The man who Pravin Gordhan made famous talks to us about what it's really like to be a young entrepreneur, writes Basil Grant

Vuyisa Qabaka is a 29-year-old serial entrepreneur based in Cape Town who had fame thrust upon him when the minister of finance Pravin Gordhan singled out his "Tips for Pravin" in the Budget speech in February.

Qabaka's main tip was to suggest to Gordhan that he allocate more resources to helping young South Africans start their own businesses.

Having experienced first-hand the ins and outs (and ups and downs) of all manner of public- and private-sector schemes aimed at getting new businesses off the ground, Vuyisa has some hard-earned advice for those wanting to start out on their own.

Unnecessary obstacles

First of all, he says: be realistic about how long it is going to take to get your business going.

In South Africa, he believes, there are all sorts of unnecessary obstacles to starting a business. Recently, Vuyisa waited two months for Telkom to install a fixed line to his home, which he was going to use for business. When he heard nothing, he phoned Telkom to find out what the delay was about and was told that there was a technical problem in his area. "Nice of them to tell me," he shrugs, adding that you shouldn't expect Neotel to necessarily do things much faster.

Then there is the fact that Cipro will take at least three weeks to register your business ...

Vuyisa speaks from experience when he says that registering a co-operative can take even longer. "I'm involved in a community upliftment project in Khayelitsha. We're looking at finding arable land and even at the ship chandlering business - one sector where there is 0% black involvement. The government is very supportive of co-operatives because they mean more inclusive wealth creation," says Vuyisa. "The problem is that, in our case, there are 16 people involved and that can be difficult when it comes to getting all the paperwork sorted out. You have to be very organised. My advice, if you're working with co-operatives, is to get yourself a trusted, smaller executive team who can take decisions and sort out the paperwork without having to wait for the next meeting of all the co-op members."

Taking the fun out of funding

The would-be entrepreneur doesn't have the pain of organising meetings of many stakeholders but, says Vuyisa, applications for funding can take up months of your productive time - and lead nowhere.

Bureaucracies, according to Vuyisa's experience, specialise in bureaucracy.

When you're looking for funding, spread your net wide, but be aware that time is money and you can spend a great deal of time on applications that are never going to succeed.

If you have a hunch that someone - or an organisation - is not taking your application seriously, you're probably right. Don't invest too much effort in what your hunch tells you is probably going to be a long shot.

Plug into a network

As in most spheres of life, Vuyisa recommends using whatever networks you are plugged into - or can plug into. He's recently had a good experience of the start-up funding business, having secured an 80% guarantee for the better part of R500000 from Khula Enterprises for a publishing business. (This means that a commercial bank will fund 80% of the amount Vuyisa is looking for based on guarantees it receives from Khula.)

In this case, says Vuyisa, his connection was his mentor who was already "associated" with Khula. In other words, Khula trusts the mentor to offer sound advice to those seeking finance, and to only endorse those with a realistic chance of success.

The mentoring process, says Vuyisa, took two weeks and the Khula application three weeks. This is a whole lot better than many other funding organisations (Khula, says Vuyisa, has been "the most proactive" of the government funding organisations he's dealt with) but still, he believes, that in the Internet age, this could have happened quicker.

Vuyisa's tips for you

• Business-plan competitions can be extremely useful, especially in getting good advice on tightening up your plan - but don't spike an idea just because it doesn't get far in such a competition;
• Try to think out of the box, but never forget that somebody invented the box for a reason;
• Work on your business plan, not so much to convince potential investors as to convince yourself that the idea will fly and to find potential gaps that you can plug;
• Venture capitalists almost always want too big a slice of the action in return for their investment and, unless your idea has to do with computers, the Internet or telecommunications, very few will be interested;
• If you're young, look to your network, especially your family, to finance your venture; ýManage your time: do it now, deal with it, delegate it or dump it. This applies to everything (e-mail, phone calls, meetings and post).