31 May 2018

It takes patience, passion and hardwork for one to succeed in achieving their business goals. This is according to Ms Zanele Masuku, a youth entrepreneur from Molepolole.

Her story is a motivating one to listen to as she revealed how she risked all by leaving her permanent job to pursue her business interest.

“I worked at the Molepolole District Commissioner’s office for a period of six months in 2012 and then registered and started a catering and supply company called Tuza Investment with the savings I made. I then quit my permanent job to fully focus on my business,” she said.

Ms Masuku said as a new comer in the business, it was not a smooth sailing especially in getting tenders as she went for three months without any.

“My business only started getting recognition in 2014 after I developed unique Setswana cuisine . It was then that it started getting recommendations,” she said.

Ms Masuku said in 2016 she then realised that her business needed to grow to another level, hence applied for the Youth Development Fund (YDF) the following year and was funded to the tune of P100 000.

At the moment she said she was about to start the procurement process for material for her business which she said would be situated at Magokotswane ward with an initial five rooms offering bed and breakfast.

She noted that for business to grow, entrepreneurs had to be patient and invest more on hard work to reap the rewards.

The youthful entrepreneur said she was never put off by the challenges she faced as she anticipated them because they were normal for start-ups.

She appreciated market days organised by the Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) office in Molepolole as a good initiative that gave small and medium business the platform to get to meet more customers.

Business advisor at LEA in Molepolole, Ms Wedu Motsumi revealed that since the inception of market days in 2016, small and medium businesses had shown interest in utilising the day to market their products and services.

She said when they started the turn out by small entrepreneurs was very low as they sometimes had as low as only four but currently they even reached up to 20 or more entrepreneurs.

She said normally after every market day, small business people gave a positive feedback on their sales for the day.

She said their target was normally to give the small and medium business people exposure at month end when people could afford to buy from them in large numbers. ENDS