Alex Youth equipped to scale up survival businesses
Xpose accelerator is helping Alexandra’s youth transform their survival businesses into scalable ventures.
From 20th Avenue to Pan Africa Shopping Centre, Alexandra’s sidewalks are alive with entrepreneurial activity.
Hawkers sell vegetables, fruit, and others repair shoes to survive amid increasing poverty and scarcity of better economic opportunities.
Many skills development programmes have highlighted the significance of venturing into entrepreneurship as a way to reclaim one’s economic power. But a local organisation revealed that starting, while commendable, is not enough. Sustainability, scale, and strategy are what matter now.
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This was emphasised during the Xpose Level Up Accelerator, hosted by Tshehetso Youth Foundation (TYF) at 3 Square Sports Stadium on July 9. According to business coach Ndzutha Mngqibisa, the programme is built to help youth pivot from hand-to-mouth hustling toward full-scale, market-ready business models.
“At the moment, these youths are people who are coming straight from school. They don’t necessarily have an understanding of how to convert a business from an A-level type of business into a C-level type, where you have books and employees. It is where you are now getting into logistics and so on,” he shared.
Ndzutha said they were showing these entrepreneurs what their businesses could become. He explained that day one of the four-day boot camp focused on vision casting, day two honed discipline and habits, and day three immersed young people deep into entrepreneurship –learning to create clear business plans, compelling pitches, and present themselves to investors.
The programme goes beyond theory. Participants are given an opportunity to practise how to pitch their businesses to potential investors. But the seriousness and cut-throat feedback of the judges after pitches extends far beyond practise, giving participants the idea of the real-life pressure associated with pitching for funding or investment.
“We are very practical in implementing the programme. We make that, apart from the theory, there is practise. So, they come into sessions and they start practising,” founder of TYF Makwatse Ramokgopa shared.
She further highlighted the programme’s notable successes, noting that young people who did not have businesses when they attended the sessions have started their businesses. She also noted that they had cases of alumni of the programme getting scholarships to study abroad.
“One of our facilitators from Alex is now running entities, even across Africa, and is also funding the programme.”
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