Kgomotso Moalusi starts her morning routine by meticulously laying out her pre-planned business outfit.
If need be, she’ll give her blouse a quick iron before starting her hour-long grooming regimen with a shower. She matches her attire with a timeless leather handbag, applies make-up, chooses her accessories and finishes off the look with a bold pair of red heels.
“It’s a lot to maintain,” says Moalusi, a 33-year-old Business Director at Vuma Reputation Management in Johannesburg, but this detailed ensemble is the bare minimum to be a professional in corporate South Africa.
From corporate clothing to being well-groomed, you need to look the part in a white-collar environment, and pay for it, which, for the sake of this article, we could call ‘the businesswoman tax’.
It’s a tax women pay in many ways, from the wage gap to pricey toiletries and the luxury tax on tampons. Added to this is the need to manage stress in a high-pressure work environment, and often the expenses of hiring staff to look after the family while working nine to five, and traveling the world.
The consequences of these multi-layered, subtle and institutionalized penalties are manifold – and most have a real and measurable financial burden on South Africa’s businesswomen and professionals.
Nicole Davidson feels the seemingly superficial – but very real – pressure of dressing appropriately as an attorney and director at the firm, MED Attorneys.
“There’s an expectation on female professionals to look and dress a certain way, especially in court, where one is limited to black and white attire,” she says. “Even our skirts have to be a certain length, but I tend to blur the lines and am quite bold with color.”
Moalusi agrees: “A full corporate wardrobe is a lot to maintain.”
Every item, from underwear to coats, needs to look neat and professional – and this includes accessorizing too. Handbags, shoes, and jewelry all form part of the businesswoman’s wardrobe.
Ann Pierce, founder of PhotoFeeler, a site that crowdsources first impressions from LinkedIn photos, writes in xoJane: “As they stand, I would define the ambiguous rules of traditional professional dress for women this way: a woman must wear a version of the popular menswear (1), and it must fit her in a way that is feminine (2), without being sexually appealing (3).”
An outfit, indeed, can say a lot and dressing appropriately is a tricky and expensive minefield to navigate.
“You’re a brand wherever you go,” says image consultant Maureen Grobler, who dresses a range of professionals, from those cutting corners to senior management executives at FNB in South Africa.
“The impressions you give from your outfit, poise, and most especially your grooming are all used to categorize you,” she adds, and all play a part in putting you on or holding you back from the career track.
Comparatively, corporate men have quite a basic look; owning three suits – black, navy and grey – is enough variety.
Writes Pierce: “Menswear is neutral. ‘No-fail’ work choices such as suit jackets, button-downs, and polo shirts all look and fit the same.”
Moalusi finds she needs much more basic clothing, plus accessories like scarves, to give her look variety.
“If a woman repeats an outfit too often, that just doesn’t fly,” she says, “But a guy can wear the same navy suit all week and no one will know the difference.”
She has enough clothes to mix, match, tweak and accessorize so an outfit isn’t repeated in a three-week cycle.
“It’s quite challenging to put together a full corporate wardrobe,” she says. “The ‘businesswoman tax’ puts you under huge pressure. I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I didn’t look the way I do.”
A savvy tactic, in the long run, is to invest in some timeless pieces. For example, instead of buying a variety of ‘plastic’ handbags that peel, Grobler recommends buying a leather handbag that has serious longevity, and high quality shoes of a similar nature.
“Not all women can afford this ‘businesswoman tax’,” says Grobler.
Davidson, for this reason, buys statement pieces, like locally-made Missibaba handbags that range in price from R3,500 ($260) to R9,250 ($687) for a tote.
A professional look is complete with the right shoes – and most women spend a small fortune on them. As Pierce explains in xoJane, “Wearing flats is often seen as sloppy and unprofessional for a woman, despite the fact that she is better able to physically function this way. At least a small heel is required to denote formality, but a too-high heel can become defamatory.”
On top of all this, there’s the need to be immaculately groomed. From hair (dyed, natural, straightened or braided) to toes (perfectly gelish-ed), there’s a cost every inch of the way.
Women who wear makeup are generally seen as more competent – and the reverse if she wears too much.
According to comparisons done by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, male and female versions of the same toiletry products vary significantly in price: out of the 800 examined, female products cost 7% more on average.
The tax on tampons is an additional financial burden. Whereas items like condoms are subsidized by the government, tampons and sanitary pads have a 14% price hike.
Though not the case for all professionals, many have to juggle children and family responsibilities too. Davidson says she depends on a full-time nanny to assist with her little ones, and that many of her friends with older children need stay-at-home help, and an au-pair to fetch the older children from school.
The Working Mothers Expo, launching from 4-6 November at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, uses the hashtag #TheJuggleIsReal; many working mothers feel significant pressure in maintaining a home and their work place to full capacity. A less measurable burden is the anxiety.
“The culture expectations of women are mirrored in the workplace,” says Johannesburg-based clinical psychologist Richard Middleton, who sees a fair amount of female executives in his offices.
“Women tend to be raised in a certain way, and a lot of women are expected to bear the emotional burden in the workplace and home, and take responsibility often without complaining or asking for help. This growing workload is unsustainable and inevitably when there’s burnout a lot of women feel guilty for not being able to handle this.”
Then there is the constant, oppressive burden of the wage gap. Dr Mark Bussin, Executive Committee Member at the South African Reward Association (SARA) and Chairperson, 21st Century Pay Solutions, works with a management consulting company that surveyed 700 companies and over 900 positions.
“Based on this huge database, we discovered that there’s a 15% average wage gap based on the median salary,” he says. Though this 15% is pretty consistent globally, South Africa is making real progress combating this with the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act.
The ‘businesswoman tax’ is insidious, and ripples through every aspect of the corporate woman’s life, holding long-term repercussions from paying back student debt to saving for retirement, paying off investments like property, and more. The combination of a lower salary with higher overall expenses and high expectations – being the immaculately-dressed professional and the perfect mother and partner – leads to emotional stress and burnout. Hopefully, awareness and governmental intervention, like the Equality Act, will continue making inroads into these inequalities.

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From Nails To Nannies:  The Price Women Pay

Regardless of whether Hillary Clinton becomes the next president of the United States (US) or not, women are slowly but steadily taking up political power.
The numbers of women leaders are still relatively low – only one-tenth of all leaders of the United Nation’s 193 member states are women and Clinton would be only the 19th female to currently govern her country. Research shows that over 60 of 142 countries have had women leaders at some point over the past 50 years, although most have held power for less than four years. Recent figures from UN Women also show that only 17% of government ministers are women, with most of their portfolios relating to social issues. And only two countries have a female majority in Parliament – Rwanda and Bolivia – although many countries have reached the one-third mark.
Clearly, there is still a long way to go. But here in the US, findings by the Pew Research Centre show that most women believe that whether Clinton achieves her second run for the presidency or not, a woman will be president at some point in their lifetime. According to one CNN poll, eight of 10 Americans think the country is ready for a woman president, but only one third think it’s a priority. Younger American women, it seems, take for granted the growing role of women in positions of power – both in government and business.
Among Clinton’s many detractors are those who would like to see a woman president but don’t necessarily believe she is the right woman for the job. Others are more appreciative of how much has changed since women first got the vote in 1920 (black women from the South faced voting hurdles until the 1960s), and are impatient to see Clinton in the White House as another important milestone on the path towards gender equality.
“When any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone,” Clinton said when accepting the Democratic nomination for president in Philadelphia in July. A woman in the White House, she said, would be “another step in our journey as a nation”. She also said that her election would give “other women and girls the hope that, whatever their goals, they can achieve them in this country”.
Some political observers believe that when Barack Obama felled the race barrier by becoming the first black president of the US in 2008, the sense of urgency around getting rid of the gender barrier by appointing a woman president dissipated. Clinton has also struggled to overcome deep unpopularity among many voters – both men and women. Her alliance with big business has left many working class voters feeling that she does not have their best interests at heart.
That said, the blatant sexism shown by her rival, Republican nominee Donald Trump, has shined a bright light on the status of women in the country.
When Trump accused Clinton of playing the “woman card”, her quick online reply was seen as a boost for her campaign.
“If fighting for women’s healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the ‘woman card’, then deal me in,” she said. In no time, a plastic “support Clinton woman card” became another must-have accessory for her supporters.
Trump’s glamorous daughter Ivanka, a powerful businesswoman in her own right, has tried to cast her father’s macho politics in a more woman-friendly light. When she introduced him at the Republican convention in Cleveland, also in July, she listed a host of Democratic-sounding, pro-women policies on childcare and family leave that she said her father would introduce, even though none of these policies are on the Republican agenda.
Clinton’s daughter Chelsea, similarly, has tried to show Clinton’s softer, more human side, describing her as her “wonderful, kind, thoughtful, hilarious mother” when she introduced her at the Democratic convention.
The friendship between Ivanka and Chelsea is much in the media spotlight. Both are powerful, accomplished young women who have made the most of their highly privileged backgrounds. Despite a bitterly-fought election campaign and the obvious rancor between their parents, their friendship supposedly endures. “I’m not running for public office, and neither is she, so of course we’re still friends,” Ivanka said in one interview.
Ivanka is vice president of her father’s real estate empire, the Trump Organization, and Chelsea is vice chair of the multi-million dollar Clinton Foundation. One of them will play a pivotal role in the new presidency. And, whatever the election outcome, both these young mothers are likely to be highly-influential individuals – whether in business or politics – in the years to come. The same could apply to Obama’s two young girls, Malia and Sasha, who will come of age in an era where race and gender won’t be the obstacles they once were.
Elsewhere in the world, progress on narrowing the gender gap in political leadership is being made. Women are at the helm in powerful countries like Germany and the United Kingdom. Although none of the frontrunners for the next United Nations Secretary General are women, it is still possible that a female could land the top diplomatic post. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is head of the world’s largest humanitarian agency, the UN Development Program, is a formidable leader who has her hat in the ring.
At the recent Social Good Summit in New York, Clark discussed the role of women in political power with another former woman president, Malawi’s Joyce Banda. Speaking to Barkha Dutt, an award-winning Indian television journalist, the two former state leaders shared their wisdom and advice for other women eying political office. They pointed out that many other countries have made more progress than the US in this regard, with Dutt reminding the audience that in Asian countries like India and Bangladesh women, have held office for years.
Clark, who campaigned in a climate where bumper stickers like “Ditch the Bitch” prevailed, said women in pursuit of political leadership had to brace themselves for many obstacles.
“Don’t accept people are going to roll out the red carpet for you. You have to roll out the red carpet yourself and kick the door down.”
Clark said women had to “turn a deaf ear to all the frankly misogynist things that are said about you. Everyone will have an opinion on how you look, how you dress, whether your teeth are crooked. You just have to look straight ahead, put your earplugs in and say I believe I can do this,” Clark said. On the UN Secretary General position she said she believed she had the right profile for the job. “So I’m standing my ground and saying I’m available.”
Banda, who walked out of an abusive marriage before becoming a leading politician and president of Malawi from 2012-14, said she did so at a time “when you didn’t walk out – especially in Africa”. Banda said she strongly believed that more African women had to become leaders. “Number one, because we have been leaders before. If you look into the history of the world before colonization we were already queens and leaders; we were leading our nations,” she told the audience. She also said it was crucial to support other women in their pursuit of top political jobs and not “dropping the ladder once we’ve arrived”, as former South African First Lady Zanele Mbeki once put it.
While Dutt wondered why so many successful women seem to feel the need to apologize for their ambition, Banda said she believed African women could benefit from a softer, more diplomatic approach or they would lose the battle before it had even begun. “Do I want to be shouting and antagonizing the people who need to open the way for me? That is the decision that we African women have to make.”
Banda, who herself lobbied for gay rights, recalled the time in 1995 when Clinton said that “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights”. At the time, Banda said she thought Clinton was “out of her mind”.
“I didn’t think I would see in my lifetime a time when everyone would accept that women’s rights are human rights”, but Clinton was right ahead of her time, and that time has arrived.

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From  The White House To The World

There are times in this wonderful, wearying, job when you have to pinch yourself to check whether you are dreaming. That was how I felt on a sweaty and violent summer afternoon in Zimbabwe, in 1997, when people fought with police, threw up barricades across the streets of Harare, smashed shops and set fire to anything they could get their hands on. Not too dissimilar from the protests rocking the capital in 2016; different times, same complaints.
I was standing in the middle of it all doing my so called piece-to-camera for the television camera – without which the viewers will never believe you were actually there. In the corner of my eye I noticed a tall man with a thick black beard; he looked at me, raised his right fist to his mouth in the manner of a nervous cough and stood, almost to attention, patiently as if he were waiting to see the doctor. This man, I learned moments later, was Joseph Chinotimba, one of the leaders of the country’s war veterans and latterly a Member of Parliament. Now, the war veterans were those who carried guns and threw grenades in the struggle to create a majority-ruled Zimbabwe.
“Mr Bishop, the war veterans are holding a protest at State House on Tuesday, would you like to come?” as if it were an invitation for tea and cucumber sandwiches. I pinched myself twice.
There was no china cups and gentle chat on that Tuesday. To say the least, the war veterans were a tough and fearsome crowd that could turn medicine sick. Many emerged from the bush stronger and fitter; I met scores of them in the bars of Harare, in government and business, who enjoyed the fruits of their hard-won freedom. Many others were scarred for life by the war; others scarred, more deeply, in the soul through years of callous killing and random dying.
So it was a rough crowd that laid siege to State House demanding to speak to President Robert Mugabe. There were about two dozen former guerrilla fighters gathered; you could tell most didn’t have two cents to rub together. The angry chant of liberation songs were now directed at those they had fought to put in power. President Mugabe wasn’t in; he was away on a foreign trip so the war veterans demanded to see the next most senior leader of Zanu-PF.
Out of the gate came the portly figure of the then Minister of Justice Emmerson Mnangagwa resplendent in an expensive grey suit, looking confident like he was walking up to the podium at a political rally.
“Pamberi ne Zanu (forward with Zanu),” says Mnangagwa, raising his right clenched fist above his head, with his chin up, waiting for the loyal response. Back came vitriol.
“Ah, voetsek iwe (go away, you),” was one of the more polite responses.
Mnangagwa’s face was a picture; a mixture of shock and disbelief that the party faithful could show such anger and disdain to their beloved leaders. It was as if he had heard a dog reciting poetry. He shuffled back into State House without a word.
It didn’t take long for the penny to drop, literally. Days later the news filtered out of State House that 50,000 war veterans were to be given compensation payments of about $4,000 each. The payments contributed to the famous currency plunge leading to the death of the Zimbabwean dollar; many of the taxpayers, who footed the bill, were bitter.
I met a former teacher at a gathering days later who told me a story how one of the guerrilla fighters waylaid him on the way home from a country school in the 1970s. The fighter asked him to buy 30 pairs of training shoes for his platoon in the bush. The teacher, who supported the struggle, spent every penny of his monthly pay buying the shoes.
“After I gave him the shoes he took my watch too!” said the outraged former pedagogue.
“I was fed up, I had spent every penny of my pay and now they want four thousand dollars as well.”
Overnight the war veterans became the faithful, snarling, dogs of Zanu-PF. It was they who led the bloody takeover of the farms of Zimbabwe and acted as brutal enforcers against anyone who stepped out of line.
The word from Harare, in 2016, is that these hardened war veterans have now turned against the ruling party again. Post-liberation politics can often make for uneasy, if not dangerous, bedfellows.

The Sharp Teeth Of The Dogs Of Wrath

Delirium erupts as Sadio Mane, the Senegalese winger, scores in England. In Africa, people jump up and down; some dance, others sing – not a single person is seated. This is the scene at the Ridgeway Racebar, in Johannesburg’s East Rand, as around 200 fans gather to watch Liverpool’s opening match of the 2016/17 English Premier League season against Arsenal. But they’re not just celebrating because an African scored; they’re celebrating because they’re fervent Liverpool fans.
Despite living more than 13,000 kilometers from Liverpool’s stadium, Anfield, and many having never set foot in the English city, these fans have an almost messianic dedication to the football club. These Liverpool supporters are not unique; the powerhouses of English football, such as Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea, have millions of fans in Africa.
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The Official Liverpool Supporters Club – Gauteng (OLSC Gauteng) at Ridgeway Racebar is a home away from home for Liverpool supporters in Johannesburg.
“The thing with a supporters club is, for a lot of people, getting to Anfield is a once in a lifetime experience. We’ve made our own sort of Anfield here, and we’re affiliated with Anfield in the UK. We get legends to come watch matches at the club; we’ve had [former players] John Barnes, Mark Wright, we had the ladies team. That kind of stuff allows us to get a little closer to the game, that’s what you get with a supporters club rather than watching a match with mates at your house,” says Chris Midgley, the Brand Liaison and Spokesman for OLSC Gauteng.
“It’s great to have three or four mates at home watching a game against Arsenal, but when you’ve got 300 [people] together, singing You’ll Never Walk Alone, it makes it worth it,” says the Chairperson of OLSC Gauteng, Kailin Pillay. You’ll Never Walk Alone is the clubs anthem, originally a song from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel and made famous by Gerry and the Pacemakers, a group from Liverpool.
OLSC Gauteng was the winner of the best Official Liverpool Supporters Club globally for the 2015/16 season. It’s easy to see why; Liverpool is in the blood.
“There’s something different about Liverpool… I like the way that Liverpool supporters are. I believe in what they believe; I like it that the motto is ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. I like the idea that we stand together,” says Pillay, who is a dramatic arts teacher at Crawford College in Sandton.
“I’ve supported Liverpool since primary school… The club has become so important with milestones along the way. I met my wife at the supporters club, our club treasurer married us. Liverpool is a proper family. We went on honeymoon to watch Liverpool play; our first holiday together, we also went to watch Liverpool play! When I met Kailin, I didn’t know anything about him, we didn’t have anything in common bar the fact we both supported Liverpool and that was enough for us to be great mates. There are lots of guys in there, I can walk into the room and strike up a conversation with them. We’ve got guys who are extremely affluent and guys who aren’t. For us, there’s no class level, no race level, we’ve got one thing in common,” says Midgley, who is a strategist for his own advertising agency, 36c.
So, why is the Premier League so popular in Africa?
“Two clubs: Chelsea and Arsenal. Arsenal had a number of African players, [Nwankwo] Kanu, Kolo Toure, and then Chelsea started doing it with Didier Drogba, John Obi Mikel and Michael Essien. All those African players won Premier League titles, which builds the profile of the league in Africa,” says Pillay.
This profile means money. Kelvin Storie, Group Managing Director at media agency Vizeum South Africa, says a 20-second advert during a Premier League match costs around R23,000 ($1,600). The more African players, the more popular the game is, says David Sidenberg, CEO of BMi Sport Info, an independent research company in South Africa that focuses on the sport and sponsorship market.
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“It is no surprise that Manchester United is the team of choice in Southern Africa. In addition to being the most successful team in terms of English Premier Leagues titles won, they signed local South African star Quinton Fortune who plied his trade for seven years with the club and won a title in the process,” says Sidenberg.
“With the possible exception of Nigeria, Chelsea tends to be West Africa’s first choice. Not surprising when one considers that the likes of Drogba, Solomon Kalou, Samuel Eto’o, Victor Moses, Essien and Mikel are all West Africans who have played for The Blues. [In Nigeria and East Africa], red is the preferred color, but here it’s for the Gunners (Arsenal), largely off the back of the ‘Invincibles’ 2003/2004 title-winning season. The club’s list of African stars is also long. One of the greatest Nigerian players in the nation’s history, and the most decorated, Kanu is undoubtedly most remembered for his time at Arsenal during their celebrated run.”
Mark Gleeson, a football journalist and commentator in South Africa, believes the league would be as popular in South Africa if there weren’t Africans on the pitch.
“[The league having African players] helped a little bit, but in my opinion it’s more to do with the colonial connection. It would still be as popular even if they didn’t have those players,” he says.
“I think there’s a cultural link with South Africa and England. The Premier League has been part of our lives growing up as football fans, and the media has always covered it generously.”
Gleeson also thinks the Premier League’s history and money makes it difficult to ignore.
“It’s regarded as the world’s best domestic league and it has a history.”
“The Bundesliga and other have certainly made huge strides in recent times, but there is still much work required before it can compete for eyeballs with the English Premier League and/or the local African football leagues,” says Sidenberg.
While the likes of Drogba, Essien and Toure are popular figures in Africa, the Premier League is perhaps more popular now that the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Sergio Agüero and Eden Hazard are playing for English clubs. This is apparent at the Living Room, a restaurant in Accra, Ghana, that has grown in popularity since it started broadcasting European football matches. A week before the Premier League starts, the restaurant is packed with supporters watching championship winners Leicester City play FA Cup winners Manchester United.
For Kwame Oduro, wearing a blue Manchester United away kit, the success of the team in the last 25 years made the Red Devils the team to support.
“We have had players like Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, and Ruud van Nistelrooy, who are by far the greatest players of all time and also if you count how many titles we have won,” says Oduro.
Other are not as easily persuaded.
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“I don’t like Manchester United because they are overhyped. Yes, they have the history and clearly more money than sense, but in all honesty, football is more than history, it’s about the passion of the players and the fans support,” says Chelsea fan, Steven Appiah.
Titles are important to the fans at the Ridgeway Racebar in Johannesburg; Liverpool has 41 major titles, more than any other English club.
“The biggest year that we’ve ever had, in terms of members, was 2013/14 when we just about won the title. Previous to that was 2006 when we won the Champions League,” says Midgley.
“If we win today, we’ll have 200 sign ups. When the team wins, everyone wants to be a part of it,” adds Pillay.
As it happens, Liverpool beat Arsenal 4-3. A fan walks past with the latest Liverpool jersey he got when he signed up as a member of OLSC Gauteng for R950 ($65).
“I may live in South Africa, but my heart is in Anfield,” he says, when asked why he became a member.
Another supporter, Andrew Arntze, has supported Liverpool since he was six years old and has a tattoo of the club’s emblem on his leg to prove it.
“It’s in your heart,” he says.
As the match ends, the whole place breaks into You’ll Never Walk Alone. If you watch the Premier League in Africa you’ll never be alone.
&#8211; Additional reporting by Peace Hyde

‘I Live In Africa But  My Heart Is In Anfield’

Many entrepreneurs are dropouts; even more are involved in businesses that have little to do with what they studied at school. However, this does not mean they are ignorant; they are the type of people that are continually striving to learn new things. We are living in an age of snooze, you lose.
To avoid being obsolete, and to stay ahead of the pack, African entrepreneurs need to keep up to date with market trends, new technologies, and automation systems that can expedite productivity. Without doing this it will be difficult to remain relevant.
Today, the need for the accumulation of knowledge is more pressing than ever before. What you know now is likely to be out of date within a few months.
With this in mind, it is important to ensure you gather all the information you can as often as possible. Without this, you cannot improve your business – and if you are not getting better, you are getting worse.
Competition is voraciously getting better. Whatever business you are in now, you must offer more a year from now to stay competitive.
It is crucial to note that acquiring information alone does not change anything; otherwise everybody would be rich, happy and healthy. Information on its own won’t suffice; it is what you do with the information that will help you achieve your goals.
There are different ways to keep learning, such as short-term training, on-the-job training, long-term training, reading, or sharing ideas with experienced people. Keep in mind that education is not a one-off experience, rather an ongoing process.
Successful entrepreneurs attach themselves with individuals who either know more than they do or understand things that are in a different field to what they know.
Most entrepreneurs are from the school of hard knocks. We learn through trial and error, from experiences that helped us develop the fortitude to face market-related challenges with unequivocal courage. It builds a spirit inside of us that we use to assure ourselves we will make it no matter what.
According to Brian Tracy, you need to be exposed to new information six times to absorb it at a subconscious level. Once there, you’ll use it automatically.
Mark Lamberti, Founder of Massmart and CEO of Imperial Holdings, has a library at his house. When you talk to Lamberti, he’ll tell you his dedication to learning has been an asset in growing three major African companies, Massmart, Transaction Capital and Imperial Holdings.
Lamberti is not alone. If you visit the wealthiest entrepreneurs in your country, it is likely that each one will have a library at their home. It’s the same with the wealthiest men in the world; Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have an enormous appetite to read.
So, here comes the billion-dollar question: did most wealthy entrepreneurs become successful then buy books, or did they buy books then become successful? I think we know the answer.
One thing I find fascinating about the top entrepreneurs is that they love reading biographies of other successful people, whether in business, sports, politics, or entertainment. Those stories are of great interest to them as long as the person succeeded in spite of the odds stacked against them.
Today, we have a plethora of seminars and conferences – it is useful for an entrepreneur to frequently attend sector-specific events to increase your knowledgebase about your field.
Formal education is often focused on theoretical concepts, instead of being task- or problem-solving orientated; business schools need to work around this. The best institutions invite business leaders to be guest lecturers, or take students on fieldtrips to the best companies that their modules and courses cover.
Continuous learning is key to giving your business an advantage over others. However, true success lies in applying what you have learnt faster than anyone else.

Entrepreneurs and The School Of Hard Knocks

What is Nigeria’s current biggest headache? Is it Nigeria’s caustic politics? Is it the faltering economy? Or, perhaps, could it be the average Nigerian’s inertia to, and apprehension of, change?
While Nigeria’s economic fortunes have dwindled drastically over the last 18 months, its political culture has remained largely unchanged, at least subliminally. Social habits have also struggled to keep up with the emerging harsh realities of the day. Consumer Price Inflation peaked at 17.6% in August, 0.5% higher than the July rate, as the naira continued its downward slide against the United States greenback.
For the first time in living memory, Nigerians are travelling less; airlines are struggling to fill their seats. The traditional summer holiday frenzy has sizzled down considerably. Multinational firms now struggle to repatriate their earnings and profits out of the country. The squeeze on the local currency and foreign exchange transactions is hurting businesses, big and small. Demand for foreign currency remains high, even as the consumption of not-made-in-Nigeria goods and services remains at an all-time high.
The capacity to make substitute products locally remains weak as manufacturing continues to suffer against the wave of cheaper Asian products and banks who struggle to gauge and hedge against small business risks in the non-oil industries. Despite the obvious need to expand the productive base of the economy, Nigerian banks still prefer to lend big to established sectors, like telecoms, oil and gas, and real estate.
As people of wealth and influence feel the economic crunch, their capacity to spend crumbles, even as they struggle to curb their appetite for lavish living. Today’s extravagance was yesterday’s normal. With thousands already withdrawing their wards from schools and boarding houses in Europe and North America, the era of ‘big men’ flying their families abroad in business or first class is over.
“My brother, money don finish, the era of government people and big men stealing our money is over… we used to see them here every day traveling; even their babies and maids were traveling in business class… ahh, yet they will not pay us our salary on time… we civil servants are suffering. I have been working for the past 22 years, my entire pension, when I eventually retire, cannot buy a first-class ticket,” an immigrations officer lamented to me at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos in September.
If Nigeria’s big men are feeling the economic pinch, it is safe to say ordinary folks have been wounded; their pocket power decimated by spiraling prices of household consumables. Nigerians are, however, a resilient lot. They would be much happier if only their pains were shared by their political leaders. This disconnect is the real pain for many. This is where the ethos of the structure and culture of governance is cooked. This lack of an ethical ecosystem in the Nigerian polity makes nonsense of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” metaphor, used in describing the way in which free markets spontaneously satisfy society’s needs. Nigeria’s labor and financial markets are anything but free. Or fair.
‘Budget padding’ is the latest addition to the lexicon of Nigerian politics. Governance and the economy stalled for the first half of 2016 as the Presidency and the Legislature quibbled over ostensibly illegitimate amendments to the fiscal plan. Meanwhile, a new breed of thugs, the Nigeria Delta Avengers (old militants in new uniforms more like) sprang out of the creeks, wreaking havoc to the production schedules of multinational oil companies and curtailing gas supplies to the national gas grid. So with Brent crude selling below $60 per barrel for most, the country now struggles to produce 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd), as against its OPEC-mandated quota of 1.67 million bpd that came into effect in January.
Africa’s wealthiest man, Aliko Dangote, believes political will is needed to steer Nigeria out of its first recession in 20 years. Dangote should know. He is closer to the corridors of power than perhaps any other Nigerian businessman alive. I think this is Dangote’s veiled way of saying the extant shenanigans currently associated with the managers of the state need to stop. But this is old news.
Patience is an old and scarce commodity these days in Nigeria. Until someone goes to jail for stealing public funds, only then will Nigerians agree that President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision is not a mirage.

A Nation’s Anxiety Paralysis

That interest rate spreads have absurdly been high in Kenya has never been in question. Like in many other African countries, commercial banks in Kenya have over the years left their customers choking with the discomfort of unreasonably costly loans.
In fact, market data has shown that, whereas in many developed countries, spreads between average lending and deposit rates vary around 2%, they are often up to 10% or more in developing countries.
The average lending rates in Kenya have oscillated at about 18%, ranging between 17.2% and 19.2% for the six biggest banks.
But even with this in mind, a decision by President Uhuru Kenyatta to sign a new law imposing lending rate caps and deposit rate floor on banks leaves the financial sector at a crossroads. The new law sets an interest rate cap on loans of four percentage points above the base rate published by the Central Bank of Kenya and a minimum interest rate on deposits of 70% of the same base rate.
“Experience across the globe has shown that interest rate caps do not just not work, but they might actually do damage to the inclusion agenda that many policymakers, including in Kenya, are interested in,” says Thorsten Beck, a  professor of banking and finance at Cass Business School in London, who thinks it may affect financial inclusion in Kenya.
Perhaps partly due to the political heat on high lending rates and just a year away from Kenya’s next general elections, Kenyatta may have made a populist decision and even defied the Central Bank, the National Treasury and industry that have opposed capping for fear of market distortion.
Lowering interest rates was a core issue in Kenyatta’s election manifesto and ignoring the rate caps would have seen him play into the hands of opponents who have been vocal about the high cost of business and living.
“This is the third time that the National Assembly is attempting to reduce interest rates to affordable levels. In the previous two instances, dialogue and promises of change prevailed and banks avoided the introduction of these caps. In those instances, banks failed to live up to their promises and interest rates have continued to increase along with the spreads between the deposit and lending rates,” Kenyatta argued when he signed the new law.
“Despite having one of the most efficient and effective financial markets, Kenya has one of the highest returns on equity for banks in the African continent,” he stated. “Banks need to do more to reduce the cost of credit and ensure that the benefits of the vibrant financial sector are also felt by their customers.”
Though Kenyatta may assume cost of credit could come down with the new law, we will have to wait and see what impact the caps will have in the long term. There is concern that they may cloud the central bank’s monetary policy signals and even undermine efforts to keep inflation within the government’s target range.
The caps may also work against bank customers should banks resort to introducing fees to mitigate operational costs and risks.
“Another possible response will be rationing of customers, effectively excluding marginal borrowers and depositors, where the former will not receive any loans and the latter will be priced out of the market with high fees and documentation barriers. Neither of these reactions is favorable to the inclusion agenda nor fosters transparency and efficiency in the financial system,” says Beck.
The disclosure requirements contained in the new law are welcome because of the different types of costs included by banks in Kenya. Most financial institutions do not only charge interest rates on loans, but also fees. Similarly, they do not simply pay interest on deposits but some also charge withdrawal fees.
In some cases, these fees are as high as 2.5% of the total loan amount. Also, all of them charge withdrawal fees on at least one of their savings accounts.
With the new law, consumers will have clarity on what they are paying over and above a base rate, which is a positive step towards consumer protection.

Kenya At A Crossroads  With Caps

Tolu Erogbobo is the latest sensation in the Nigerian gourmet scene, famed for creating delectable pastries, cookies and signature dishes for those who crave quality food in Lagos. He is popularly known as Chef Eros, named after the Greek god of love. His love for food means the 28-year-old chef counts billionaire tycoons Mike Adenuga and Aliko Dangote, as well as international stars like Lauren Hill, among his clients. It has also led to him being labelled as the next big thing to watch by CNN.
For Erogbobo it is surreal; he never planned to become a chef.
“When I started business I didn’t want to be a chef, I just wanted to be a restaurateur. I loved the restaurant business; I had worked on a few restaurant projects in my younger days. In the UK I worked with Oceania (Hotels )Group where they had set up a few restaurants in my university and just seeing the delivery of the equipment, putting them in place, making them work and designing a place to make it feel nice, was so exciting for me,” says Erogbobo, the Founder of Cookie Jar, a gourmet bakery.
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That was before Erogbobo had an unlikely experience in the kitchen.
“All of that switched in a year of me finding my true love, which is food. I found that through chicken; just seasoning chicken, putting the spices together, and then different cooking processes giving you different textures. I found the love for food in university then I combined that with the love for interior spaces, which is what drove the passion for the restaurant.”
After graduating in 2008 with a business degree from the University of Wolverhampton, in England, Erogbobo moved back to Nigeria with the plan to help his mother set up a restaurant.
It cost N60 million ($190,000) to start the first restaurant. Erogbobo was 21 years old at the time. His mother and sister put up a significant amount of the start-up capital.
“The funds for the restaurant were raised predominantly by my mother who sold one of her properties to invest. My sister supported with some her saving and so did I,” he says.
Erogbobo knew that location was key, however all the best locations in town came at a steep price. As luck would have it, he found a restaurant in Victoria Island whose owner was looking to sell and agreed to let the cash-strapped Erogbobo pay in monthly instalments.
“The owner said to me he didn’t want to sell the restaurant anymore because I didn’t have the money to buy it all at once, so he offered to be partners instead. So I came in, used the money I had to revamp the place from just a café to a café restaurant and that is how the journey actually started,” says Erogbobo.
The restaurant later failed because Erogbobo did not keep his eye on the numbers, according to the young entrepreneur. After a brief stint in real estate and energy, the calling of the kitchen could no longer be ignored.
“I started having dreams about cookies and they continued every other night. They were so vivid and I would wake up sometimes and I would be so emotional. In 2012, I got all the ingredients needed, went online, found the recipe I wanted and came back to bake. The first batch of cookies I made fell flat but they tasted really good. I went back and did more homework and I tried it out again, and it worked out. I went downstairs and gave my friends some to try and they all loved it. One of my friends offered to pay me and I didn’t know how much to charge so I said N500 ($1.50) per cookie and he didn’t object, so he bought four.”
Erogbobo realized he was onto something and needed to spread the word quickly.
“I started baking everyday and started posting pictures on [messaging app] BBM and I found out that BBM was working. So every time I would go out, I would get a lot of BBM contacts because I wanted them to see my updates and I used to update like every five minutes. It was annoying for a lot of people because you were always seeing me on your timeline but the moment you think of nibbling on something, the first thing you think of is me,” says Erogbobo.
Business soon took off. Aptly for someone called Chef Eros, Valentine’s Day came and Erogbobo sold over $2,500 worth of cookies over the love season and he has been on a trajectory ever since. The company is in its third year and currently turns over N150 million ($480,000) per year according to Erogbobo. The growth has been fast with three kitchens opened in Lagos, including Glasshouse Catering, which provides cocktail-style catering for events; Cookie Jar, which is the bakery and Eros and Gourmet, the speciality savoury dish brand.
As if his success wasn’t remarkable enough, this year Erogbobo was recruited by Food Revolution, the campaign started by culinary master Jamie Oliver. The celebrity chef launched the program to encourage people from all over the world to adopt a healthy eating lifestyle and push their own government to fight diet related diseases.
Joining the Food Revolution was a dream come true for Erogbobo. This year, he is gearing up to open a new catering service offering a 24-hour healthy breakfast menu for his clients.
“The Food Revolution is all about changing the way people eat, buy, grow, and what people understand about food. My global goal is zero hunger and for the next 15 years I aim to help end hunger in Africa. To do that we have to achieve sustainable agriculture, achieve improved nutrition and improved food security,” says Erogbobo.
With  Erogbobo’s passion for food, don’t bet against him.

The Man Who Knows  What Billionaires  Eat For Lunch

It’s just another day for Mervyn Dowman, carrying a leather bag he made with his own hands, with a laptop inside, to show potential clients his work.
”I’m not very shy; I just let my work speak for me.”
Those are the words of Cape Town-born Dowman, a mosaic artist from the day he discovered magic in his hands.
The long-haired, green-eyed Dowman, who speaks fast and soft, strangling his syllables, walks me through the streets of Maboneng lighting one cigarette after another.
Maboneng is the art precinct east of the Johannesburg city centre. It’s far from where Dowman learned to use his hands.
As a young boy, he had to rake the double plot they lived in with his grandparents for pocket money; he also had to make compost from chicken manure. Dowman knew too well the idea of working for money.
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He got his first casual job at the age of 13 as a packer at a Shoprite supermarket on weekends.
In his teenage years, Dowman met new friends who had a messy, but arty room with fishing nets and footprints going up to the ceiling. It awakened the artist in him.
Dowman moved around the Western Cape province as a boy and often went camping with friends. His childhood wasn’t rough but he didn’t finish high school because he got bored, he says.
“Then I applied for three kinds of apprenticeships; I [spent] a year at home and my friend’s brother was telling me it’s time to get out,” he says.
He got a plumbing apprenticeship for five years; at the end of the first year, his boss told him he was ready. He was given a box of tools and felt like a pro. Fixing roof leaks was his speciality.
Dowman loved the neatness of the plumbing trade but was determined to become a teenage entrepreneur.
”I was bored of plumbing, I’ve done it, I know it. And I had a love for leather work. At 14, I had made my first girlfriend a purse,” he says.
His aunt’s father-in-law was a shoemaker; he showed him how to make a purse and Dowman went on to make boots for hippies. It was very fashionable at the time, he says.
“Then I asked the girls at school for old earring studs, I used that to make patterns on the leather.”
Between the apprenticeship and entrepreneurship, Dowman received back pay from his first year worth R109 ($7.50) and bought tools to make belts and purses and sold them to neighbors.
Colleagues started ordering belts and purses for their wives and daughters as well.
At the age of 21, he resigned. He left plumbing and moved to Johannesburg. He had a stand at the Market Theatre Flea Market – the first of its kind in Johannesburg – selling tripod leather stools, bags and belts.
He made a tidy profit; selling about 10 stools a week. Out of one skin he’d make eight stools; the skin cost him about R100 ($7) and he sold each stool for around R30 ($2), he says.
“When you make something, you must make it like a jewel, put effort into it, because we can see, people are not stupid, we can see that effort is put into that.”
He made enough money to move into a commune, that’s where he made new friends who were set builders in the movie industry. Dowman thought he could try his hand at this and got a job backstage making props, like life-size dinosaurs made of fibreglass.
He moved back to Cape Town where films are a big thing. He was so good that he started doing sets for adverts in the United States.
“We took a 1976 Cadillac and cut it up, stretched it, put a pool in it; it was like a fantasy drive with kids in bikinis,” he says.
Dowman was a specialist in the set building industry and made good money. One morning, he decided to drop everything, move back to Johannesburg and try something different.
“One day, I switched on the TV with the intention to watch sport and up comes this doccie, in Italian, with subtitles saying ‘a large family still doing mosaics’. Like a eureka, a boom, a lightbulb in my head, this is my new job,” he laughs.
He found a contact and experimented making mirror frames from mosaics. With a friend he started a mosaic company in a factory in Bezuidenhout Valley, near the center of Johannesburg.
They had enough money to employ 30 people, whom Dowman trained. He believes this company changed the lives of the people they employed, out of the 30, 17 were women focusing on mosaics while the men made tables and chairs from metal.
The company went to Decorex, a lifestyle, design and décor viewing event, where they won an award for the best stand in 2001.
The company was doing well but clients didn’t want to go to Bezuidenhout Valley because it was seen as a crime-ridden area. The business moved to Newtown and that’s when he left the company.
“I was a partner but nothing was signed on the bottom line. Verbal things never really work,” he says.
Dowman soldiered on with mosaics.
He worked from his garage flat with four youngsters who learned the trade. They later moved to a bigger space in Houghton. By then, Dowman was known as the ‘Mosaic Guy’ in Johannesburg; his name was on everyone’s lip.
Today, Dowman is a solo artist with numerous works around the Maboneng Precinct, among other areas in South Africa. He works from a studio not far from Hartbeespoort Dam in the North West province.
His company is called Just Mosaic. The magic in his hands means his work is seen in clubs, bars, offices and graves.
He is an ever-growing solo artist with no debts, willing to explore anything that he can turn his magic hands to.

The Mosaic Man  With Magic  In His Hands

On a cool evening, Idrisu is gearing up for his daily workout. Today, he is doing a combination of squats, endurance exercises and boxing routines. He started this new regime a little over a month ago and so far the results have been life changing.
“I started at this gym because I needed to get fit very quickly and I was looking for a gym that could guarantee results at a moderate price,” says Idrisu.
The owner of the gym is entrepreneur Rehia Giwa-Osagie who is determined to get the nation fit again through boxing. Osagie is the founder of EliteBox, a speciality fitness and boxing gym designed to help clients like Idrisu, achieve remarkable health results. Today, Osagie, who doubles as a personal trainer, is working with Mark, who joined the gym last week.
“I have never been to a gym like this, the combination of fitness routines that Rehia designs is specific to your needs. I wanted to build muscles and see results quickly and in a week I can already see progress,” he says.
Mark and Idrisu are part of a new wave of fitness that is sweeping Nigeria. For Osagie, the journey began a decade ago due to injury.
“I used to play semi-professional football in England, then I injured my knee so that career was over. So, I changed sports about seven or eight years ago to boxing,” he says.
Born in London to a gynaecologist and a dentist, Osagie was destined for a career in medicine but he opted for crunching numbers instead. After completing his finance degree at Durham University in England, Osagie had a short stint as a salesman.
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“My first job out of university was selling makeup door to door. That is the best way to integrate yourself into society. I used to walk around the city of London and sell Victoria Jackson makeup for £30 to £40. I was in the job for just a month and I quit. After that I went into advertising for an event company where we sold advertising and organized conferences all over the world,” he says.
Osagie was transferred to the Nigerian branch of the business two years ago, which inspired the start of his entrepreneurial journey.
“When I moved to Lagos, I realized that it didn’t have the things that I wanted to do. The whole entrepreneurial journey started because I needed to find a way to do things outside of going clubbing and going to the restaurant.”
At the time, Osagie had to drive far to get to his local gym. He decided to move his workout sessions closer to the where he lived and avoid the same mistake he made years ago by not following his passion.
“I am 29 years old. I was playing football from a young age to about 22. My biggest regret was that I never really took the gamble to quit my job and just go for trials and play for a team. I used to get a decent amount of money per match but I never had the courage to quit everything and pack one bag and relocate to another country to make it playing football, no matter what happened,” he says.
Osagie took the plunge. He quit his job and, with his life savings, began looking for a location for his new gym. He had a clear vision of what he wanted; it had to be safe, moderately priced and accessible. With an initial investment of $40,000, EliteBox was born.
“The long-term vision is to franchise this concept and make sure it also grows organically. I haven’t created this just to be another gym. There are very specific things about this gym that you will not find anywhere else, so, for me to keep that ambience, it has to grow organically.”
So far the gym has 100 members and the media attention is bringing in more members. Combining boxing and fitness is a hit with Osagie’s clients, but he wants to do more with his business.
“We are also looking to have boxing events and charity events. We work with a lot of kids at the moment and people come from the mainland to train; we are creating something here that is more than just a gym. We see ourselves as bridging the gap in the industry so we have the upper echelon in terms of clients and the working class as well. So we have a mix and match with males and females,” says Osagie.
If the feedback from Idrisu and Mark are anything to go by, then Osagie has found his calling. As the fitness craze gains popularity among Nigerians, EliteBox is punching its way to the top.

Punching His Way To The Top

He grew up in grinding poverty; his mother went hungry to feed the family. At university he was so hungry that he disguised himself as a lecturer just for a free lunch. Years later, his determination and curiosity turned him into a genius in the world of innovative disruption; this is the life and story of Griffiths Sibeko, an app developer from Duduza, one of South Africa’s poorest shanty towns.
“I remember one day attending an inauguration of a professor and when I heard there was lunch and dinner I had to rush to the student residence to change into formal clothes so I look qualified to be in the meeting. This would become my lifestyle until I dropped out of school,” Sibeko says of the hungry road he has walked.
“I grew up in a one-bedroom house with three other family members. We were so poor that some days my mother would give us food while she went hungry,” he says during a break at the Riversands Incubation Hub Innovation Conference. At this conference, he was a delegate with an assured free lunch.
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Sibeko’s inspiration in developing apps comes from the challenges his country is facing. He built an app for public transport users that gives information on routes, times, distance, fares, stops, stations and where tickets can be bought.
“I am working on building apps that bring calm when there is chaos, like in South Africa’s taxi industry. This field requires passion, if you are in it for money then you will struggle and will not last long,” he says.
But where did Sibeko’s love for apps come from?
“I was 11 years old when my curiosity for computers started. I would go the Zakheni Primary School every day after school to observe people using computers. On my third visit, the instructor called me and gave me access to a computer that would become the path to my new life.”
His mother did not allow him to spend time with his neighbors.
“She feared they would spoil the character she was developing in me. It is these moments I spent alone and in the library that I came across a book called Mistakes That Worked. This book inspired me to explore more,” says Sibeko.
The man from Duduza felt he should share some of his knowledge to the next generation of computer wizards and enrolled for a degree in education at the University of Johannesburg.
“After a year, I realized it was not my thing and I dropped out,” he says. But, it was not over for Sibeko.
“I enrolled the following year for a degree in information management. I realized through this course I would get access to do courses in informatics and programming. After a year, I could not sustain studying as I was struggling financially,” says Sibeko.
As the year wound down, Sibeko left university. Through a hackathon challenge, organized at an aeroplane hangar, Sibeko would soon start solving problems he thought were within human reach. It was here where he developed the Rea Vaya app.
“Microsoft had advertised some fellowship towards the end of the year. I was told I had been accepted. I had to choose between continuing with school and working my way out of poverty.”
After this, Sibeko was set. He went on to win the MTN Apps Challenge in 2014. He says innovation should respond to the needs of the community.
“It is important for African app developers to devise solutions for people in their communities. I am working on developing apps for low-income earners,” he says.
Sibeko is working on yet another project.
“An app that seeks to expand how individuals can make new discoveries based on their environments. Finding hidden gems in familiar or unfamiliar places,” he says.
To achieve his dreams, Sibeko says he will have to put in a lot of hard work with many sleepless nights.
It is true; there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The Steve Jobs  of Duduza?

Healthy drinks have become a booming business in Nigeria. Even Coca-Cola is getting in on the action; the fizzy-drink giant acquired a 40% stake in Chi, Nigeria’s largest juice and dairy company with an estimated valuation of around $1 billion, in February. In the wake of this deal, Nigerian entrepreneur, Seun Abolaji, is determined to turn his lemons into lemonade and liquid cash.
“We feel like the Nigerian drinks market is worth millions if not billions. Look at what Coke did with Chi. It’s a massive industry and a lot of people are looking to invest in this market,” says Abolaji.
Abolaji and his brother started Wilson’s Juice Company about three years ago with $10. Today, the company has a multi-million-naira turnover and is stocked in all the major retail outlets, with a presence in over 13 states in Nigeria. The company also has its own factory with a growing workforce of about 30 people. Their success is a result of Abolaji’s ability to spot a gap in the market, a trait that earned him the nickname Candy Man when he was at school.
“I was buying candy and reselling it to the kids in school. They used to call me the Candy Man because my locker would be full of candies and I had clients who would buy everything. I would buy the candies for like $1 and they would buy it from me for like $20. I don’t know why they would not just go down to the store, but I guess I provided them with access,” says Abolaji.
Born in Nigeria, Abolaji migrated to the United States, at the age of eight, where he obtained a degree in psychology from the University of Colorado. After dreaming of becoming a record producer, Abolaji succumbed to a career in pharmaceuticals to please his parents.
“After I finished undergrad, I used to produce music too. I wanted to be a producer, I told my parents ‘look I want to go to New York, I have been doing this for a long time and I want to go study under someone’. My parents did not agree. They locked me in my basement and they said ‘you need to figure out what you want to do with your life,’” he says.
“I made a list of about five things. There was music producer, doctor, pharmacist, entrepreneur and some other things. So, I asked myself, how can I make this amount of money within this period of time and what will get me there fastest and pharmacy was the one that was at the top of the list because you could make six figures.”
Abolaji worked with CVS Pharmacy in Manhattan for five years. In 2007, he decided to visit Nigeria and did a pharmacy internship with Alpha Pharmacy in Ikeja, a suburb on the mainland of Lagos. That experience taught Abolaji two things. Firstly, he did not want to be a pharmacist; secondly, he could actually live in Nigeria.
It was then that Abolaji decided it was time for a career change.
“So, we went to a farmland my family owned in Osa. My parents had a project they were working on and they had spent so much money on it but we realized that the people stole the money and nothing was done. So my brother came down to Nigeria and saw the situation and decided to fix it. The land was supposed to be a factory for producing ekuru, a local produce made from palm kernel cake,” says Abolaji.
After trying to revive the business for two years, the brothers ran out of money and had to shut down the factory.
“We were selling everything on credit and buying everything on cash and that could not be sustained. We ran out of money because people promised to pay at different times and they didn’t pay.”
Not deterred, Abolaji saw an opportunity for their next business venture.
“We thought to ourselves ‘we are both athletes, there are no fresh juices available, so let’s start making fresh juice to sell’. So we bought a bag of oranges and a plastic juicer and started making juices at Covenant University. We rented a kiosk and then we had a natural progression into smoothies and then one day we saw lemons, and we were like let’s add lemonade,” says Abolaji.
Before long, all their clients only wanted lemonade and they decided to focus on this product. As business took off, they employed more people and Abolaji realized they needed a system to track sales.
“One day, I said to my brother, ‘why don’t we put this in a bottle?’. We had about 11 people working for us and you never knew how much sales you were making because they were squeezing the lemons into cups, adding sugar and selling for cash. It was difficult to track how many cash sales you were making in a day. So I said to myself ‘if we put it in bottles, I don’t have to be here to oversee everything. I give you 10 bottles, I know exactly how much money I should get back,’” says Abolaji.
The bottled lemonade was a hit with their customers and Abolaji realized it was time to take the business to the next level.
“We decided to go to a bottling company and we got a generic bottle. We began thinking that this could be something, and that is when we got the square bottle and began branding it,” says Abolaji.
The next step was to give the drink a name.
“One of my brother’s friends is called Wilson. When were doing it in cups, they came all the way from New Zealand, sleeping on concrete floors, just to see what was going on and that was key for us. Also, my last name is Abolaji and we didn’t think anybody would want to drink Abolaji Lemonade. So we played with different names which a Nigerian, and anyone in the world, can say and we just landed on Wilson.”
The duo soon got their certification to sell drinks in Nigeria and began knocking on the doors of supermarkets. In the past three years, the company has grown organically. Abolaji is now raising funds to build a larger factory. The long-term plan is to be the go-to natural beverage company in Nigeria and expand to other African countries. The company also recently added a second product, called Pink Lemonade, made from hibiscus.
The goal is to expand to the open market, which accounts for about 90% of retail in Nigeria, according to Abolaji. To do that, they need to compete with the locally manufactured drinks, which are a lot cheaper than Wilson’s. However, Abolaji is undeterred; if the sale of Chi is anything to go by, he knows he is exactly where he needs to be, making lemonade out of life’s lemons.

When Life Gives  You Lemons,  Make Millions

When a 10-year-old Dimitri Hadjipaschali started playing computer games his parents scoffed at the idea. Hadjipaschali was housebound, after breaking his ankle skateboarding, when he discovered his brother playing a game called Counter-Strike. This proved to be an existential moment on crutches; gaming became Hadjipaschali’s life.
“I just needed a crosshair and Counter-Strike was the game I kind of stuck with. I decided I was going to be a full-time gamer when I joined [eSports team] Bravado in 2008&#8230; I was doing it full time, trying to win competitions. Every time it came to a tournament I was trying to win. Every time I would come in second or third it was the worst day of my life for me. That’s when I knew,” he says.
Eight years later, Hadjipaschali is one of the rising stars in the next online craze in Africa. In bedrooms across the continent a generation of professionals is playing electronic sports, or eSports, for a living.
Competitive online gaming draws millions via streaming websites and where as much as $20 million can be at stake. It’s a bit like the Olympics for geeks and eSports has its own disciplines. Hadjipaschali is the captain for Bravado’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS GO, team.
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This is a first-person shooter game where a team of five tries to thwart bombers. In tournaments, teams play off in a best-of-three taking turns to attack and defend. The more games you win, the stronger your team becomes.
CS GO is one of the most popular games in South Africa. Globally it is the fourth highest-earning eSports game, with 5,396 professional players competing for $19.16 million in prizemoney at 1,710 tournaments, according to esportsearnings.com.
In Africa, this multi-million-dollar eStory is just beginning. The competition in South Africa is fierce. For years, gamers have battled for a few spots in international competition. That’s where the money is.
This is why Hadjipaschali is at a team boot camp in the cold hills of Meyersdal, south of Johannesburg. The team is here to train for the Electronics &amp; Gaming Expo (EGE) in Cape Town. On the line is a shot at the international arena – an all-expenses-paid spot at the Electronic Sports World Cup and a chance to win $75,000, in Paris at the end of October.
“If we don’t take first place [in Cape Town] we don’t know when this opportunity will come again,” he says.
It’s going to be a long night for the team. On any given day, Hadjipaschali practices nine hours a day, often finishing at dawn. This weekend, with the promise of Paris looming, they will push even harder.
“A boot camp is for us to be more focused, to get more work done. It forces us to work when we are next to each other.”
It has been an historic and lucrative year for eSports in South Africa.
From Johannesburg is Barry ‘Anthrax’ Louzada, one of the old hands – which doesn’t take too long in this business. Involved in the industry since 1999, Louzada is called the South African godfather of eGaming. He slogged it out for 10 years as a competitive gamer around the world.
“Two years ago, you were at maybe a R100,000 ($7,000) total cash prize money for an event, because there was only one event a year. Now you are looking at over R2 million ($142,000) in just one year,” says Louzada.
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These days Louzada is a shoutcaster, in English that means he gives live commentary on the sport.
“When I started out, it was a case of people driving around going to each other’s houses [barbequing] and LANing (network gaming). The internet wasn’t workable in this country for us to actually do any sort of online competing or playing. Now you have got hundreds and thousands of people coming to conventions,” he says.
As Louzada’s days as a competitive gamer are ending, Hadjipaschali’s are just beginning. If you saw Hadjipaschali walking down the street you wouldn’t think he was one of the top online gamers in the country. But those in the know ask for his autograph. For Hadjipaschali it’s more about the rush than the cash.
“In the beginning you can feel that pressure, that big match temperament, where you are not at the comfort of your own home behind your computer at your desk. When you are at home your hands aren’t shaking and it’s easier to play.”
Hadjipaschali’s next step on the road to fame and dollars was at a tournament in the cavernous Cape Town International Convention Centre on July 29. The team strolls in with the ease born of years perfecting their craft. They set up their computers, log in, huddle, and put on their headphones. Once the headphones are on, says Hadjipaschali, they won’t see anything but the screen.
With a crowd of almost a hundred cheering them on, it takes two hours to win their quarterfinal against a team called Energy. The players get up, shake hands and then make their way back to their hotel for some rest.
Hadjipaschali isn’t the only professional gamer in his family. His older brother Andreas, who founded Bravado, also had his shot. Now the team’s manager and coach, Andreas is even more determined to see South African gamers on the international scene.
“You only have one or two options, to make do with what qualifiers we have got [in South Africa] or we go overseas and we try qualify over there, but it gets really expensive. To go overseas, for five days with five players with accommodation, food, drinks we spent easily over R150-R170,000 (around $12,000). It’s different if you are living in Europe and there are qualifiers there all the time.”
Although the industry is booming, it’s not easy for the players of Bravado to play professionally. The team practises online every night. This is to accommodate players like 17-year-old Aran Groesbeek, who is still in school. His parents will allow him to play only once he has finished his homework. Ashton Muller, 24 years old, works part time as a manager at his father’s construction company. He dropped out of university to focus on gaming.
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Robby da Loca spent a year in Sweden, the mecca of CS GO, trying to make it. But, with the high cost of living in Europe and having to work part time, he fell short and returned to South Africa. Da Loca is so captivated that when he first started playing, he would sneak onto his brother’s computer to play with his earphones off, so he could hear if his brother came home.
The final member is Ruan van Wyk, a qualified industrial engineer living in Port Elizabeth.
In Cape Town, the competition moves on to its final day. The atmosphere is intense as Bravado huddle before their semifinal. The auditorium is packed with fans. Shoutcasters blast their commentary. Behind the players is a giant screen, where the action is shown. Thousands more watch online. Bravado scores a crushing victory to get to the final.
South Africa has drawn the attention from teams around the world. One of those is Anthony Nell, manager of the South African branch of international brand Flipsid3 Tactics.
“What [Flipsid3 Tactics] are interested in is the player development in South Africa. They are looking for good players that are from parts of the world untapped by the rest of the world,” says Nell.
If you thought that gamers couldn’t earn a salary you would be wrong. Nell says even basic salaries for a player in a reserve league and lower would be around $5,000 a month, excluding prize money and endorsements.
The most lucrative eSports game is Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2). It attracts total prize pools of $86.7 million. At The International 4 in August, the crowdfunded prizes locked at $20.7 million and the winners, Wings Gaming, from China, walked away with $9.1 million for a week’s work.
Africa might not have as much cash to spare, but the pressure in Cape Town’s final is intense. Hadjipaschali and his team win a contested first set against their rivals, Carbon eSports, from Cape Town, who are playing at home.
Bravado suffers from nerves in the second set, throwing away an eight-point lead as Carbon force a decider. Ten minutes before the crucial final round that will make or break this team, Hadjipaschali gathers outside for a pep talk.
“Play calm and play smart,” he says.
The talk pays off and Bravado wins the final round clinically. The team leaps from their chairs shouting. The elation on their faces is priceless. It’s not the Olympics, nor the World Cup; but for these players it’s just as important. Hadjipaschali is so overwhelmed he cries.
“This is unreal. It may not seem like a lot to people, but this is what most of us do full time,” he says.
Ahead of Hadjipaschali and his team lies Paris and a possible $75,000, and that’s just the start.
How many more young men and women from Africa are going to go out on the international stages in search of millions, earning a living in a way their parents would surely fail to understand. Check your kids in the bedroom.

You  Can’t Get The Kids  Off The Computer

At Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, a group of angry customers are frantically trying to get answers from an Arik Air official. The scheduled 13:30PM flight to Johannesburg was cancelled just after 11AM for operational reasons, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. Unsatisfied with the airline’s explanations, Dayo Obagun, Managing Director of Ryman’s Stationery Stores, is on the move to find an alternative flight.
“This is the third time Arik has cancelled a flight and it is especially frustrating because I have an important business meeting in South Africa this evening. Last time, I lost my ticket without reimbursement, so I know the shouting will not change anything and due to the economic challenges, all the other airlines are not operating at full capacity,” he says.
Obagun is on his way to South Africa to find new markets for his stationery business, which has seen sales drop by 50% in the past eight months. Due to the recent economic problems, he splits his time between managing his Lagos-based operations and developing new opportunities in other countries.
“The only way we can survive is by partnering with new clients. I am meeting a Dutch manufacturing company based in Johannesburg who are looking to expand to West Africa. This deal could be the difference between us staying afloat or sacking 30 people.”
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Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) suggest that Nigeria has slipped into a recession. According to the NBS, gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 2.06% in the second quarter of 2016. The country also took a significant hit from the fall in commodity prices when global crude prices slumped. The government’s strategy to curtail the decline in oil prices was to create a fixed currency rate which, according to the BBC, created a black market for the US dollar and squeezed the economy.
Rabih Patel is the head of reserve brands for a drinks manufacturer in Lagos. Survival is also the name of the game for his organization.
“This is the worst condition I have seen in the past eight years of being in Nigeria. We had to lay off 700 expatriates in our organization. We simply cannot afford to pay their wages anymore. My good friend is going back to India with his family because of the crisis. I suspect this may last for the next two years and what business is going to survive two years of this?” says Patel.
Interestingly, Patel has seen an increase in their more prestigious drinks brands, which is up 40% from last year.
“That only makes up about three percent of my overall sales so it doesn’t make that much of a difference. However, we have seen a decline in sales of our lager and other spirits and I had to slash my marketing budget by half since the beginning of this year.”
The statistics office confirmed that annual inflation also rose to 17.1% in July, from 16.5% in June, with food inflation increasing to 15.8%.
“The crash in global oil prices has devastated the economy which is dependent on the oil sector for about 70 percent of its sales revenue”, says Frederic Mann, Chief Economist at Genesis Consulting, a financial advisory firm in Abuja.
“We have always stated that the government’s decision to artificially keep the naira at the same level made the situation worse because it restricted the flow of foreign exchange in the system, which most companies need in order to import raw materials for manufacturing,” says Mann.
According to reports, about half a million jobs have been lost in Nigeria in the past six months. The Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, confirmed that the government has spent more than N400 billion ($1.3 billion) in capital expenditure this year as part of a staggering N6.06 trillion ($30 billion) budget.
“The government needs to pull resources into non-oil assets to help move the country out of recession. The government plans to borrow $10 billion from debt markets, mostly from foreign sources, but how will that money be spent to stimulate growth in the economy?” says Mann.
At least technology entrepreneurs in Nigeria had something to cheer about after a surprise visit to the country by the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.
At the end of August, Segun Idrisu, the Founder of I-farm, an app that connects buyers and sellers of agricultural products, had an unlikely visit from Zuckerberg while the billionaire was touring Africa.
“I don’t think words can describe the excitement when we realized what was actually happening. It is definitely a confidence boost for all the techpreneurs here and to have someone like [Zuckerberg] come all the way here, it shows that this is an industry worth paying attention to,” says Idrisu.
Zuckerberg’s visit to Nigeria, which is Facebook’s biggest market in Africa with 16 million visits every month, has renewed talk to increase investment in the technology and services sector.
Renaissance Capital told CNBC Africa that the services sector, which is worth 50% of Nigeria’s GDP, shrank by 1.3% year on year in the second quarter of 2016. The services sector and agriculture are most likely to rescue Nigeria, according to Mann.
For those like Idrisu, the tech scene provides a safe haven in the current economic climate. Zuckerberg’s visit to Lagos created some optimism for young entrepreneurs who are desperately trying to find new ways to make a living. The rest of the country’s Facebook status: sad.

Nigeria’s Facebook Status: Sad

As if Zimbabwe doesn’t have enough problems, in October the government will try what could be an ill-fated experiment of printing so-called bond notes.
It’s a reaction to the shortage of US dollars that have been legal tender in Zimbabwe since the Zimbabwean dollar disappeared. The shortage is so bad the banks are trying to ration dollars.
“I can only withdraw US$100 a day and that’s if I’m lucky. I have to wake up very early in the morning to queue, otherwise there will be no money in the ATM. If I come late I can find even 60 or so people queuing,” says Tukudzwa Mutasa, who lives in Harare.
The southern African country has been unlucky, to say the least, when it comes to currency. It printed its way into hyperinflation and even introduced bearer cheques that carried and outlived their expiry date. In 2008, it suffered catastrophic hyperinflation and even had a one hundred trillion dollar bill which could be exchanged for US$0.40. Almost 10 years later, it is worth more as a souvenir on eBay, where you can buy it for US$70.
This all led to the Zimbabwean dollar being ditched and the country adopting up to nine currencies from other countries.
The US dollar is king in Zimbabwe. In 2009, 49% of people used the US dollar, 49% used the rand and 2% used other currencies. In 2016, 95% of people use the US dollar.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) says the stronger US dollar is encouraging traders to take the currency out of the country.
“I can’t take the rand because it is weak. I buy the things I sell in South Africa and have to factor in costs, so I would rather sell in US dollars so that I make a little bit of profit otherwise I would be wasting my time,” says informal trader Chipo Dungare, in Harare.
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Into the mix, in October, come piles upon piles of what many see as worthless paper. Zimbabwe will use the gold standard, which is a monetary system where a country’s currency or paper money has a value directly backed by gold, to print its own version of the US dollar, called bond notes. There is a guarantee of US$200 million by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) to back the bond notes. The scheme will also reward people bringing foreign currency to the country with a 5% incentive on all foreign exchange receipts.
Reserve Bank Governor, John Mangudya, says the bond notes, like the US dollar, will come in $2, $5, $10 and $20 dominations. This is unlikely to convince people to use it.
“This is a shakedown; casino economy presided over by dangerous clowns who don’t see beyond today. How can you explain repeating a failed experiment of 2008 of printing dollar signs and figures on bond paper and declare that as currency? Really? Do these people learn at all?” asks political economist, Maxwell Saungweme.
“This is the return of the Zimbabwean dollar by another name. It won’t work. It will crash on day one,” says a Harare-based analyst who chose to remain anonymous for fear of victimization.
Former Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, called citizens to anger.
“The return of the Zimbabwean dollar marks the gross admission by this regime that it has failed, and failed in absolute terms, and that it will drag everyone along in the plunge to abyss that now awaits this economy. It is a cynical, disrespectful and contemptuous move that has absolutely no logic, sense or justification on any rational ground whatsoever,” writes Biti on his Facebook page.
“Zimbabwe is effectively a supermarket economy consuming goods produced in other countries. In 2014, its exports were US$3.7 billion against imports of US$6.3 billion. 2015 was no better; exports were $3.2 billion against imports of US$6.03 billion.”
Promise Mkwananzi, Director of Zimbabwe Informal Sector’s Organisation, says this policy reveals confusion.
“The tragic result is that there is already panic and despondency in the country. This will cause an unprecedented decline in FDIs already at its all-time low. This will see the Zimbabwean economy continuing to suffer,” he says.
But the people running Zimbabwe believe there is no problem.
“The bond notes are coming no matter what because we are trying to solve a problem here. The media exaggerates what is going on here in Zimbabwe. They talk about protests but I don’t even know what they are talking about. It’s always business as usual here and often I have to see in the news that there was a protest,” says spokesperson of the office of the president, George Charamba.
Along with the RBZ and the government, the Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ) is behind the bond notes, but it has reservations.
“The consultations before the announcement, if any, were less than inclusive and the confusion and fear that was created could have been anticipated and, to a large degree, reduced if not avoided. It would have given business the necessary confidence if it had also been announced whether this is a short, medium-term or long-term measure and the fate of the bond notes once they have served their purpose,” says EMCOZ president Josephat Kahwema.
What is certain is that in October the banks will be full of freshly printed paper. You’ll know for sure whether it’s worthless when you go to spend it.

Tag: October 2016

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