in South Africa. CIPC, SARS, Branding, Trademarks and numerous compliance requirements can take months to sort out and costs some entrepreneurs up to R50 000 before they have even sold a single product / service.
Starting out
Business Care (trading as PtyCompanyRegistration.co.za) recognised that the first roadblock is the Company Registration process at CIPC. They decided that it would create value to assist entrepreneurs with this process and therefore started to do these registrations on behalf of entrepreneurs (online) in 2006. Through an application process on their website they started to register CC’s (now Pty’s) at CIPC.
Their YouTube video explains this process which ‘Thabo’ went through:
Over the past year, this company has become the strongest “Company Services Platform” in South Africa, shifting their focus to ‘Start-Up Packages for Entrepreneurs’ instead of Company Registrations only.
To compete in a competitive marketplace, a new company needs at least the ‘basics’ in place before launching. This team of 18 people, of which 7 are entrepreneurs themselves, are currently serving over 500 local and international clients monthly – and everything is done online from their offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
They have made it a priority to tackle all the roadblocks which stand in the way of entrepreneurs when they’re starting out in South Africa.
Serving the client
Business Care believes that:
- Understanding the entrepreneur’s business;
- Taking the start-up budget in consideration;
- Prioritising services;
are key to serving their clients in the best way possible. For this reason they have put a ‘Licensee Structure’ in place:
According to Liam Stander, the Director in charge of Business Care’s business growth, the reason for this structure is simple:
“You need to be an entrepreneur to serve an entrepreneur”. Both the licensees have business experience, and more than that: “start-up experience”. Norman Swanepoel and Brend Badenhorst both own a License which entitles them to build their own business operating from PtyCompanyRegistration.co.za.
It also encourages them to take ownership of each client and his / her needs, as their company’s performance and future depends on it.
The average entrepreneur tends to either underspend or overspend on Start-up Services.
On the PtyCompanyRegistration.co.za website, entrepreneurs can find extensive
information on a massive amount of services (BEE, Tax, Logos, etc.) and types of companies (Construction, Cleaning, Transport, Security etc.).
They can then get a free consultation on the services they need to start-up, by dialing a toll free number (0800 007 269) and speaking to an experienced, well-informed consultant. As an entrepreneur needs to use their limited start-up capital wisely, the consultant will then advise the client on the necessities required to start-up or ‘launch’ their business as per the Start-Up Diagram below illustrates:
There are ‘necessities’ and ‘investments’ when it comes to business services. As soon as the necessities are covered which enables a company to launch, the business can start trading and generate an income before investing any more capital into the business’ formalisation / potential growth.
For a typical business we would advise to get the basic services at the lowest possible cost:
- Pty Company
- Business bank account & potential funding
- Tax Registration & Verification
- Logo
- Website.
We ensure that this ‘launch phase’ is done within 1 month and costs our clients less than R4 000. After the company has launched and starts to generate an income, it would be a good idea to ‘upgrade’ by initiating the ‘Formalise’ and ‘Grow’ phase as per the diagram below.
Our Cape Town based team follows: