Marnus Broodryk has compiled his extensive, front-line knowledge on entrepreneurship into a new book, 90 Rules for Entrepreneurs – the Codex of Hustle. This book, written over the period of a year, collates a decade of his experiences into a tome of tips: the rules to apply, and the rules to break, if aspiring entrepreneurs want to make it through their first year of business, let alone see their name in lights.

As a small-town boy from Harrismith, Marnus moved to Johannesburg shortly after finishing his articles. Two years later he had made his first million. The Beancounter, his first business, was started with a desire to take “the boring out of accounting”, help small businesses flourish, and make money while doing so. The Beancounter was recently sold to JSE-listed financial behemoth, Transaction Capital.

As a part of his path, he has also started, and sold, many other businesses. If there’s one person who has the experience to share, it’s Marnus, so when he speaks, others listen. He has worked with entrepreneurs as the youngest Shark on M-Net’s Shark Tank South Africa, appeared on the prestigious cover of Entrepreneur Magazine and hosts a weekly spot on kykNET’s Winslyn, where he gives advice on entrepreneurship.

The book is a culmination of sorts. “I wanted to write a book filled with all the little lessons that I wish someone had told me when I first started out,” says Marnus,“ so that others won’t have to re-learn for themselves.” As he tells it, entrepreneurship is so fundamentally different to a corporate vocation, that many of the lessons that business schools teach don’t even apply. “How can we expect small business to succeed if nobody is there to stop them making the same mistakes over and over again?”

It’s these lessons – 90 of them – that the book collects. The book also has guest authors, who have contributed their own experience to the bigger purpose. Ryk Neethling talks about the lessons he learned as an Olympian, and how he applied them in his businesses. Gil Oved, co-founder of South Africa’s largest advertising and marketing agency, The Creative Counsel, writes about paradigms and perspective. Romeo Kumalo shares his own 10 mini-rules. The point is to replicate these giants’ successes, rather than repeating their errors.

Entrepreneurial businesses are the bricks that will rebuild our economy. 90 Rules for Entrepreneurs is the kiln that will harden them into the sustainable, profitable, life-changing entities they were always meant to be.