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25 April 2019 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Igno van Niekerk
Allon Raiz
Entrepreneurship is the future: Allon Raiz provides tools for tomorrow at recent UFS Business School guest lecture.

Allon Raiz treated staff and students to an entertaining, insightful and thought-provoking session on Lose the business plan: what they don’t teach you about being an entrepreneur on Thursday 10 April 2019 at the Bloemfontein Campus. The University of the Free State (UFS) Business School hosted Raiz for a guest lecture on going beyond the business plan.

Raiz, the founder and CEO of Raizcorp is the host of The Big Small Business Show on Business Day TV. He is also the author of two best-selling entrepreneurial books, and he literally gets down to earth about talking business issues when he takes off his shoes as he takes the stage to deliver a talk.

What they don’t teach you

Raiz started the session by sharing the fact that 96% of small businesses fail within 10 years. From his research and experience, he shared the three main attributes always found when studying successful entrepreneurs: “They see opportunities, take risks and add value.”

He was however clear on the fact that there is no such thing as a typical entrepreneur. “It is not about a set of characteristics, it is about a set of probabilities.”

Effective entrepreneurship education

After sharing his personal journey to entrepreneurial success, Raiz explained that entrepreneurs had different expectations in terms of how much they wanted to earn, and how big they wanted to grow their businesses. Although entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, there are some generic tools which all entrepreneurs can use. These include finding role models, being resilient, and having an internal locus of control. 

The essence of Raiz’s message was that no matter what you want to do, don’t wait and make plans – take action. In short, lose the business plan – start working on the business.

News Archive

Lecture honours one of SA’s greatest women leaders
2008-08-22

A member of the national executive committee of the ANC Women’s League, Yolanda Botha, has called on all South Africans to cherish the legacy of Charlotte Maxeke, one of South Africa’s greatest women leaders.

Ms Botha was delivering the first Charlotte Maxeke Memorial Lecture at the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein last night, in honour of the pioneering role played by Maxeke in the struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom. The lecture series is a partnership between the Free State Provincial Government and the university.

She was born Charlotte Makgomo Manye on 7 April 1874 at Ramokgopa in the Polokwane district in Limpopo. In 1905 she graduated from the Wilberforce University in Ohio in the USA with a B.Sc. degree, making her the first black South African woman to graduate with a science degree.

She married the Rev. MM Maxeke, a prominent AME minister who had also been educated overseas, and together they collaborated on the compilation and publication of the first AME church hymn book in Xhosa.

Later she became a founder member and president of the Bantu Women’s League, forerunner of the ANC Women’s League. She was an early opponent of the pass laws for black women and an organiser of the anti-pass movement in Bloemfontein.

Charlotte Maxeke died in 1939. Two years later, an ANC conference held in Bloemfontein, passed a “resolution on the women’s section”.

Elaborating on the challenges that women still face, Ms Botha said poverty remains a challenge affecting the majority of women. She called on all women to unite and engage with government to develop a comprehensive strategy for food security and agricultural support programmes to eradicate poverty.

Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za

22 August 2008

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