There’s something refreshingly honest about Daleen Gouws. In an industry often obsessed with polish and perfection, the CEO of Edge Communications talks openly about her entrepreneurship journey, hard lessons, and the challenges she’s encountered along the way. But it’s precisely this authenticity that makes her story so compelling and her impact on South Africa’s communications landscape so significant.

The unexpected path

Growing up on a farm in KwaZulu Natal, Daleen faced the well-meaning but limiting advice that plagues many young women: become a teacher. It was the one career path she knew she didn’t want. After a brief detour into graphic design applications, she stumbled upon communication studies and something clicked. She remembers trying to explain the field to a family member, fumbling through concepts she barely understood herself, yet feeling an unmistakable fire. “I knew I would love to achieve communication success for companies,” she recalls, even before she’d attended a single lecture.

That instinct would prove prophetic, though the journey to entrepreneurship took an unexpected turn.

When everything changed

For years, she and her husband battled infertility. Then in 2015, they became parents to a three-week-old baby girl. It was a moment that shifted everything. “That was kind of a point in my life where I realised I could manage my own company and I don’t have to be scared to fail,” she explains. The following year, she walked away from a secure management position and launched Edge Communications with no business experience, no financial backing, and no safety net. Just faith.

And it’s that faith that remains the cornerstone of how she runs her business today. She always returns to a simple truth: “Edge is not my company, we work for the Lord.” It’s why Edge Communications operates as what she calls “a fair price agency,” offering services and results that far exceed their pricing structure. She’s guided by a verse from Proverbs 15 about not being greedy for unjust gain, and believes she has a larger purpose: helping faith-based companies and organisations reach success.

Breaking the mold

What makes Gouws unusual in the communications industry isn’t just her pricing model, it’s her entire approach. She admits she didn’t follow any rulebook on how to run an agency. Instead, she identified a gap in the market and filled it with something genuinely different. Rather than operating as a traditional service provider, Edge becomes an extension of clients’ internal teams, functioning as an embedded communication department without the HR costs or management overhead. 

Even businesses with a low budget can afford communication services, because Edge packages their services in a unique manner. Edge Communications’ services include media and publicity, website development, brand development, newsletters, social media management, creative campaigns, video marketing, graphic design and digital marketing, all structured around a solid communication strategy. 

It’s a model that requires adaptability, and she has made that her superpower. She has a knack for quickly absorbing the nuances of different industries and speaking authentically to their specific stakeholders. Whether it’s agriculture, healthcare, retail, or non-profits, she dives deep to understand not just what needs to be communicated, but why it matters.

The work that matters

Edge Communications is proud of working with the Ons Tuis Group. Edge’s work with the Ons Tuis group has increased their brand visibility and created campaigns like “Adopt a Grandparent” and the “Woeker & Werk Tuinekompetisie,” both of which landed national television, radio, and newspaper coverage. “Our work here serves a deeper purpose of elderly care focused on holistic community approach,” says Daleen.

Another client is Lig in Duisternis Uitgewers, a Christian publisher. Edge Communications takes pride in helping them with the marketing of high quality Afrikaans books and items that make an impact. Campaigns include writing competitions for the youth and audio books where the elderly read for children.

They are also proud of the results they have achieved thus far with their client TLU SA from the agricultural sector. Edge Communications helped them with rebranding and moving away from historical perspectives, while remaining true to their founding principles. 

It’s this kind of impact that drives her, campaigns that don’t just look good on paper but actually change lives and open doors for organisations doing meaningful work.

Daleen is serious about the fact that communication campaigns and every aspect regarding public relations be approached the correct way from the very start. That implies a strategy and looks at important relationships. Clients must understand what their needs are and what they want to achieve.  

Hard-won wisdom

Despite naturally believing in people, she’s encountered what she calls “adult uncertainty”, clients who made promises, praised the team’s work, then shifted expectations constantly. “Good communication and public relations, done the right way, takes a lot of effort and time,” she says. “But the results are immense once it starts.”

She’s also learned that staying innovative requires constant vigilance. It’s easy to fall into routines, she admits, which is why she challenges herself and her team regularly. She follows industry leaders on LinkedIn, listens to public relations podcasts, reads, and creates space for brainstorming sessions where new ideas can emerge.

Building a team, building futures

Today, Edge Communications employs full-time staff and long-term contractors, plus various freelancers, contributing to the local and national economy. But she has also created an opportunity that contributes to the training of young professionals: an internship program that actually teaches. For two to three weeks, she brings in one to four university students and intensely shares knowledge, giving them real client work and real industry challenges. It’s not coffee-fetching or busy work, it’s a genuine experience. This prorgam has the goal that the industry improves and it is Edge Communications’ way of contributing to this industry. 

Her distributed team works across South Africa with the head office based in Pretoria. The team has meetings weekly in sessions that she intentionally varies to serve as learning opportunities. They stay connected through a project management system for big projects, but their best communication happens on WhatsApp, she admits with a laugh, where they share not just updates but genuine moments of connection.

Looking ahead

Daleen is excited about AI and the doors it opens for agencies, the creativity it enables, the cost savings in areas like multilingual work and voice production. But she’s equally firm that the fundamentals still matter. “The core academic basics of communication, public relations, relationships and connections to audiences still stay very important,” she insists. “Without it, the cleverest of videos or campaigns won’t last.”

Her vision for Edge includes expanding their design capabilities, growing their video offerings, and eventually bringing her daughter, who she describes as a passionate sales manager, into the company. But more than that, she has a message for South Africans: entrepreneurship isn’t optional anymore. Whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, or psychiatrist, you need to know how to manage a successful business and to sell your service, your offering, your knowledge.

“Starting a business is not easy,” she acknowledges. “Dealing with different clients and different needs is not easy. Having to explain the importance of your services constantly is not easy. But it is the most rewarding experience you can ever have.”

The quiet revolutionary

In an industry that often chases trends and prestige, Daleen Gouws has quietly built something different. She’s proven that you can run a successful agency without following the playbook, that you can charge fair prices and still deliver exceptional results, that faith and business aren’t mutually exclusive. She’s created jobs, mentored students, helped organisations doing vital work amplify their voices.

But what she’s built reaches far beyond her own success. She’s changing how communications agencies can operate in South Africa, one authentic relationship, one meaningful campaign, one faith-filled decision at a time.

And for a farm girl who once couldn’t quite articulate what communication studies entailed but knew she loved it anyway, that’s a story worth telling.