Sandton resident, 26-year-old Jade Atrash, has excelled as an entrepreneur from a young age.
“I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, as a child I always came up with fun ideas of how I could start a business,” Atrash said.
The young entrepreneur explained that for her first business venture, while still in school, she asked her grandparents to make her bags of popcorn and then went out to all the new buildings in her area and sold the bags for R2 to the builders.
The young entrepreneur added, “The reward of receiving R2 was not about the money, but it was my motivation for the next idea and the push towards the next entrepreneurial way of starting something.”
Atrash said that she was fortunate to have a father who taught her a lot about the corporate world, and her mother taught her about following her dreams and pursuing personal development and growth.
After Atrash completed her studies in conference and events management, she decided to open up her own company at the age of 21. “I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into and I had no idea what I was doing.”
She got into party planning, but said that she faced many hurdles.
“A customer had asked to hire a popcorn machine. I researched the price to hire one, R500 including ingredients, and then searched for the price to buy one, R1 500. If I could rent this out three times I would be able to pay back [the full amount] and then start making a profit.”
After she had paid off the machine, the first thing she did was pay off her debts. “I now owned by own popcorn machine so every new rental meant I was only paying for the ingredients.”
As the demand grew and she started purchasing more popcorn machines, candy floss machines, slush machines, ice cream machines and so on. Her business grew and she was able to create employment opportunities in her community.
She now runs an events business where she hires out a huge variety of catering and fun equipment for birthdays, corporate events and weddings. “I have worked very hard and this hard work truly paid off when I was awarded the NSBC Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Championship Award. This has inspired me to continue growing.”
