Not for the first time since opening his company’s demonstration facility in the Stellenbosch Technopark, Professor Vivian Alberts – chief executive and co-founder of Photovoltaic Technology Intellectual Property Innovations (PTiP) – stood back and admired what he saw. Twenty years had passed since this academic physicist began working on thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology. He believed it had the potential to make a significant impact on South Africa’s energy problems and to capture a share of the international market.

It had been difficult for Barbara Queally to go back to “school”, but she knew deep down that she had lost touch with her authentic self as a businesswoman and leader. The Women in Leadership course at Wits Business School (WBS), which ran from June to August 2016, revealed some uncomfortable truths for Queally. She realised, especially, that her listening skills were low, and she had all but lost the ability to empathise with others.

It was late afternoon in June 2016 and Barbara Queally, founder of Garden Morris, a company that specialised in chocolate products, confectionary ingredients, gifting and packaging, had just finished the first module on a leadership course for women at Wits Business School (WBS). This had been an intense day emotionally for Queally. Having received the results of an emotional quotient (EQ) test that she had completed prior to coming on the course, as she packed up her things an uncomfortable realisation was dawning on her – that her management style had been way too authoritarian.

By 2007, the South African business environment had changed significantly. After 1994, democratisation had led to an abundance of business opportunities in South Africa, which foreign firms were keen to exploit. This only served to increase the competition faced by local companies, and Black Like Me was no exception.

In September 2016, Seapei Mafoyane, chief executive officer (CEO) of Shanduka Black Umbrellas (SBU), a business incubator targeting emerging black-owned enterprises, was busy writing her annual review for inclusion in SBU’s 2016 annual report. She believed that SBU had an essential role to play in ensuring the success of black entrepreneurs[1] in South Africa, among whom the failure rate was notoriously high.

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On 1 July 2013 Claire Reid, founder and director of Reel Gardening, a manufacturer of prefertilised vegetable and herb seed strips, met with Emily Jones, head of Reel Life, the community-focused arm of Reel Gardening. Reel Life aimed to address food security in South Africa by helping low-income communities plant food gardens using Reel Gardening’s products. Reid was concerned that Reel Gardening was not making the profits it needed to fund the growth she envisaged for Reel Life.

The first part of this case is set in 1985, when twenty-five year old Herman Mashaba and two colleagues decided to enter the ethnic hair-care market in a politically turbulent South Africa with an evocative name for their product and a R30 000 loan.

Raizcorp was a South African business incubator founded by Allon Raiz in 2000. The company, which was the only privately held, unfunded, profit-making incubator in South Africa, provided a variety of business support programmes aimed at guiding individual entrepreneurs to profitability. By 2012, Raizcorp had established itself as one of Africa’s leading business incubators, supporting around 300 companies throughout South Africa, with an average 86% success rate. Raizcorp had developed a rigorous eight-step selection process through which it chose its entrepreneurs.

In December 2008, Charlene Lewison, marketing director of the Johannesburg-based family business, Birdi Golf Apparel, surveyed the company’s well-stocked shelves with pride – but also with a growing sense of unease. In the past 12 years, Birdi had become an established brand on both the professional and amateur golf circuits in South Africa.

Raizcorp chief executive Allon Raiz was faced each day with many applications to join his business incubation Prosperator programme. He knew what to look for in an entrepreneur, but it was not always “cut and dried”. In September 2012, he and his panel were considering an applicant who had passed all the tests with flying colours, and they were unanimous in their belief that he had what it took to be successful. His business, however, left them in doubt. It was a struggling IT support company, which they felt had no differentiating factors in an already overtraded industry.