5 Lessons to Take Your Start-up to Scale-up Through Property Point, Shawn Theunissen and Desigan Chetty have worked with more than 170 businesses to help them scale. Here's what your start-up should be focusing on, based on what they've learnt.

Vital Stats

• Players: Shawn Theunissen and Desigan Chetty
• Company: Property Point
• What they do: Property Point is an enterprise development initiative created by Growthpoint Properties, and is dedicated to unlocking opportunities for SMEs operating in South Africa's property sector.
• Launched: 2008
• Visit: www.propertypoint.org.za

Through Property Point, Shawn Theunissen and his team have spent ten years learning what makes entrepreneurs tick and what small business owners need to implement to become medium and large business owners.

In that time, over 170 businesses have moved through the programme. While Property Point is an enterprise development (ED) initiative, the lessons are universal. If you want to take your start-up to the next level, this is a good place to start.

RISK, REPUTATION AND RELATIONSHIPS

"We believe that everything in business comes down to the 3Rs: Risk, Reputation and Relationships. If you understand these three factors and how they influence your business and its growth, your chances of success will increase exponentially," says Shawn Theunissen, Executive Corporate Social Responsibility at Growthpoint Properties and founder of Property Point. So, how do the 3Rs work, and what should business owners be doing based on them?

Risk: We can all agree that there will always be risks in business. It's how you approach and mitigate those risks that counts, which means you first need to recognise and accept them.

"We always straddle the line between hardcore business fundamentals and the relational elements and people components of doing business," says Shawn. "For example, one of the risks that everyone faces in South Africa is that we all make decisions based on unconscious biases. As a business owner, we need to recognise how this affects potential customers, employees, stakeholders and even ourselves as entrepreneurs."

Reputation: Because Property Point is an ED initiative, its 170 alumni are black business owners, and so this is an area of bias that they focus on, but the rule holds true for all biases. "In the context of South Africa, small black businesses are seen as higher risk. To overcome this, black-owned businesses should focus on the reputational component of their companies. What's the track record of the business?"

A business owner who approaches deals in this way can focus on building the value proposition of the business, outlining the capacity and capabilities of the business and its core team to deliver how the business is run, and specific service offerings.

"From a business development perspective, if you can provide a good track record, it diminishes the customer's unconscious bias," says Shawn. "Now the entrepreneur isn't just being judged through one lens, but rather based on what they have done and delivered."

Relationship: "We believe that fundamentally people do business with people," says Shawn. "There needs to be culture match and fluency in terms of relations to make the job easier. As a general rule, the ease of doing business increases if there is a culture match."

This relates to understanding what your client needs, how they want to do business, their user experience and customer experience. "We like to call it sharpening the pencil," says Desigan Chetty, Property Point's Head of Operations.

"In terms of value proposition, does your service offering focus on solving the client's needs? Is there a culture match between you and your client? And if you realise there isn't, can you walk away, or do you continue to focus time and energy on the wrong type of service offering to the wrong client? This isn't learnt over- night. It takes time and small but constant adjustments to the direction you're taking."

In fact, Desigan advises walking away from the wrong business so that you can focus on your core competencies. "If you reach a space where you work well with a client and you've stuck to your core competencies, business is just going to be easier. It becomes easier for you to deliver. Sometimes entrepreneurs stretch themselves to try to provide a service to a client that's not serving either of their needs. This strategy will never lead to growth — at least not sustainable growth."

Instead, Desigan recommends choosing an entry point through a specific offering based on an explicit need.

"Too often we see entrepreneurs whose offerings are so broad that they don't focus," he says. "Instead, understand what your client's need is and address that need, even if it means that it's only one out of your five offerings. Your likelihood of success if you go where the need is, is much higher.

"Once you get in, prove yourself through service delivery. It's a lot easier to on-sell and cross sell once you have a foot in the door. You're now building a relationship, learning the internal culture, how things work, what processes are followed and so on — the client's landscape is easier to navigate. The challenge is to get in. Once you're in, you can entrench yourself."

Desigan and Shawn agree that this is one of the reasons why suppliers to large corporates become so entrenched. "Once you're in, you can capitalise from other needs that may have emanated from your entry point and unlock opportunities," says Shawn.

BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE START-UP

While all start-ups are different, there are challenges most entrepreneurs share and key areas they should focus on. Shawn and Desigan share the top five areas you should focus on.

1. Align and partner with the right people
This includes your staff, stakeholders, partners, suppliers and clients. Partnerships are the best thing to take you forward. The key is to collaborate and partner with the right people based on an alignment of objectives and culture. It's when you don't tick all the boxes that things don't work out.

2. Make sure you get the basics right
Never neglect business fundamentals. Do you have the processes and systems in place to scale the business?

3. Understand your value proposition
Are you on a journey with your clients? Is your value proposition aligned to the need you're trying to solve for your clients? Are you looking ahead of the curve — what's the problem, what are your clients saying and are you being proactive in leveraging that relationship?

4. Unpack your value chain
If you want to diversify, understand your value chain. What is it, where are the opportunities both horizontally and vertically within your client base, and what other solutions can you offer based on your areas of expertise?

5. Don't ignore technology
Be aware of what's happening in the tech space and where you can use it to enable your business. Tech impacts everything, even more traditional industries. Businesses that embrace technology work smarter, faster and often at a lower cost base.

Ultimately, Desigan and Shawn believe that success often just comes down to attitude. "We have one entrepreneur in our programme who applied twice," says Shawn. "When he was rejected, he listened to the feedback we gave him and instead of thinking we were wrong, went away, made changes and came back.

He was willing to learn and open himself up to different ways of approaching things. That business has grown from R300 000 per annum to R20 million since joining us.

"Too many business owners aren't willing to evaluate and adjust how they do things. It's those who want to learn and embrace change and growth that excel."

NETWORKING, COLLABORATING AND MENTORING

Property Point holds regular networking sessions called Entrepreneurship To The Point. They are open to the public and have two core aims. First, to provide entrepreneurs access to top speakers and entrepreneurs, and second, to give like-minded business owners an opportunity to network and possibly even collaborate.

"We believe in the power of collaboration and networking," says Desigan. "Most of our alumni become mentors themselves to new entrants to the programme. They want to share what they have learnt with other entrepreneurs, but they also know that they can learn from newer and younger entrepreneurs. The business landscape is always changing. Insights can come from anywhere and everywhere."

The To The Point sessions are designed to help business owners widen their network, whether they are Property Point entrepreneurs or not.

To find out more, visit www.ettp.co.za