Transforming your side hustle into a profitable business is possible

The rise of the gig economy presents a unique opportunity for young people to make money on their own terms. The gig economy, characterised by short-term contracts or freelance work, offers individuals the flexibility to choose their own projects and set their own schedules.

Speaking at the Career Focus event held by the University of South Africa (Unisa) was Public Relations (PR) Specialist Nomsa Mdhluli. The discussion was titled Transforming Your side hustle into a Profitable Business.

Mdhluli is a Journalism Lecturer at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the founder of Tishala Communications, a boutique digital marketing and public relations company which services niche markets, events and campaigns.

“While I was freelancing for that PR company and also working as a journalist, I got to work on the Cape Town Jazz Festival account and got to do PR for the event. After the event was done, I found a lot of people calling to enquire if I could do some PR work for them. I would work with one client and get referrals from other clients.”

Mdhlui then decided to register a company Tishala Communications. The name comes from the Swahili language and means ‘one who has great will power.’

“We are a team of people who are creative, who come up with innovative ideas for our clients, and we’ve had clients in spaces we never thought we’d tap into. And so we took it in our stride to make every campaign a success,” she said.

She started with a business partner, who later ventured into other avenues.

According to Mdhluli, when you start your own business, you end up doing everything - your social media, your writing, and you manage your books.

“Thankfully, we started growing bit by bit. I recruited my previous client, Roy Bannister, who is our Managing Director in Business Development and Marketing. My strength was in Public Relations, but we also wanted to offer clients marketing as well,” she said.

The Tishala Communications team is made up of Mdhluli herself as the Founder, Bannister, Thando Dhaza as Senior Account Executive, Social Media Manager Su Hassam and Ofentse Mosiame as their Marketing Intern.

When she established Tishala, Mdhluli was working full-time. So instead of taking clients on long-term contracts, she would work with them for event purposes as she didn’t have the capacity at the time. They have worked with clients such as the South African Film Festival, which took place in March, and more.

According to Mdhluli, one of the myths that exist in terms of starting your own business is that you need to have a lot of money in order to start.

“This is not true. You don’t need that much capital to start. When starting your own business, you need the minimum amount to get your product/service to market. I started my business with a laptop and a router - that’s how I was able to service my clients. It took me about R2 000 to start my business.”

Another myth is that you have to be original with your idea.

“This is not true. You can improve on an idea that already exists. You can improve on a recipe or product that already exists,” she said.

She said there are a lot of sacrifices that need to be made when starting your own business. One of the lessons that she’s learned is that profits of the business do not belong to you.

“One of the many lessons I've learned is that when you run a business, what comes into the business account must not all go into your personal account. Leave some money to run the cost of the business,” she said.