The Hustlers Paradise: Naledi Kasala
Entrepreneur: Naledi Kasala Industry: Fashion and Retail
Entrepreneurship to me means
Having control of your finances. Entrepreneurship means being your own boss, decision making and working harder than anyone. It’s tough, because you have to make means and get money to survive. You everything in the business especially when starting up. Everything is new and every decision may cost you or work for you. So entrepreneurship to me, is being an eco-system driver, all by yourself.
Background
Naledi from Soweto. 23 years old and a big dreamer, as she studies her information Technology in Network management, full time student at Rosebank College. Naledi is going her third year and final year. A mother of a beautiful 3 year old and a hustler at heart. Her business is her "side hustle", she sells apparel clothing, make up and sneakers. I started my business Dressed By Jay. The business had so many names but after some time in running it, I choose to stick to Dressed By jay.
Do you believe in destiny or do you think one can control their own fate?
Bestselling author and spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra says we need a new way of looking at fate and free will. He believes that they are both influential in our lives, and that while fate might appear to have more influence over us, the balance keeps shifting the more we learn about it, so we might as well "assume that [our] potential for mastery is much greater than anyone now supposes." This is similar to how I believe our destiny can be shaped by our decisions. However, I recognize that this is not always as easy as it seems. We often become frozen in our decision-making, feeling like the choice is out of our hands or part of some bigger plan that we aren't the director of. Naledi says it’s 50/50. I do believe in destiny simply because i am a spiritual being, i also think that people can align their luck by just focusing their energies on the positive things, very often we say its luck but i believe everything is controlled by God willing.
How has it been managing school work and business?
Okay, honestly it is difficult because i am a full time student so i try to make time for my business because im getting requests from customers every single day. So there’s no easy way. School comes with exams, assignments and tests, so i need to juggle that as well and to top it off i am a mother to a 3years old. It’s really hectic but i work very well under pressure so i kind of enjoy it.
What are the challenges you face as an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurs face many challenges in today’s ultra-competitive business world; fortunately, contemporary times have also blessed entrepreneurs with more resources for tackling those problems than ever before. For Naledi at the moment it’s nothing really hectic but one of the major ones is learning how to deal with people because people tend to be very difficult. So you need to be very good at reading and assessing people from what they like and how they want to be treated, how you should address them. Some are rude. Especially the ones that have high financial statuses, they tend to belittle you, therefore as an entrepreneur you need to be humble despite how they've treated you, just to get business going. Otherwise i am not facing a lot of challenging because im slowly progressing, and they’ll probably come as i grow but right now im trying to balance my lifestyle, school, motherhood and business.
Some of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs today, defines why each problem exists, and offers solutions so you can operate an efficient and successful business. Cash flow is essential to small business survival, yet many entrepreneurs struggle to pay the bills (let alone themselves) while they’re waiting for checks to arrive. Part of the problem stems from delayed invoicing, which is common in the entrepreneurial world. You perform a job, send an invoice, and then get paid (hopefully) 30 days later. In the meantime, you have to pay everything from your employees or contractors to your mortgage to your grocery bill. Waiting to get paid can make it difficult to get by – and when a customer doesn’t pay, you can risk everything. Proper budgeting and planning are critical to maintaining cash flow, but even these won’t always save you from stressing over bills. One way to improve cash flow is to require a down payment for your products and services. Your down payment should cover all expenses associated with a given project or sale as well as some profit for you. By requiring a down payment, you can at least rest assured you won’t be left paying others’ bills; by padding the down payment with some profit, you can pay your own.
Do you know who dreads job interviews the most? It’s not prospective candidates – its entrepreneurs. The hiring process can take several days of your time: reviewing resumes, sitting through interviews, sifting through so many unqualified candidates to find the diamonds in the rough. Then, you only hope you can offer an attractive package to get the best people on board and retain them long-term. Be exclusive. Far too many help wanted ads are incredibly vague in terms of what qualifications candidates must have, what the job duties are, what days and hours will be worked, and what wages and benefits will be paid. You can save yourself a ton of time by pre-qualifying candidates through exclusive help wanted ads that are ultra-specific in what it takes to be hired at your firm, as well as what the day-to-day work entails. Approach your employee hunt the same way you would approach a customer-centric marketing campaign: through excellent targeting.
Time management might be the biggest problem faced by entrepreneurs, who wear many (and all) hats. If you only had more time, you could accomplish so much more! Make time. Like money, it doesn’t grow on trees, of course, so you have to be smart about how you’re spending it. Here’s how: Create goal lists: You should have a list of lifetime goals, broken down into annual goals, broken down into monthly goals, and then broken down into weekly goals. Your weekly goals, then will be broken down into specific tasks by day. In this manner, what is on your task list in any given day is all you need to do to stay on track with your lifetime goals. If any tasks do not mesh with your goals, eliminate it or delegate them. If any tasks do not absolutely have to be completed by you, delegate them. Consistently ask yourself: “Is what I’m doing right now the absolute best use of my time?”
You know you need to delegate or outsource tasks, but it seems every time you. Find good employees (see above) and good outsourced contract help, for starters. You might have to pay a little more for it, but the savings in time (and the resulting earning potential) more than make up for it. Next, be ultra-specific as to what you want done. It will take a little more time at first, but write down detailed steps listing exactly what you want your help to do. Don’t make assumptions, and don’t assume your help will be able to think for themselves (they can, but they will complete the job verbatim because that’s what they’re trained to do). So, don’t say “list stats in a spreadsheet” when you can say “alphabetically list XYZ in the right spreadsheet column, then list statistic A in the next column.” It might seem like overkill, but take the time to be specific once and your help will get it right every time thereafter.
How do you attract customers?
Naledi says she has two ways of attracting customers. One being face to face/ one on one marketing with whomever i meet and is interested in a product or the service that i am offering and social media, mainly twitter. This is definitely the oldest form of marketing and advertising used by businesses since the world began. While it may bring slower results than radio or television, it still works very well. Because people are becoming increasingly suspicious of paid advertising, I still think word-of-mouth remains one of the most trusted methods in the world today. When a customer is happy and satisfied with a product or service, there’s a natural human tendency that they are likely to share this experience with people in their circle of trust and influence – family, friends, colleagues, neighbours and sometimes, strangers.
Satisfied customers become foot soldiers, evangelists and advocates for your business. It is amazing how many of your satisfied customers will go to great lengths to promote, convince, protect and defend your business outside. Word-of-mouth is so effective and powerful that many successful business rely solely on this method to advertise and market their products and services. Network marketing businesses are a good example.
How important is it for young people to start their own businesses and what are the benefits?
Naledi thinks it’s really important because we need to understand that not all of us can work. There’s a lot of youth in SA and creating or starting your own business exposes you to so much more than at a 9-5... And helps you manage your finances better and flexible as opposed to waiting for month, which i found as a problem. You learn a lot in business. People skills improve. You have enough time to make mistakes. This is one of the biggest benefits you have. You start making five figures per month by the time you get old. Lost cash because of a wrong decision.
In an article by Udit Goenka. Some of the benefits are learn from the mistakes, less pressure in case of Failure. When you are young, you will have very less pressure from the society. This point is a boon because if you fail, thousands of people around you will jump to give you the suggestions along with tonnes of criticism. Energy Level, compare yourself with a 30–40–50 year old person, your productivity will be 10x higher if you are starting out young. Learn from different people, one of the biggest advantage is that you can connect with multiple people and learn very quickly. No Financial Pressure, if you are based out of India, you will be able to relate to this point. When you are young, Indian parents would never pressurize you to go and make money.
How did you start dress by Jay?
Dress by Jay was started when i was doing first year in tertiary. I am a liker of things and i started doing this in order to maintain that lifestyle and to eliminate financial stress from my parents and my partner. So that’s how it started and people took a liking to it. I am still running it alone but have two brand ambassadors that help promote the brand through social media then reimburse on a monthly basis so also creating jobs.
What do think is preventing South African businesses from growing?
Naledi says that it has to be funding... A lot of business owners are scared to take risks without having something to fall back on. And most people don’t believe in the youth, or someone without any employment because as is, one cannot get a loan without proof. Whatever the force that drives young entrepreneurs to get their ideas off the ground, the fact remains that there are many obstacles they will have to overcome before they can get their ventures off the ground. Here are some of them.
Sanele Makinane, on an article, the real barriers to entrepreneurship in South Africa. Many young entrepreneurs cite lack of funding as the primary problem they face in getting their businesses off the ground. Few of them realise that this lack of funding is actually a consequence of a far bigger concern – lack of a credible deal pipeline in their ventures. Most young people who want to go into business have amazing ideas for products or services, but they struggle to come up with a longer-term lifespan projection for their ideas. They cannot plot their concepts’ economic viability. They fail to consider the implications of implementation, operational requirements, market receptivity, sustainability, scalability, impact and a host of other factors that investors look at before they will even consider a deal.
The problem is we live in a very risk-averse society. South African consumers, businesses and investors tend to be too cautious in everything we do. There is a sense of apprehension when it comes to consuming locally conceived and produced commodities. We need to support and embrace local industry and innovation. Take Mark Shuttleworth’s Ubuntu operating system. As South Africans we should be supporting this product. Local businesses should be scrambling to install it. Yet we prefer to use Microsoft because it’s what we’re used to and it does a decent enough job. The same holds true in many creative industries. Fashion designer David Tlale is a good example. It was only once he was recognised on international catwalks that his fashion started being taken seriously in South Africa. As long as South African businesses and consumers remain risk-averse, confidence in local innovation will remain low and investment in small businesses is unlikely to grow.
There are certain elements of bureaucracy in South Africa that hampers an entrepreneur’s ability to move forward with his or her ideas. Take the Public Finance Management Act, for example. While it’s crucial function as a tool to guide and account for public spending cannot be refuted, it should be flexible enough to grant discretionary decision-making powers to leaders of the bodies that it regulates. Any entrepreneur approaching a government department, agency or state-owned enterprise with an idea is usually stalled by process. It takes time to get all the necessary approvals in place – and in most instances, time is crucial when it comes to launching an innovative idea. It’s often more about how quickly you can get your idea to market than the brilliance of the idea itself. If a leader can’t make quick, discretionary decisions, it creates massive bottlenecks. The processes that were designed to assist and protect entrepreneurs actually end up preventing their ideas from seeing the light of day. The other option for entrepreneurs is to try and identify loopholes and take advantage of them. But this is a short-term solution that fixes the symptom rather than the cause.
Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
I want to open a boutique that sell limited edition things to people or my target market. I am also studying now so i might also get into that industry.
What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
It means you're a go getter, someone who knows what they want. You’re scared to break rules and make our own. You’re trendsetter and you’re self-motivated and patient. It means you’re always on the lookout. I also believe it’s something you are born in, it’s not something you learn, it happens naturally, easily and with minimum effort.
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