Select Page

Protect the fruit of the creator within

Protect the fruit of the creator within

By Launch Namibia*

Local lawyer, entrepreneur and the founder of Intrik Consulting Services, Cislé Jacobs recently spoke to Launch Namibia about her consultancy and the importance of Intellectual Property (IP) in entrepreneurship.

After graduating from UNAM with an LLB, having had Intellectual Property as an elective the year prior, Cislé’s place in law became clear as she fell in love with IP.

Growing up in Gibeon, a small village in the Hardap region, I remember spending my free time walking around visiting people and having interesting conversation. I have always been curious about the human mind, its machinations and creation. Strangely, most of them were much older than I but seemed pleased by my company and incessant questioning,” said Cislé.

She said her place in law became clear as she fell in love with IP because it was finally a marriage between my reverence for creativity and the trained skill of IP law. “The beauty of IP should be seen in its simplest form, human beings are moved by ideas, we solve, we improve and we create and that ought to be recognised and rewarded,” she said.

After accumulating various skills, knowledge and experience, Cislé has started her own business- Intrik.

Cislé has stated that she knew in her final year at law school that I would create something like this, so in many ways Intrik was conceived in 2015. “I spent a lot of time thinking about it, conceptualizing and building it in my mind, however, it was not until 2020 that my ideas started to manifest and Intrik is divine inspiration from name, logo, value proposition and intent, because it all came to me in a dream and epic vision,” she explained.

She said while the inspiration was divine her intrigue of humans and our ability to innovate in creative ways laid the groundwork and she also saw how much value understanding and integrating IP into society, business and the economy can produce. “A quick analysis of the fastest developing economies of the world would show a parallel growth in IP research and development, strategy and number of IP protection sought in said economy,” she added.

Explaining what her company does Cislé said Intrik was incorporated in 2020 and they protect IP, which is technical and frustrating and they provide creators with a strategy to protect, optimize and monetize their new products, innovations, brand and creative works to continue innovating confidently and well-informed.

Speaking on the challenges she faced on her entrepreneurial journey Cislé said one can never underestimate one’s own ignorance, because there is a lot of excitement that goes into finding your passion and identifying at least where to start. “As a new business owner, you come to acknowledge that you have to take care of almost everything, and I realized that I needed to understand exactly what it is I will offer, the channels through which clients get in touch with the business,” she said.

She said she made mistakes that were costly, both in money and time and she accepted that she does not know enough.

The sooner we realize in Namibia that one cannot have a conversation about business and economic growth and development without an IP strategy, the better our competitive edge will be in the global competitive market,” she added.

She recommended that entrepreneurs need to take into account a number of things when building a successful start-up, but one that is equally important as any aspect of business is IP which many do not know, forget or delay addressing.

We live in a digitized global market and the countries winning at the game have proper IP policies in place and encourage the protection of IP for creativity and innovation, which in turn incentivizes further innovative productivity, because we need to remember we are competing with them,” concluded, Cislé


* Launch Namibia is a motivational business platform for capacity building and development of start-ups.


About The Author

Guest Contributor

A Guest Contributor is any of a number of experts who contribute articles and columns under their own respective names. They are regarded as authorities in their disciplines, and their work is usually published with limited editing only. They may also contribute to other publications. - Ed.