Technology and business incubator, Softstart announced that phase one of its first incubator has been filled 15 months ahead of schedule. According to CEO Ben Zaaiman, the rapid uptake of phase one necessitated the fast tracking of phase two, doubling the available tenant space to 355m2.
Softstart, an initiative of the Godisa Trust of the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Trade and Industry, was founded in July 2001 by the CSIR, the University of Pretoria and Technikon Pretoria. Financial support for the initiative, to the tune of R12 million over three years, has been forthcoming from both the European Union and the South African government.
From its base at the CSIR campus in Pretoria, Softstart assists high-potential, early stage software entrepreneurs to develop and grow sustainable businesses. This includes strategic and operational mentoring as well as furnished offices, shared resources and access to its network of service providers, funding sources and fellow entrepreneurs.
Ironically, while it is engaged in the business of developing others' businesses, Softstart did not, and indeed could not, have foreseen the tremendous demand that has catapulted it so far ahead of projections.
Says Zaaiman: "We are greatly encouraged by the response to and rapid uptake of phase one. It certainly validates not only what we are doing, but also how we are doing it.
"It is also indicative of how much more circumspect the new breed of software entrepreneurs are in their approach to business, than their predecessors were. In the past we saw hordes of techies rushing their innovations to market in a haphazard fashion. At the euphoric height of the IT boom, there was a sense of invincibility, a belief that all you needed was a great product and the markets would follow. The 'dot-bomb' and general slump in IT put an end to that, with many start-ups going under. Sadly, however, the lessons learned weren't new, but fundamental principles like the fact that market needs should drive products (technology) and not vice versa."
Zaaiman says the first thing Softstart teaches is a business building model and how the key to building an optimal, sustainable business, lies first in assembling the basic building blocks and keeping them aligned. Thus, entrepreneurs learn how to group their efforts into technical, market and business streams and to develop strategies and plans for the balanced and sustainable growth and development of each.
Softstart's first tenant, Too Big Mobile Applications (2Big), is a case study of the incubator's success - the new cellphone technology it developed for the Johannesburg Metro Police has changed the way policing is done. According to Mokgatle Maesela, 2Big's business development director, before incubation, 2Big had nothing more than software know-how, great ideas and many obstacles that it had no idea how to overcome. Its subsequent success, he believes, is proof of the business benefits of incubation.
Zaaiman concludes: "We are delighted by the success of phase one and look forward to building upon this in phase two. SA needs successful entrepreneurs to increase economic growth and to fill the void left by the many jobs lost in the formal sector over the past decade. We in turn look forward to contributing to this growth by accommodating more entrepreneurs in our phase two incubator, alongside the 10 existing tenant companies."
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