The Solunar Column

Welcome to my blog

90% of new start-ups fail; 75% of start-ups that are financed by venture capitalists fail; under 50% of businesses make it to their 5th year of operation; only 30% of all start-ups make it to the 10-year mark and of the start-ups that do make it, only 40% of them actually turn a profit (Bobby Chernev: 2020). The president of the Republic of South Africa has numerously stated that the most effective way that young people can tackle the gruesome issue of unemployment that is currently ripping through the fabric of the country’s hopes and dreams is through innovation and entrepreneurship but with the odds hugely stacked against us, as it stands, do we stand a chance?

Salutations to you and yours, my name is Sandile Nkosi, I am currently enrolled with the University of South Africa studying towards a Bachelor of Accounting Science in Financial Accounting degree and, like many young South Africans, I am an entrepreneur with the hope of becoming a centi-billionaire serial investor and venture capitalist in the near (or not so near) future. Most entrepreneurs believe that they were born for entrepreneurship, some go on state that they began trading or selling at tender ages, well not me.

For the most part of my life I had strongly believed that I was born to be a scientist with a vested interest in forensic pathology. My life revolved around scientific experiments, Dmitri Mendeleyev’s periodic table of elements, math and science competitions and double bill episodes of Medical Detectives. But (and I know better than to start a sentence with a conjunction) little did I know that a little chance encounter was going to topple that interest in far more destructive ways than the atomic bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. That ‘little chance encounter’ saw me being academically excluded from Wits University (where I was studying towards a general BSc degree) faster than I could say ‘stoichiometry’ but that is a fun story for another exciting day.

Back to that ‘little chance encounter’ that you might have by now (understandably) concluded and deemed it to be an ungodly encounter deserving to burn in the unforgiving pits of hell:
It is an unsuspecting late afternoon sometime in 2016, I am in matric and after an exhausting day at school I am, deservedly, browsing through the internet minding my own business (other people’s business really) and as the good and gracious God would have it, I scroll through a link that would rewrite my whole existence as I had imagined it. It was a free online course from Ed X boldly titled, ‘Introduction to Marketing’.

At that instance I felt an astronomical sense of interest burning through my veins and before my mind could answer I had already clicked on the link and had begun typing in my name and surname in the registration form to register for the course. I was so eager to find out what the course had entailed and lo and behold what awaited me on the other side of the registration form was mind-blowing course content that would knock me off my toughees and send me shooting all the way to Mars!

The first lesson presentation was on real-time marketing and segmentation (if my memory serves me well) and boy was it exciting! I was introduced into a whole new world, a world I did not know existed, a world so mind-blowingly interesting I fell in love with it right there and then. Topping it all off, it was presented by two vibrant male professors with bald heads and nerdy glasses, God bless those guys wherever they are (and I am a terrible person for forgetting their names).

For the first time in my entire life, I began seeing myself as something other than an engineer nor a scientist, I was a marketer and the very idea of it sent shivers down my spine, I loved it! To cut straight to the chase, that course is the reason why I am studying Financial Accounting and loving every demanding moment of it.

Enrolling for that course was how I found my way into and fell in love with entrepreneurship. That is why you are reading this blog post right now. After having read the opening stats I was concerned since my business partner and I are also on the verge of setting up a start-up of our own. I began researching around why start-ups fail so as to learn of the problems that entrepreneurs face and find or come up with ways to counter them so that current our start-up and all the entrepreneurial pursuits that I will commit to now and in the future do not suffer the same fate.

Hence this blog. With this blog I aim to research, identify and critique most problems that entrepreneurs face with the conception of their start-ups and find practical solutions to share with everyone who may be interested. Together, we will tackle everything from product-pricing to corporate culture to taxation and everything in between. The articles will be posted on regular intervals and made publicly available for everyone to access at will.

I would be lying through my teeth if I claimed to know much about entrepreneurship or finance, heck! I am only halfway through my degree. But if there is any chance that the little that I know may help someone’s business survive another day and give them a fighting chance, then that is good enough for me and that slight possibility is the reason why I started this blog and I hope it serves its intended purpose. I can only but hope that this blog goes a way long in the fight against one of the hardest hitting and ruthlessly persisting problems facing Mother Azania and her people, UNEMPLOYMENT.

Now, with that said my friends, WELCOME TO THE SOLUNAR COLUMN!