About the publishers

BizStart™ is a new, unique initiative being developed and published for the small business sector by Colleen Lewis, Thuli Zulu and Lara Searle-Barnett.

We are women who have been through the gamut of freelance and contract work; we've experienced firsthand many challenging years of being small business owners; and we've done our fair share of trying to get the right support for our businesses.

We are fed up with lacklustre business directories, inaccurate and out-of-date databases, and marketing agendas thinly disguised as entrepreneur support. We are also confused by the plethora of small business websites, each offering too much of what we don't need and not enough of what we are really looking for.

If we feel this way, what about the newcomers to small business ownership? What about the new entrepreneurs who don't know where to start? What about the guys who don't have the capacity to surf the net or the skills to wade through lengthy guides to writing the perfect business or marketing plan?

In South Africa, where entrepreneur development is a critical component of economic growth, small business owners and emerging entrepreneurs deserve something better. This is what we aim to deliver in BizStart.