Small town entrepreneurs given platform to launch projects, win prizes

Brandhouse’s new Pitch & Polish competition is designed to encourage enterprise development in smaller towns across the country. The launch of this new lateral-thinking competition is set to expose would-be entrepreneurs to enterprise development training and thinking, and provide benefits for all participants.

Entrepreneurs’ Organisation Cape Town has partnered with Brandhouse Beverages, a leading premium alcohol beverage company, to assist in providing the platform for local entrepreneurs.

Entrants will be drawn from eleven towns, where they will be given the opportunity to appear before an audience of fellow competitors and pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges. The panel will include the co-founder of the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation South Africa and CEO of Raizcorp, Allon Raiz, along with his colleagues and a senior member of the local community.

Every entrant will get three minutes to deliver a pitch, three minutes for questions and answers, and three minutes of constructive feedback from the panel. The feedback is a critical component of the competition because its primary objective is to provide participants with a watch-and-learn experience and allow entrants to polish their business ideas.

The competition will culminate with finalists presenting their pitches to an audience of 320 international visiting entrepreneurs at the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation University of Cape Town conference to be held in Cape Town from 10 to 14 November 2010. The winner will possibly be linked with a company abroad and be awarded an all-expenses-paid trip for a week of mentorship with their host company. Prize money totalling around R90 000 is to be won throughout the competition.

Brandhouse has come on board with a view of long-term support for Pitch & Polish because the concept aligns well with its value and strategy of supporting the needs of people. The company believes that this competition offers those entrepreneurs outside the mainstream economic centres with an opportunity to gain exposure to and learn from international entrepreneurial thinking.

“Job creation and the growth of our economy will come from small business, many of them in the informal sector. The future of South Africa lies in harnessing the informal sector and energy of South African entrepreneurs. Many of these gems are struggling, undiscovered across South Africa in small towns and villages” says Brandhouse CSR manager Phumza Rengqe.

“The aim of Pitch & Polish is to find these future business stars and help them unleash the power of their vision and ingenuity.”

Together with Brandhouse Beverages, other sponsorship partners for Pitch & Polish include MTN, City of Cape Town, RMB Private Bank and South African Tourism.