Raizcorp Thoughts & News

Pitch & Polish

The brandhouse™ Pitch and Polish competition has now come to an end.  The competition provided a great experience for organisers, contestants and, most of all, the finalists. Although many reports cite South Africa as low on entrepreneurial activity, one wonders if the researchers have ever met the people we found on the first round of the nationwide Pitch and Polish competition! 

Applicants could enter online.  From the online applications, between 6 and 10 contestants were chosen to pitch their business idea to a panel of judges after a full day workshop during which they were “polished” by Allon Raiz from Raizcorp.  This was not a comfortable day for contestants, but the grilling prepared them for the formal pitch in the evening. 

From each of the five cities, three contestants were chosen to go through to the next round and it was touching to experience how excited they were and how seriously they took the competition.  The mandate from Entrepreneurs Organisation, the organisation responsible for Pitch and Polish as the local impact arm of the EO Cape Town University and the sponsors, brandhouse™, MTN Business, RMB Private Bank, City of Cape Town and SA Tourism, to find grassroots entrepreneurial talent and to help those companies to launch or grow was fulfilled.

The quarter-finals took place in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Polokwane, where five of the fifteen second round contestants presented their business ideas to a fresh team of judges. From these quarter finals, six semi-finalists were chosen.  The six semi-finalists were:  David Mphuti, Graeme Waite, Rodgers Mahumani, Ntombenhle Khathwane, Charles Tladi and Raees Ismail.  These entrepreneurs presented their businesses at the FNB Conference Centre in Grayston Drive, Sandton. The judges were Allon Raiz, Trevor Tutu and Yossi Hasson. Two finalists were chosen: David Mphuti and Ntombenhle Khathwane.  A third finalist, Zamandlovu Makola, was chosen from a wildcard competition, which was run on SAfm.

The three finalists presented their businesses to hundreds of successful entrepreneurs at the Entrepreneurs Organisation Cape Town University on the 11^th of November, as well as to the three judges: Allon Raiz, Nick Ristic and Yossi Hasson.  Their lives will never be the same again! Pitch and Polish has unearthed talented entrepreneurs who would never have had the opportunity to grow their businesses and network with successful entrepreneurs, able to  mentor them and help grow their companies.