About top-up

Top-up began as a monthly business newsletter to SMEs in South Africa.

It is now read in businesses all over the country.

It evolved over the first months to use government, state-owned enterprises or large private-sector companies as examples of how business should not be done.

Although I'm fairly cynical, it's not my intention to slate them for no good reason, but people all over the country know these organisations and can relate to them easily. Many have been, or still are, monopolies with long histories that remain associated with our politics, past and present.

They appear in the news regularly; are household names.

Even relatively uneducated people understand criticisms that have become urban myths and in South Africa, many entrepreneurs have no training and minimal schooling. Between 25% and 50% of our adults are unemployed. They start businesses of their own simply because they have no other route to an income.

If their businesses succeed, they are on a permanent learning curve.

Our developing country is in, as they say, transition. I guess that's an easy way of saying that business is made up of several different economies (although the powers that be like to think there are only two: first-world and third-world).

In fact, there is no comparison between the single mother who sells a few products on a street corner, the family man who starts a business because he cannot find a job, the entrepreneur with real vision and the fat cats who aim to become billionnaires by fair means or foul.

South Africa has 11 official languages, which means many are English illiterate or A-literate. They don't, in fact, read much English at all, but use languages such as Xhosa, Zulu or Sotho in their homes. While they are unlikely ever to read these newsletters cum blogs, they are an integral part of our society and should not be forgotten.

Those who are generally perceived to be better qualified make the same mistakes that entrepreneurs all over the world make: they fail to market their businesses enough, take short cuts that can get them on the wrong side of the law (or at least the tax man); get into cash-flow difficulties or simply find themselves getting out of their depth if their businesses grow too fast.

Being an MDO is lonely and difficult.

There's seldom enough money for a board of directors, never enough time to achieve all that is necessary and there's always someone wanting a piece of you.

Many go out on their own because they cannot stand their bosses and are not team players. They may be brilliant in their field, but coming to grips with intricate labour laws, keeping on top of their creditors and delivering superb service is a lot for one person to manage.

On looking over the archived material, I see that these blogs provide month-by-month social commentary of a sort. That was not the original intention, but things often pan out differently to the way expected.

After all, someone's got to write history...