He was one of the big names in business in Africa; as gentlemanly. as he was shrewd. He fought the odds and apartheid to stake his place in business and inspire millions of his countrymen to do the same.



Richard Maponya – the doyen of black business in South
Africa – passed away in the early hours of January 6, after a short illness.
Maponya turned 99 on Christmas Eve near the end of a long and fruitful life
that saw him dine with the Queen, laugh with Bill Clinton and chauffer his old
friend Nelson Mandela. Mandela asked Maponya, who owned a car dealership, to
pick him up at the airport in Johannesburg after his release from prison in
1990. 



Ï picked him up at the airport and that was the most
frightening time of my life. We were chased by people on foot, helicopters,
motorbikes and cars. Everyone just wanted to touch Mandela. They could kill him
just trying to touch him,” Maponya recalled to Forbes Africa in a cover story
in March 2017.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 



Mandela was a close friend of Maponya since the 1950s. The
future president, then a young lawyer&nbsp;&nbsp;
helped Maponya set up his first business against the restrictive
apartheid laws that shackled black business. 



Maponya wanted to open a clothing store in Soweto,
Johannesburg; the authorities said no. Mandela lost the fight for the clothing
store, but did manage to secure him a license to trade daily necessities. This
opened the way for Maponya to start out with a milk delivery business that was
to prove the foundation of his fortune.



More than half a century on, Mandela, then a former president
of South Africa, beamed with pride, in 2007, as he opened the first shopping
mall in Soweto. 



Maponya Mall had taken the canny businessman a good deal of
patience to put together. He acquired the land in 1979 – the first black man to
secure a 100-year lease for land in Soweto – and spent many more years building
up the mall.



“Ï fought for 27 years for that mall and was many times denied;
they actually thought I was dreaming. When Nelson Mandela cut the ribbon to
open the mall, that was the highlight of my life,” Maponya said years later. 



It was a mile on a road less travelled by Maponya in a long
journey from the tiny township of Lenyenye in Limpopo in northern South Africa
where he was born. He moved across the province to Polokwane to train as a
teacher and then, like many young men of his generation, moved south to
Johannesburg in search of his fortune.



In those days, the gold mining city was booming, but only the few saw the fruits. Maponya was blocked at every turn as he tried to make his way in business; he won through making a fortune from property, horse racing, retail, cars and liquor. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="782" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya-782x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42442" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya-782x1024.jpg 782w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya-300x393.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya-600x786.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya-229x300.jpg 229w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya-768x1006.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya-1173x1536.jpg 1173w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/New-Richard-Maponya.jpg 1466w" sizes="(max-width: 782px) 100vw, 782px" /></figure>



Maponya mentored many black entrepreneurs and inspired many
millions more he had never met. One of them was Herman Mashaba, the former
mayor of Johannesburg, who made his own fortune with hair care products.



“To myself and the people I grew up with he was an
inspiration to all of us to get into business…If he had started out in business
in a normal world there is no doubt he would have been even bigger than he
was,” Mashaba told CNBC Africa.



Maponya will be mourned by the millions who were inspired to
follow him and by a business world that is richer, in more ways than one, for his
nearly a century of hard work in which retirement was never an option.



“People who retire are lazy people. You retire and do what?
Bask in the sun?&nbsp; I am not that type of
man,” he said in 2017 at the age of 96.



He could never be.



&#8211; By Chris Bishop

Richard 128

The Life And Wisdom Of Richard Maponya

On a scorching hot day, we travel to the Zola area of Soweto, a township south of Johannesburg in South Africa.
Despite the soaring mercury, the trip is worth it.
Zola was known to be home to some of South Africa’s greatest musicians including Brenda Fassie, Mandoza and M’du, as well as soccer players John ‘Shoes’ Lesiba Moshoeu of Orlando Pirates and Mongezi Joel ‘Ace’ Mnini of Moroka Swallows.
Now, it’s also home to a promising fashion designer.
The small town, with a rough population of 44,000, is where self-taught South African designer Zamaswazi Nkosi crafts his creations for the city’s catwalks.
Nkosi greets us by the corrugated gates of the entrance to his compound dressed in a blue golf shirt featuring an African print pattern – the same shirt he showcased at the South African Fashion Week (SAFW) Spring/Summer 2017. His pants complement the look, along with blue loafers and a white fedora.
Ushering us in, he politely offers to carry some of our equipment. The genial, soft-spoken Nkosi then shows us around.
His workspace, which was once a garage, is attached to his bedroom. Clothes hang on a rack next to the door. Two sewing machines sit at the corner of the room with fabric, needles and thread neatly stacked beside them. Next to them is a table where he irons his garments. You can tell he is a one-man army.
The wall on the opposite side of the room is filled with a collage of photographs, newspaper clippings and awards. A headline from The Citizen reads: “A daring designer”.
“My love for fashion started the day I had no clothes to wear,” Nkosi opens.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2015/04/01/new-kids-on-the-fashion-block/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: New Kids On The Fashion Block</a>
Growing up with a single mother and as one of six siblings, he was forced to improve his circumstances at home. He developed the art of restoration.
“It started with reviving the old to new. Sometimes I would take my sisters’ clothes and redo them so that I could have something to wear,” he says.
Little did he know at the time his innovations would one day be part of the fabric of high fashion in South Africa.
Nkosi began by sewing clothes using his mother’s old sewing machine. From there, he would piece together fabric lying around the house.
“I took my mother’s tablecloth, I stole it actually,” he admits.
Nkosi then crafted the tablecloth with a shirt of his to create an entirely new piece. He enjoyed reinventing things and it’s evident in the clothes he designs and puts together today.
However, Nkosi wasn’t always into fashion. On the wall with the photos, are also the trophies and medals he has won, not for fashion, but for football.
They all date back to the time Nkosi was into soccer. As a teenager, he was a midfielder.
“I was called ‘Teko’ from Teko Modise,” he says.
He imagined becoming a world-class football player in his 20s limbering up preparing for soccer war in the stadiums.
But that dream was shattered when an injury changed the course of his life forever.
This happened when he was 16, playing football in Soweto.
“I got tackled from behind. That was when my knee twisted,” he says.
He didn’t see a doctor, and continued to play. Only now does he regret not going for treatment.
“I thought that maybe if I felt better I could play. Only to find out that I was damaging it and it became worse. Then there was a point where I realized it was no longer working.”
Nkosi was devastated that he may never get the chance to play football again.
He was grieving the loss of his first love not knowing he would find something he would enjoy doing, again.
His sister consoled him and encouraged him to start something new. That’s when he did some serious soul-searching. After weighing his pros and cons, he started thinking of himself as a fashion designer.
“Being a fashion designer, it’s somewhat like a calling. Because I didn’t just wake up and decide to be one or be inspired by someone,” he says.
Fashion taking over his life came as some sort of divine intervention. He says he has never looked back since.
<div id="attachment_36175" style="width: 209px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36175" class="size-medium wp-image-36175" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-199x300.jpg 199w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-600x903.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-768x1156.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM.jpg 1361w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />Zamaswazi Nkosi. Photograph by Karen Mwendera.</div>
He accepted this calling and hosted fashion shows within his community, in Zola. It seemed the needle – in more ways than one – was turning in his favor.
His first show had only 10 people attending, but that did not discourage him.
Nkosi then attended a SAFW event with the hope he could one day showcase his work on the platform. He watched closely the designs of one of his favorite South African designers, David Tlale, on the runway.
“I told myself ‘no man, I can do this’.”
There was just one hurdle. He had no academic qualifications for the job.
“On big platforms like SAFW they normally require fashion qualifications like a diploma or anything that relates to fashion. So, as Zamaswazi, I had nothing on paper. I only had skill,” he says.
After countless rejections, he one day garnered the courage to speak to the founder of SAFW, Lucilla Booyzen. A nervous but determined 24-year-old Nkosi walked up to her after one of the shows.
Booyzen told Nkosi to do what he had already done before. “Just apply,” she said.
But Nkosi was not having it. The young boy from the township was determined.
“I was like, ‘no if you need paper [qualifications] and I’m dressing my own clothes and it’s proper, why can’t you let me showcase’?”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/04/19/designs-africa-michelle-obama/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Designs For Africa, And Michelle Obama</a>
She then told him to come to her office and talk about opportunities. And the rest was history.
He had to prepare a proposal and showcase his work to a number of top fashionistas. It included creating a fashion portfolio, storyboard and designs of his pieces.
“It took me two weeks to even know what ‘portfolio’ is. That’s how I learned,” says Nkosi.
He was then shortlisted for the ‘scouting menswear collection’ in association with GQ magazine in 2015.
The platform brought his designs to life and Nkosi got his first break at SAFW.
Nkosi has showcased his designs at SAFW events, designing clothes for men that are modern with an African twist. His signature is the hemmed-in African print on to modern clothing. Much like the shirt he is wearing at this interview.
Nkosi relates this to his heritage and humble beginnings that forced him to merge different kinds of material into one. Unlike some of the other designers at sought-after fashion showcases such as SAFW, Nkosi says he designs and sews his clothes himself.
In his hometown Soweto, his friends and neighbors still can’t believe the boy who once played soccer swapped the ball for a sewing machine.
After the interview, he courteously helps us again to carry out our equipment.
Parked outside his house is his red vintage Beetle car with the word ‘Zamaswazi’ engraved on it. He bought the car last year.
Even though the engine doesn’t run he says he plans to work on it so he can do the six-hour drive to attend the annual Durban July.
The trendy man in the white fedora riding a red vintage car through the scenic green landscapes of South Africa to attend a premium horseracing event – it’s a pretty picture indeed.
<div id="attachment_36176" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36176" class="wp-image-36176 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM.jpg 1902w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Zamaswazi Nkosi designs and sews his clothes himself. Photograph by Karen Mwendera.</div>

365_KM

From Football To Fashion

How do you make science fun? Just ask 36-year-old vodka entrepreneur Sibusiso Sibisi.
With an unquestionable flair for organizing events and parties – most of them in his backyard growing up – instead of studying event management, he went on to study analytical chemistry for his BSc degree. He then sanguinely mixed the two.
Today, he makes vodka that gets consumed at parties country-wide in South Africa.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2014/10/01/the-iron-lady-of-beer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Iron Lady Of Beer</a> 
Born and bred in Kagiso, a township not far from Krugersdorp, a mining town in the south of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sibisi launched his own brand, Distinkt Vodka, in 2016.
Keen to hear his story, I head to Kagiso to meet him. It takes me 30 minutes to locate his address, using maps on my phone and eventually realizing the need to update the GPS in my car, an exercise that would have saved me a lot of time and petrol.
Outside his home, a black delivery van is parked next to his swanky MINI Cooper. Sibisi, equally sleek, in a suit, emerges, welcomes me inside, and leading me to a bar in his garage, offers a shot of his Distinkt Vodka.
Sampling it with a dash of lemon and soda, it’s a good taste of the interview that is to follow.
Sibisi grew up in a large household with several family members. He didn’t have a privileged upbringing; the first time he got to sleep in his own bed was when he was 18 years old, after he moved with his mother to a new house in the same area within Kagiso.
After high school, he pursued a national diploma in analytical chemistry at the University of Johannesburg, a path he chose goaded on by college career counsellors who thought he had the right analytical abilities.
“To be honest, I hated analytical chemistry because it did not go with who I was,” says Sibisi.
His heart was elsewhere.
As a student, Sibisi enjoyed organizing and hosting events, in the same house I meet him for this interview. He was popular for his, although-humble, backyard parties and for simply, having fun.
When he told people he was studying chemistry, it always surprised them.
But as he pursued his studies, he realized he actually liked analytical chemistry; studying how things came to be, such as vodka or even a bar of soap.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2015/08/01/farmworker-multi-millionaire/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: From Farmworker To Multi millionaire</a>
But Sibisi still struggled to acquire the diploma, dropping out after four years, as he had lost interest and wasn’t sure if he really did want to study. He called his mother and told her he wanted to work instead. But that too was to be short-lived.
“I started working at a call center for a bank. [But] I realized I needed to graduate because it wasn’t nice saying the same things all day; that’s how I went back and graduated in 2008,” he says.
Soon after graduating, he worked as a laboratory technician, then supervisor and manager, going through all the motions of working in a lab. Sibisi worked hard and it was recognized by his employers.
“A lab is a place where you get to talk to yourself a lot because it is not active and vibrant like many industries. You are on your own and have to focus,” he says.
“All this time, I was thinking I had acquired so much knowledge in university, I’m acquiring knowledge now in the field, I know how most of these things come about. [But] what am I doing about it? That is how I went into the lab and started experimenting.”
This he accomplished, using the Chemin incubator program labs at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
He looked into the alcohol industry, researched the volume of alcohol consumed by people, especially the youth, on weekends, and the sales potential of such an opportunity.
He also realized that this could be a revenue-spinner for South Africa, a major importer of liquor.
Sibisi saw an opportunity in the vodka market and knew he had to target his own country, he says pointing his fingers to the ground.
The first beverage he developed was a beer prototype, then a brandy prototype, followed by a gin prototype. He developed the first vodka prototype in 2012 and decided on vodka, adding that it is one of the few quality products in the market.
“The liquor market is very saturated, even worse with the vodka market because there are many ways to make vodka, but there’s very few ways to make good vodka,” laughs Sibisi.
His knowledge of chemistry more than came in handy.
<div id="attachment_36010" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36010" class="wp-image-36010 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="682" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Vodka-182.jpg 1241w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Sibusiso Sibisi. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
Distinkt is made using grain and potatoes, among other things. Sibisi buys the potatoes from a farmer in the North West province of South Africa, after which he mashes them, and then boils them at high temperatures. The liquid is strained from the potatoes, and fermented.
Soon after the fermentation process, it is distilled and filtered three times for purity. He takes what’s left of it, and tastes the alcohol content. If it is high, he uses purified water to dilute the alcohol, if it is low, it is redistilled to have the exact desired concentration of alcohol. It is then tested again. If there is an anomaly, the process is repeated before the vodka is bottled and packaged.
“This proudly South African vodka has reached most of Gauteng and other big towns in other provinces [in the country] and is selling at a faster rate than it was before,” beams Sibisi.
“We are currently in a few Pick n Pay liquor outlets and Ultra liquors across South Africa and in most township bottle stores, pubs and clubs.”
Distinkt is currently produced in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal and a plant in Germiston in Johannesburg.
I had downed a shot of vodka and had to drive back to the office, with the GPS for company. How I wished the interview had been on a Friday afternoon.

Vodka-188

The Party Animal In The Lab

Reabetswe Ngwane has come a long way from Rustenburg, and she has covered the journey on recycled tyres – literally.
The bubbly and ambitious Ngwane, raised in Mogwase, a township in Rustenburg in the North West Province of South Africa, recycles tyre tubes for a living, and has been able to turn waste to wealth.
When we meet her in the affluent suburb of Sandton in Johannesburg, she is late, having driven in from Rustenburg after another meeting. Dressed formally in black, she settles to talk about where it all began.
Ngwane’s entrepreneurial journey unraveled when she relocated from the township to the city in Rustenburg where she started her first business with a friend. They recycled plastic bags, turning them into school bags with solar lanterns, provided to kids in underprivileged areas.
Unfortunately, that partnership did not last.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2016/02/01/roll-sleeves-walk-past-handbag/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: ‘Roll Up Your Sleeves, Walk Past That Handbag’</a>
“Then we parted ways respectively in business and generally. That’s when I started the tyre business with my sister [Katlego],” says Ngwane.
The business picked up. They were approached by REDISA (Recycling and Economic Development Initiative In South Africa) who offered to handle their Rustenburg tyre depot.
Ngwane wanted to learn and research more about all the elements that went into the tyre business.
So she did what most wouldn’t think of – she consulted with the people pushing trolleys on the side of road recycling scrap.
“They work extensively at the mine fields; in a nutshell, they are industry experts. We went to them, consulted with them. [About an] alternative to plastic, because that’s all I knew. I asked them ‘what else I could use as a resource to make up products’ and they advised on the tyre tubes and it became a business,” she says.
The business’ main focus is recycling tyre tubes to make fashionable bags.
The whole process begins by transporting the tyre tubes to one of their work sites where they wash, clean and refurbish them. They are then taken to a production factory where they are cut into respective patterns depending on orders.
Ngwane has her products in a store, Mememe, in Cape Town in the Western Cape, and another in South African capital Pretoria, called In Bloom. She also takes orders online. Her bags range from R500 ($43) to R1,400 ($120).
She not only recycles tyre tubes to create trendy bags, but also makes products for the mining and construction industries.
These orders differ from the retail industry.
<div id="attachment_35904" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35904" class="wp-image-35904 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Reabetswe-101-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Reabetswe-101-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Reabetswe-101-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Reabetswe-101-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Reabetswe-101-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Reabetswe-101-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Reabetswe-101.jpg 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Reabetswe Ngwane. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
“The retail industry is not as mass-orientated as the mining and construction industry. With the retail industry, it depends on how many orders of these we get, how many orders of backpacks we make, and then the patterns are made and then the bags. With regards to mining and construction, there are three sets of products we provide to them,” she says.
For the mines, Ngwane makes first-aid kit bags used by the workers underground and over the ground. The material mostly used for this previously was canvas, which is not durable, she says.
Ngwane also makes respiratory bags or masks used by the workers. The biggest orders she gets from the mines are however for seat protectors.
“It’s like a shield that covers your bum, you strap it on your waist, strap it on your legs, as the guys drilling underground [are] scooting backwards and forwards; because they [are] scooting, they damage their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and bump into hard surfaces like rocks, and corrosive liquids whatever the case may be; [the seat protector] is used to protect them,” she says.
Ngwane is the first to break into this kind of market, she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2014/06/01/woman-toughest-job/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Woman With the toughest job</a>
She recalls the days she had to knock on several doors to get her business going. Her research involved ongoing conversations with users in the mines asking them about the durability of canvas.
Ngwane is contracted to an entity that supplies a lot of the mines in the North West of South Africa with PPE. With her sister Katlego, their company, KreamFields, has been in operation for the last two years, and their fortune is growing.
Their work also has social significance as recycling waste means helping the environment rid itself of rubber scrap.
Ngwane seems to have literally reinvented the wheel turning tyre tubes to tote bags.

Reabetswe-074

On A Roll With Used Tyres

Ludwick Marishane has never been a fan of bathing. On a winter’s day in 2007, a friend gave him an idea that not only became his bread and butter but allowed him to stay clean without bathing.
“Historically, people used to do bucket baths once or twice a week. Showering every day is a marketing behavior. Big companies said ‘we are selling soap but people aren’t using it often enough [so] we need to create a culture that says you need to bath everyday’. So they made a beautiful business model where basically they sell us soaps that dry our skin and then sell us lotion to use soon after,” he says.
As we meet, he hasn’t showered for three days and he has been rewarded for it. Google named him one of the most intelligent young brains in the universe; he was voted the best student entrepreneur in the world by the Entrepreneurs’ Organization; and he was named by the magazine you are reading now as one of Africa’s 30 under 30 most promising entrepreneurs in 2015.
Marishane built a company with few resources and a love for science. This is despite the fact he couldn’t even speak English in grade two.
“I remember I bought a burger at lunch in school and this girl came to me to ask how much the burger was but I basically repeated what she was saying because I didn’t know how to respond,” he says.
From then on, his father taught him how to be the CEO of his education.
“My dad abused me with books. Every day at 7PM I had to present to my dad what I learned that day. I had to do a page of English, life skills and maths every day and I always had extra homework,” recalls Marishane.
The hard work paid off.  He became an A student by grade four.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2013/10/01/working-hard-playing-harder/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ: Working Hard Playing Harder</a>
All was good until he had to move back to Limpopo, near the border of Zimbabwe, to live with his mother. Life was different. He says his school was the size of his dad’s backyard in Johannesburg and the kids weren’t as competitive in the classroom. He got bored. Entrepreneurship was the answer.
“My mom and dad didn’t have this child support thing. They had clear lines of communication and when I was with one parent, that’s the parent who took care of me. When I lived with my mom, we lived on my mom’s salary and it was tight. She was a cashier and life wasn’t the same as when I lived with my dad.”
Marishane knew he had to make money, yet, instead of working on quick-money businesses like selling ice, he worked on long-term big-money ideas.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_35809" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35809" class="wp-image-35809 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ludwig-2-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ludwig-2-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ludwig-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ludwig-2-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ludwig-2-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ludwig-2.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Ludwig Marishane was selected as on of Forbes Africa&#8217;s 30 under 30 in 2015. Photo by Karen Mwendera.</div>
From grade nine, he tried and failed to start many businesses.
First, he tried the biodiesel space but failed because of high competition with bigger companies. Then it was a healthy cigarette, followed by a safety kit for families and then a safety magazine which also failed because of a lack of funds.
No matter the heartache, he never gave up.
In 2007, the big idea came. A friend of his didn’t want to bathe. Marishane and others nagged him to go shower. He fired back with a question: “Why doesn’t somebody invent something I can just put on my skin and I don’t need to bathe?”
The light bulb flickered. The question rang in his ears for hours.
“Immediately, I knew I was a customer for this. I also hated showering. I have never been a fan because of the bucket bath. We had no geyser and we had to boil water. We always had to schedule it and I was never a fan. The odor was what always exposed me to my mom,” says Marishane.
Research found nothing but a big gap in the market and even a bigger pool of potential customers. There were billions of people around the world without running water and a large percentage of those were here at home – Africa.
Marishane then hatched the idea for the world’s first bath-substituting skin gel that cleans without water. He formulated the product and, fittingly, called it DryBath. He then filed for a provisional patent to protect it in 2008. At the age of 17, it made him the youngest patent filer at the time, he says.
With the patent for DryBath in the bag, there was still a shortage of money. To fund the first prototype, he entered business plan competitions. It took him three years just to get the R20,000 ($1,700) needed. When he finally had enough, the prototype was a flop.
“One of the ingredients I had used flaked on the skin and there was no scent. It wasn’t a great product experience,” he says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/08/01/dirty-job-made-poor-man-filthy-rich/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ: A Dirty Job That Made A Poor Man Filthy Rich</a>
It was time to get help. He approached Hennie du Plessis, a chemical engineer and a leader in the formulation industry, and offered him a 25% stake in the company in exchange for his help with product development and packaging. Together, they improved the formula, and resolved the problems, up to 10 times before the final product they sell today was ready.
“We made a product that removes dead skin cells and body odor by just applying it on your body,” says Marishane.
More work was needed though.
“We had created the solution but we didn’t fully understand what the problem was. I remember when, for example, my current business partner, Lungelo Linda Dlamini, joined us, one of the philosophical questions we asked was what it actually means to be clean and we realized we didn’t know the answer. We saw we were trying to sell a product that cleans people when we don’t know how people feel clean,” he says.
It meant more research to understand their market.
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“We found that some people would say being clean is when body odor is removed, some would say it’s when they wear clean clothes, and others say the quiet time they get showering is what they need to feel clean while other would say they need water on their skin.”
Marishane says they found that most people felt clean with the removal of body odour so they added body wipes to their innovation.
“The human psychology of saying ‘there is dirt on my skin and it needs to go somewhere’ led to us adding the wipes to the product. Now, for those who need it, it is the psychology of saying, ‘I put this product on, it removes the dirt and smell on my body and then I wipe it off’. For some reason people prefer that. The question I used to get most was where the dirt goes. It showed me people needed to wipe.”
Even with that revelation, there was another stumbling block in his way. At a minimum of R150 ($12.50) per bottle, which gives you 15 washes, their product was too expensive for the people he was targeting.
“We even tried to sell to governments around Africa for R2.50 ($0.20) per wash, but it was still too high for their budget,” he says.
The business model had to change.
“We then decided to target middle income homes who could afford this product. The idea is then that through selling to them, we can build economies of scale necessary to bring the price down to R5 ($0.40) per wash,” says Marishane.
Most of their clients are from Europe and Asia. But in South Africa, with Cape Town’s water crisis, it is boom time.
“We made about five times more revenue in February than we did the whole year in the last financial year… Now we are doing a crowdfunding campaign so that we can be able to sell the product for less,” he says.
Marishane is proof that anything is possible. He has made sure people can wash without a drop of water in sight.

Ludwig Marishane

The Man Who Hated Bathing And Made A Business Out Of It

It’s a mixed bag of black investors; a former civil servant, an engineer, an IT specialist and a car leaser. They are united in taking the risk of bringing the craze of pay-as-you-drive car rentals to Africa. Their company, Locomute Shared Mobility, has sunk $3.4 million into it.
In June, Locomute will have 50 vehicles running on the road in Johannesburg; in three months, Cape Town and Durban will follow.
Sibusiso Xaba, the chairman, is guiding a group of young, black entrepreneurs in their thirties. For more than a decade, Xaba was a civil servant and director general in the Department of Arts and Culture. In January, in his forties, he took the leap as an entrepreneur.
“For every car that is shared, 15 people won’t necessarily have to buy a car. The convenience our service gives to the customers makes it outstanding compared to our competitors. It gets rid of debt capital, no e-tolls, no maintenance costs, you pay as you drive,” says Xaba.
In the competitive world of car rental, Kuthula Mkhize, the general manager, says it’s mainly for business types and visitors.
“Our target market is the executive person who flies into OR Tambo International from Durban and uses the car while in Johannesburg for the meeting and comes back to airport,” says Mkhize, who worked in the car rental business for eight years.
Technology is key. Before you can use Locomute cars you register on the internet or using a cell phone application for a few dollars.
“Subscribed members will reserve a car online or via the Locomute application. It’s a 24/7 access to a pool of vehicles located within designated zones called Locoparks. You only pay for the time you used the vehicle. We are responsible for the fuel, insurance and you leave the car where you desire,” says Xaba.
“This is an in-city service. You are not allowed to take the car in Johannesburg to Bloemfontein. We have technology to monitor our cars and we will immediately know what happens to each and every car in our fleet. If a car is stolen, we will be able to track it in no time,” says Mkhize.
“Before Gautrain was introduced, people drove cars to the airport, not because they wanted to but because they had no choice. Gautrain brought the service that was needed and today it is fully subscribed. So, if you give that person an option to drive our car from an office and leave it in a parking, he doesn’t have to worry about anything else,” says Xaba.
Martin Lydall, chief commercial officer for Imperial Car Rental, one of the biggest car rental companies in South Africa, says competition is good. In South Africa alone there are 60,000 rental vehicles in a business worth around $380 million, he says.
“This is probably the most competitive business in the world and South Africa is among the leading countries. We are business people and competition makes business effective. We are not concerned about the new companies. We have been competing with the small and big companies. It helps to evaluate your competitors and see where you need to improve in your own business,” says Lydall.
Derek Watts, FORBES AFRICA’s motoring correspondent, says there’s space for new players.
“We get used to the way of operations but if they establish a good name people will use their service. The transport system in South Africa changes by the day. It would be interesting to see, as long as you free people from insurance which this company is promising, then people will use the service,” says Watts.
Xaba hopes so.

Tag: Black Entrepreneurs

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