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Cape Town – In this week’s episode of #EntrepreneurCorner, seasoned entrepreneur Antoinette Prophy talks about how one of the keys to success is surrounding yourself with smart people.
Prophy is the founder and managing director of 88 Business Collective, an incubator for women entrepreneurs. She left the corporate sector at the age of 26 to pursue her entrepreneurship journey.
Prior to this, she had ambitions of climbing the corporate ladder, and even wanted to become a chartered accountant.
In 2004 she started Afrofusion, her first business, from her mother’s lounge with just R200 and a laptop.Her first reality check was not having money after she moved back to live with her parents .
She said she also realised that her parents did not have the financial capacity to take care of her, and this pushed her to work even harder.
"What I did was, I made sure that I had surrounded myself with people who were stronger than me from a business perspective," she said.She started working with two people on freelance basis who had management consulting backgrounds.
Nine months later this team secured its first contract with government.
Prophy said that, in spite of a sense of trepidation, she knew that starting her own business was the right thing to do, and she was headed in the right direction.
WATCH as Prophy shares her entrepreneurial journey
Did you find this useful? We need your input to identify your most pressing issues. Send us your questions. Our resident coach Anton Ressel or one of our experts will answer as many as possible in future shows. You can also engage with us on Fin24's Twitter and Facebook pages. Look for our hashtag, #EntrepreneurCorner.
ICYMI, Watch the previous episodes of #EntrepreneurCorner below:
WATCH: #EntrepreneurCorner: Incubators require commitment
WATCH: #EntrepreneurCorner: Upscaling is about your customer
WATCH: #EntrepreneurCorner: Don't obsess over protecting your idea
WATCH:#EntrepreneurCorner: Why it's crucial that you pay yourself first
WATCH: #EntrepreneurCorner: Make it easy to do business with you
WATCH: #EntrepreneurCorner debuts: The funding conundrum
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