Jayshree Naidoo on the good, the bad and the ugly of entrepreneurship

In this week’s Topco Business Unusual podcast, Karla Fletcher sits down with Jayshree Naidoo – CEO of YIEDI.

According to Jayshree Naidoo, the output of entrepreneurship is innovation. In terms of entrepreneurship, Jayshree knows what she’s talking about. As a technical expert in helping entrepreneurs, Jayshree and her company focus on Innovation and Strategy Consulting, Incubation Design and Management, Entrepreneurship and Supplier Development and Digital and eLearning solutions.

Karla and Jayshree discuss the ins and outs of entrepreneurship – the good, the bad and the ugly. Jayshree shares her experience and knowledge on what it takes to make it as an entrepreneur in South Africa. She discusses the importance of believing in one’s self and one’s work, as well as how women can continue to uplift and support each other in a world where we’re conditioned to sit down and listen.

Key takeaways to listen out for in this video podcast:

• Passion is vital in entrepreneurship, but it’s not everything. Entrepreneurs need a strong skill set and business acumen to make their businesses last.
• Entrepreneurs who have previously worked in corporates can draw from what they learned in these environments and apply these skills to their new business ventures.
• In the past, entrepreneurship was something entered into if they failed at other things. These days, people are actively choosing to start their own business from the beginning.
• The journey of entrepreneurship is unstructured – one needs to be prepared for turbulence and unexpected challenges.
• In times like these, it’s important to be able to pivot our businesses in order to align with what is currently happening in the market.
• We often don’t have enough faith in ourselves and what we are doing. We need to believe in ourselves and our product. The way we do this is through product validation.
• By not believing on ourselves, we’re putting ourselves at a disadvantage.
• In terms of women empowerment, we need to be creating more supportive and empowering communities across various platforms.
• Almost any obstacle can be overcome with a strong passion and sense of purpose.

Jayshree Naidoo is the CEO of YIEDI. She has developed several frameworks and models for Innovation and Incubation and has created several structured acceleration programmes for Start-ups and Growth Entrepreneurs as well as Leadership Programmes for Corporates.

She was the founder and Head of the Standard Bank Incubator programme that focused on growing and developing entrepreneurs and improving the innovation stack of the bank and its corporate clients. The seven pillar Incubator model that she created was also applied to launch the 1st Incubator outside of South Africa for the bank within Maputo in Mozambique.

She has held several leadership roles in SA that include positions at Development Bank of Southern Africa, Discovery, ABSA and Internet Solutions. She was previously the CEO of Feenix, a crowd funding platform for students launched by the bank, a board member of JASA (Junior Achievement South Africa), as well as the Chairperson of SAINe (The Southern African Innovation Network), and held a seat on NACI (The National Advisory Council on Innovation).

She is a professional speaker and has been featured in several magazines including CEO Magazine, SA Innovator, Destiny, Fast Company and has been published in the Innovation Journal. She is a guest lecturer at many of SA’s top universities on the topics of Innovation, Incubation, Strategy and Digital Disruption. She was previously identified as one of the Top 25 Global FinTech Influencers.

She has local and international experience in the fields of strategy, consulting, innovation, entrepreneurship and e-commerce. She has worked in the following sectors: Technology, Manufacturing, Health Insurance, Finance, Development Finance and Education. Her qualifications include an MBA, CAIB (SA), Honors in E-Commerce and IT.