What won't kill you makes you stronger

Johannesburg - Nine out of 10 South African businesses don't make the grade - and when you are one of them staring failure in the face, it can be a very low moment.
 
Fin24.com approached a variety of South African entrepreneurs for their thoughts on their lowest moments in starting a business.

Many of them can now look back on those dark days with a laugh - but strictly with hindsight.
 
Justin Stanford, founder of 4Di Capital and tech entrepreneur

My lowest moment was probably when I still had basically nothing except a Toyota Tazz. I was about 19 and working out of a garage on my own, with an old PC and a phone, struggling to get something started up.

I went back to the house I was staying at to get some lunch at midday and was held up at gunpoint by a gang, who then made me unlock the house, tied me up on the floor, packed the few possessions I had into my car, and then drove off with the lot. I had no insurance on my possessions and only basic insurance on the car. It was a huge setback for me during a time when I was already struggling like crazy.
 
Allon Raiz, founder of Raizcorp

I can remember a day two weeks after my child was born when I did not have enough money to check him out of the hospital. I had to go and borrow money simply to get my child released and after that I remember going home, curling myself up into a ball, crying like a baby and wondering whether or not it was all worth it.
 
Eran Eyal, founder of Springleap.com and Evly.com

I well remember a day I didn't have enough fuel to get to work. It was the 24th of the month and we were super strict on ourselves about what day was pay day and paying staff first. I was beside myself. I had R10 and thought: great, taxi time - except that the fridge was empty as well. I made a decision to walk to work so I could buy lunch. Luckily, while I was walking a friend drove past and gave me a lift.

Though this was a horrible low day scorched into my mind, a few days later we raised funding and my salary increased from R3 500 to R5 000. My appreciation for what you can live on to achieve your goals and dreams versus what you would like changed considerably.
 
Vinny Lingham, founder of Yola.com and tech venture capitalist

My lowest moment was breaking down and crying on a plane after one of my partners resigned; he couldn't handle the pressure in the early days of Yola and we were almost out of cash. It was quite embarrassing and people were looking at me. My wife was next to me and holding me. I think it happens to the best of us.
 
Bruce Wade of the Entrepreneur Incubator

Bruce Wade says: "We all have our lowest times in life. If we are employed we can always pack up and leave or blame the boss, but as an entrepreneur we need to regain our sense of humour, swallow hard and move on."

Wade polled some of the entrepreneurs he had been involved with, and here are their stories:
 

• Just when we had spent our last few rands on an online marketing campaign to save our monthly sales, we hit our internet cap and could not implement it.

• We have just found out that our financial director allocated R560 000 to a marketing business in which he has a 50% stake, which is now suing us for the money.

• Why is it that just when you get enough customers to get you out of the hole, a bunch of existing ones leave?

• Not having enough money to put petrol in my car to go and see clients who want appointments with me to give me money.

• My car seems to be linked to my bank balance - as soon as it sees any money, it breaks down.

• We took on people to work at night to make extra money, but they stole all our stock and now we have to pay in each month to keep them.

• We spend a huge amount of money setting up a workshop for a full house, but 50% of the participants never arrived.

• I had to collect my child's report card from the headmaster's office myself, because we had not paid our school fees. I felt like a naughty schoolkid again.

• I just kept turning up the radio on the company bakkie to block out the noise of the failing engine. Then the radio broke.

• My accountant told us we had a VAT rebate coming so we spent this money on new stock, only to find he had got our VAT figures wrong. We now owe the South African Revenue Service R20 000.

• I started my business in my garage, which then grew to a small factory. Then I had to sell my house and factory and I now live in a garage with my stock.

•  The friend's warehouse I used to try hiding stock from the lawyer turned out to be the friend who was suing me in the first place.

• My container of stock I imported from India finally arrived, but was then held by customs for 60 days for decontamination.

• After two months of work we finally got the website complete for our biggest customer and went live, only to find out that the boss's wife did not like the colour.
  

• We printed our business cards, flyers and promotional T-shirts, but discovered a spelling mistake on our url.

• I won a holiday to Europe for my business plan, only to be told that it had to be cancelled because the sponsors could not afford to pay for it.

• Our bank balance was finally in the green with enough money to pay staff, then our bank manager called to say someone had put money into our account in error and wanted it all back.

• We finally got all our accounts loaded and invoice system working when the annual licence for the accounting software ran out and we could not afford to pay for another year.

-  Fin24.com