5 awesome business ideas from the minds of South African university students

Students at the University of Cape Town (UCT) have taken up the challenge to start their own business.

As part of an Honours-level Programme in Management in Entrepreneurship (PDE), the year-long course requires students to start-up and manage their own businesses.

Local web hosting company 1-grid have partnered with the action-learning component of the course, the Genesis Project, to provide students with the resources they need to design a professional website for their new businesses.

Each year hundreds of local and international students apply for acceptance into the PDE course, which is run out of UCT’s Faculty of Commerce. With just 50 spots up for grabs, students are required to form teams and build a business around their innovative solution to a real-world problem.

The idea behind the programme is to expose students to the daily challenges of managing their own start-up.

From ideation to execution, the course includes conceptualising a product or platform, raising the required start-up capital and taking the completed product to market.

2019 class participants:

• Trove Clothing – a social commerce marketplace where users are able to buy and sell used clothing, shoes and accessories at an affordable rate.

• Outpost – a sales directory platform that informs, unites and organises consumers with a service company tailored to their area, budget and requirements.

• BYO Skin – a customisable, build-your-own cosmetic kit where customers can make their own skincare products. All products are made from cannabidiol (CBD) oil-infused natural ingredients.

• Pigeon Couriers – a unique courier service that connects people who need items delivered with self-employed drivers.

• Love Yoni – a subscription service which provides convenient and discreet feminine hygiene care boxes for young women. For every subscription box sold, a pack of pads is given to a high school girl in an underprivileged community.

Read: South Africa’s ‘real’ unemployment rates – graduates vs matric vs no qualification