FROM SURVIVING LIFE’S STORMS TO STANDING BESIDE OTHERS
“Behind every legal file is a human story and every story deserves someone willing to stand beside it.”
TheLife Team
South Africa’s home-based businesses are building national brands
The company’s online customer portal allows businesses to create consignments and print labels without complex technical integration, while its API and SFTP capabilities enable larger e-commerce businesses to automate shipping and tracking directly from their systems.
Franchising and the 90 day threshold
The first is approval bottlenecks. If decisions that should sit with your operations team, a field consultant signing off on a store visit report, or a support manager resolving a complaint, still find their way back to you, the business has not been built to run without you. It has been built around you.
The second is unwritten knowledge. If the answer to “how does this work?” inside your own head office is “ask the founder” rather than “here is the process”, your operational continuity is a person, not a system.
The third is performance variance by presence. If franchisee support quality, brand compliance or store standards shift noticeably when you are not personally involved, the network is responding to you, not to the system you have built. That is the most honest diagnosis available, and most franchisors only discover it under pressure.
“It Starts Quietly”: Experts Urge South Africans Not to Ignore the Silent Symptoms of Nerve Damage
“Neuropathy is not always dramatic in its early stages in fact, it’s often silent,” says Dr Joshi, a practising diabetes specialist. “But those early sensations tingling, numbness, burning are important warning signs. They should never be ignored.”
The Quiet Heroes Between the Cracks
For many children, schools and ECD centres become more than places of learning. They become spaces of emotional safety. They become places where children are noticed. Places where someone asks if they are okay. Places where adults pay attention when behaviour changes, when silence becomes unusual, or when fear quietly replaces confidence.
The quiet heroes between the cracks.
Get Your IT Working for You
The entrepreneurs who pull ahead won’t be the ones with the biggest teams or the deepest pockets. They’ll be the ones who got their technology working for them instead of the other way around doing more with less, staying responsive as they grow, and spending their limited hours on the work that only they can do. Good IT won’t run your business for you. But done well, it clears the clutter so you can get back to the reason you started this in the first place and every now and then, close the laptop a little earlier.
MEET OUR HBC MEMBERS 2026
Networking is about more than exchanging business cards it is about building meaningful relationships and creating a strong, supportive community. When local business owners connect, share ideas, support one another and collaborate, everyone has the opportunity to grow. Together, we build a community where businesses thrive, referrals flourish and lasting partnerships are formed.
FROM AN OLD PHONE TO A MILLION VIEWS
In just over a year of operating, we have successfully grown our agency while also building a TikTok community of more than 32,000 followers. Through our platform, we help South Africans navigate the current economic climate by sharing budget-friendly dining options, affordable activities, grocery deals, and money-saving tips across Gauteng.
Dormant Trusts Under Scrutiny as SARS Begins Enforcing Administrative Penalties
SARS has made it clear that trusts which no longer serve a purpose must still follow a formal process before they can be removed from the tax system. This includes submitting all outstanding tax returns, settling any tax liabilities and providing supporting documentation confirming the termination of the trust.
WHEN HOME CHANGES FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO AMERICA
Our story is not one of an easy escape or a perfect new beginning. It is a story of loss, survival, faith, forgiveness, and starting again.
And through it all, we have learned that when home changes, hope can still remain.
SAVING FOOD. SAVING MONEY. BUIDLING A MARKET
South Africans have saved R12.5 million on groceries while preventing 200,000 meals from ending up in landfill through Refreshi, a local startup that built a surplus-food marketplace that has expanded from just 35 partner stores to 700 nationwide in the space of a year.
The startup has released its very first annual Grocery Savings Impact Report, revealing how the sale of quality surplus food at discounted prices (instead of throwing it away) is helping South African households stretch their grocery budgets while creating a new revenue stream for retailers.
New report reveals South African businesses don’t have a software problem. They have a judgment problem.
New report reveals South African businesses don’t have a software problem. They have a judgment problem.
LOCAL STABILITY MEETS GLOBAL VOLATILITY
“South Africa is already seeing early signs of this. Investor sentiment has improved following the country’s removal from the global anti-money-laundering grey list and its first sovereign credit rating upgrade in nearly two decades.
“Combined with a more disciplined fiscal framework, these developments signal that South Africa’s macroeconomic environment is becoming more stable. That stability does not immediately translate into rapid growth, but it does provide the predictability that markets value highly.
Italian Trade Agency (ICE) Co-hosts Landmark Italy-South Africa Agri-Food Business Forum and MOU Signing in Cape Town
A highlight of the opening session was the signing of an Italy-South Africa Memorandum of Understanding, formalising a joint commitment between SACE, Italy’s export credit agency, and SIMEST, the Italian development finance institution focused on internationalisation, with the Italian-South African Chamber of Commerce. The MOU establishes a framework for long-term cooperation across research and innovation, digital agriculture, agricultural mechanisation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, agro-processing and technology transfer – and creates a Joint Working Group to ensure the commitments made translate into practical commercial and investment outcomes.
SAVING FOOD. SAVING MONEY. BUILDING A MARKET
South Africans have saved R12.5 million on groceries while preventing 200,000 meals from ending up in landfill through Refreshi, a local startup that built a surplus-food marketplace that has expanded from just 35 partner stores to 700 nationwide in the space of a year.
Political Freedom Was Won. Economic Freedom Is Still a Fight.
According to Stats SA, in the first quarter of 2026, 60.9% of South Africans aged 15 to 24 were unemployed. When considering the number of people that are not in employment, education or training (NEET), Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey revealed that 37.6% of people aged 15-24 were in the NEET category. This is the description of a generation that has been locked out of the economy before it has had a fair chance to enter it.
SEPT – NOV 2026 – NATIONAL EDITION
In the September–November 2026 edition of The Life of the Entrepreneur, we feature the inspiring story of Lorna Greyling as she shares her journey of immigrating from South Africa to the United States.
