The SMME (small, medium and micro enterprise) sector is critical to South Africa’s national agenda of broadbased black economic empowerment. Indeed, within the sector, the success or failure of nascent companies in the early stages of development is especially important. If our emerging business people manage to create and maintain new zones of economic activity on their own steam, the entire country benefits enormously, for many obvious reasons. Hence development agencies such as the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF) have been created. The UYF is a recurring theme when one talks with small businesses. It runs a voucher system that allows young business people to secure services in many areas, from business plan development through to the creation of marketing material such as websites.

Phehello Mofokeng is a 29-year-old SMME owner working in Johannesburg. Mofokeng runs a brand development and design agency, and is a busy man. He’s developed brands for major organisations such as the Gauteng Transport Management Authority, and has a wide and rapidly growing client base requiring brands, corporate identities, websites, logos and the like. Mofokeng runs his business using an open source model.