Entrepreneurs are made they are not born that way

I would like to share my journey in starting small businesses and my many failures and the few successes I have had in the process. I remember hearing this saying over the radio from the late Mr Cephas Msipa then the Governor of the Midlands Province in Zimbabwe, “An investor is a person who sees opportunity where others do not see it”. There is also the saying “necessity is the mother of all inventions” is very key in bringing about entrepreneurs. I believe the ability to sell is also key to entrepreneurship as you will ultimately have to make money in whatever you chose to venture into. My very first selling experience was when I was in grade 7 and my mother would ask me to sell excess vegetables from her garden and I would sit with the dish outside a supermarket after school. The next year, I was part of the Boys’ Scouts and I would sell toffee sweets at Manunure High School in Kwekwe.

After my father passed on, life became difficult and by the time I wrote O’Level, my mother had ventured into small projects such as operating a tuck shop from our kitchen window, having a garden at home and raising broiler chicken. As the eldest child, I would help her in the shop and also in going to buy stock at the wholesalers and also to buy a dozen of bread almost everyday at the bakery as our customers never wanted to buy stale bread. After I wrote my O’level exams, there was a gentleman who came to rent half of our house and he opened a big tuck shop and he employed me to sell bread from a bread delivery bicycle in the township. Some of the girls thought it was not a cool job, but I was happy to earn extra money whilst I waited for my results and then start A’Level studies. I would wake up early before 6 am and go around the township ringing a bell, around 9 am when the milk guy from the state dairy company came through I would follow him again and then towards dusk I would do another round in the township. I worked there for three months. When it was time to start my A’Level studies my employer was sad to see me go and he even tried to talk me out of going for A’ Level.

After I started working, I was raising broiler chicken about 100 at a time. In 1999 when I received my 200 shares during Old Mutual demutualisation process, I sold them (now 18 years later I am not sure if it was a correct decision!). With the money from selling my shares, I was able to buy a dozen asbestos roofing sheets and then built two chicken runs at my mother’s house. I was able to increase production to about 300birds. My mother would sell chicken at home and I would slaughter chicken and bring to Harare and sell to my workmates on credit and collect the money on month-end and also to my neighbours in Avondale. When I got married in 2001 my wife also helped by selling some of the chicken to her friends. The economic crisis in Zimbabwe was beginning in the early 2000s and there was shortage of some of the basic goods. My sister was working for a wholesaler and I would buy a few goods in short supply and then take them by public transport to my cousin who had a general dealer shop in Mutoko rural areas. I started feeling the resentment from my cousin and I wondered why I should not open my own shop.

In 2001 I was still working for AIG Zimbabwe and towards year end, the company would grant us loans to buy items such as furniture and durable home appliances. After I got my cheque, I told the wholesaler to rather give me stock for the shop. I loaded my stock on the bus to our village in Murewa and opened my shop at a small centre that had been abandoned. To the south of our village, there was a commercial farm about 5km away officially called Paradise farm in Macheke. The locals always gave these farms informal names based on the physical appearance or conduct of the farmer. I remember a farm called Mandebvu (after the long beard of the farmer), Mukandabhutsu (if the farmer had a penchant of hitting workers). Paradise farm was informally known as Masvaisvai farm. Long before the government rural electrification program, it was the only place with electricity within a 25km radius. I remember in the 80s, during school holidays in the company of my cousins, we would visit the farm to pay to use the electrical grinding machine which was cheaper than the diesel grinding machines at the townships in the black communal areas. My cousins would also go with baskets full of vegetables for sale to the farm workers at the compound where farm workers lived in squalor as compared to the farmer. My favourite part of the trip would be to visit the farm store and buy refridgerated cold drinks. The storekeeper was the most unfriendly person that I had ever met, if you asked him about the prices of goods in his shop the second time he would growl at you and ask if you wanted to buy or just wanted to waste his time. During the land reform, when the farmer was taken over by communal farmers mainly from our village, I took over the farm store and ran it for more than a year. In 2003, I had to close the two shops as I failed in running that business. In the process I learnt very valuable lessons.

In January 2004, I joined Zimnat Lion Insurance company and as part of my perks, I was allocated a Mazda double cab bakkie. I decided to go back into retail business. I have spoken to many people who gives excuses that even though they have brilliant ideas they can’t get capital so they just abandon their ideas. I started renting a shop at a relatively busy business centre in Mutoko, called Janhi (The correct name was Jan) named after the last white commercial farmer farmer who left during the war of liberation in the late 70s. At first, we took mine and my wife’s salary for that month and bought stock that would last about three days. In the middle of the week, I would drive from Harare to Mutoko a round trip of about 300km and replenish the stock. After about a month with the profit that I was making, I was able to buy stock that would last me a week. It is also very important to separate your own personal money from your business money. Within a few months, I now had stock that would last me over 3 months. They say necessity is the mother of all inventions, I seemed not to make money because my Mazda B2200 petrol bakkie was a real guzzler as I would need 50litres for a distance of 300km. An idea came to my mind. Why don’t I open another shop and spread the transport costs. I drove about 20km to the Virginia commercial farming area of Macheke where the land reform had just taken place and negotiated with the local leadership for places to trade from as the communities were desperate to have shops nearby. By 2005 I had 10 general dealer shops and I was battling to manage them. My first shop when coming from Mutoko road was at Rukanda and my last shop would be at Rufaro farm about 10km from Mutare road. So mid-week after work, I would drive along Mutare road and come out on Mutoko side, get home around 3am sleep and wake-up before 7am and go to work. Most of my weekends were spent at the shops.

Proper management training is actually vital when you are running a business. As an entrepreneur you need to invest in management skills. In 2005 I had been applying to local universities to pursue an MBA degree and I was rejected many times. The universities did not consider my insurance Associate Diploma as an adequate entry requirement to their MBA programs. Towards end of 2005, I completed my Fellowship diploma (Advanced Diploma in Insurance Management) with the following subjects:- Finance & Management Accounts, Risk Management, Marketing Management, Business Environment and Fundamentals of Management. The most effective training, I did was when in 2005 I visited Open Learning Centre in Harare at that time they were enrolling for a 3 year Post Graduate programme that led to the Nottingham Trent University MBA degree. I was accepted in the program and lecturers were being held on alternating weekends. The first course that we did was on management. I had been in management for about 3 years, I had not had proper management training at this level. Our lecturer was a senior manager at Bindura Nickel Corporation, which was previously a subsidiary of Anglo American. In that class, there were managers from Zimbabwe’s corporates and also business owners. In my cohort, I had two senior managers from Econet Wireless, a regional manager from Dairiboard Zimbabwe and NGO manager etc. This course was very practical as we had to apply the material to our local situation. I also learnt a lot from the experiences of my class mates. Unfortunately I dropped out before completing the first year.

After what I learned during the management module at the Open Learning Centre, I closed 7 general dealer shops and only concentrated on 3 most profitable shop that were contributing meaningfully to my earnings. On some of the expensive stock items, farmers could only pay by barter trade. So by end of 2005, I found my self with 3 cattle that I had to sell. I took the cattle to Surrey abattoir outside Marondera and on top of the price for animals they also paid me a transport allowance per animal. I just figured out that just on the transport allowance also I could make a lot of money so I traded-in my double cab bakkie and added a lot of money and bought an 8tonne lorry. With that lorry, I ended up being hired to carry cotton during the harvest season and also carry farmers’ fresh produce throughout the year to the market in Harare. Towards end of 2005, I was allocated a Toyota double cab bakkie at work and in my experience that is the most durable vehicle I have driven.

In 2006, I was transferred to Bulawayo. When I got to Bulawayo, I looked for land to rent and I got a six acre plot in Kensington about 15km outside the city on the Beitbridge road. I cleared the bush and the fields and I started growing vegetables that I would sell in both Bulawayo and Beitbridge. In December 2006 whilst most people were enjoying their Christmas holidays, I had 600 broiler chicken that I had raised and I spent my holiday moving around Bulawayo townships selling the chicken. My main source of income was from my shops and I would drive at least once a month to buy provisions from the Chinese traders in Francistown in Botswana then drive to Musina South Africa to buy cooking oil, soap, and petroleum journey and to Johannesburg to buy solar panels, small radios and the rest of the groceries since most of the goods were now coming from South Africa as the manufacturing industry in Zimbabwe had all but collapsed. Once a month I would drive to Johannesburg from Bulawayo on Friday evening after work, the following morning I would buy stock in Crown Mines area, then that evening drive back to Harare and to Mutoko and then on Sunday evening go back to Bulawayo a round trip of almost 3000km over the weekend. I had a good manager managing my business when I was about 600kms away in Bulawayo.

In Zimbabwe due to the relatively low crime levels, people have been giving lifts to strangers long before Uber came-up with the concept. One Sunday morning, around 3am on my way to Harare and then to my shops in Macheke and Mutoko coming from Bulawayo. The previous Friday afternoon, I had driven to Francistown and then on Saturday I had driven to Musina. This day I was going to drive to drive almost 600km to my shops to deliver stock and still come back and be at work the following morning. People who know me well, knows that I really get excited when I speak about business and I like to exchange business ideas even with strangers. So on this day, the guy was dropping off in Gweru and he asked me to bring him sugar beans as there was huge demand for the crop in Bulawayo. When I got to the shop that day I saw a farmer selling four 50kg bags of sugar beans and I bought the bags. The following day when I was back in Bulawayo, I called the guy and he said he would buy from me once he had money. I started to research the market on my own and I could not believe the price they were offering. Within two weeks I had brought in 5 tonnes of sugar beans and with the earnings, I was able to buy a used Isuzu KB250 bakkie cash and managed to increase the stock in my shops. My wife warned me about putting all my eggs in one basket by investing over R70 000 stock in my shops and this fell on deaf ears. After Easter, I gathered the strength and decided to resign from work and then run my business on a full time basis. Luck was not on my side as the government unleashed a massive price control blitz and like most businesses in Zimbabwe at that time we lost a lot of money and hyper inflation got worse. We started barter trade with farmers where they would pay us in maize for the groceries and I would drive to Harare and sell the maize in Harare and get South African Rands. In August 2007, my SA work permit came out and I came to SA and within a week started working again in September 2007. I always had a challenge with accounting when I ran my business and I am happy with my stay in South Africa, I managed to complete an Accounting degree.

In summary I believe we can all be entrepreneurs. One needs to remember the following

• If you have an idea work on it and refine it as much as possible. It always important to get started and you will refine the idea as you adjust to your specific business environment
• do not be afraid of failing as we get better when we learn from our mistakes
• Excuses are not for entrepreneurs. Imagine any country going through a rough time, there are entrepreneurs there succeeding against all odds. I remember working in Zimbabwe in 2007 when we were experiencing record levels of inflation, the board would still expect you to deliver results as difficult as it was. You would not see managers coming to the meeting and giving excuses.
• Always be on the lookout for opportunities, remember necessity is the mother of all inventions
• Be prepared to work extra hours. For your venture to go anywhere you must be prepared to put in the hours. Remember any problem that arise needs your personal attention even at midnight.
• Capital is very important but it must not be an excuse. What is important is to start small if you can build on that idea, learn from your mistakes and perfect your ideas. Imagine yourself as a bank, would you honestly fund you?
• You do not need to reinvent the wheel. Skill your self about learning about your trade, entrepreneurship, selling skills, basic accounting, basic cost accounting, people management etc.
• Have mentors, now with facebook you can follow successful people and learn valuable lessons. My suggestion follow people like Vusi Thembekwayo, Strive Masiyiwa etc.
• The company that you keep can make or break your business, associate with like minded people and learn from them
• No man or woman is an island, please make use of people in your life. Run some of your ideas through people close to you. I discovered running my ideas by people that I trust helps a lot (ever wondered why in successful companies there is robust debates). I am very good at generating ideas but I leave the day to day management to my wife as she is better at that.
• Do not be scared to make decisions, you will only get better by making more decisions. As Africans one issue that holds us back in business is our beliefs. There is a Shona saying, loosely translated it goes by “whenever a person dies, there is always a witch responsible for the death” As a youngster, I stayed in police camps until I was 15 and I would get to speak to remand prisoners and even convicted prisoners when they came to clean around the police station. One thing struck me, whenever you asked one of the prisoners why they were in jail, the answer would be “they said I did this or that”. I don’t remember anyone of them owning up to say “I am here because I committed this crime”. I think one of the most liberating thing in life is to take ownership and believe in one’s power. In business and in life, we all go through ups and downs. If something bad happens, look the problem in the eye and try to rise up, it is dis-empowering to start to think that so and so has bewitched you. I believe that everyone of us has the most important power in that whatever happens to you as long as you are still breathing, you have the power to decide what you do next.

This is Africa’s century and we need entrepreneurs to drive growth in Africa and lift as many people out of poverty as possible. Please let us share experiences so that we may grow together. In the near future, when I get the inspiration, I would like to share my experience with Zimbabweans based outside Zimbabwe about the challenges in trying to run small ventures in Zimbabwe given the distance and time challenges.