Making waves in the right places

YOU can hear a pin drop in the room, once the tall man stands up to speak. From pitching his business idea to a group of fellow start-ups, equally hungry to make it to the big time, it is clear that Sabelo Sibanda, 30, is in a league of his own.

His entrepreneurial passion is infectious and soon he has the crowd excited about a solar-powered tablet he and business partner, Thulisile Volwana, 22, designed.

Organisers of the networking session for entrepreneurs where Sibanda pitched his business idea last week, let him walk away with the cash prize for the best pitch – the decision was unanimous – and they begged him to enter the SAB Kickstart entrepreneurship competition this year.

Sibanda entered the competition last year with the same idea of a solar-powered tablet, but no one believed that a young entrepreneur from Port Elizabeth had what it takes to design and execute the business plan.

Last Monday he proudly showed off the first prototype, and in mid-June the company's first consignment of solar tablets will arrive in the city.

"We had many a door shut in our faces and many people said it couldn't be done. The licensing alone was a nightmare of red tape and we had a range of challenges but we never gave up. I would rather die than give up," says the passionate Sibanda, who matriculated from Grey High School and worked at Boomtown as an account executive before venturing out on his own.

Business partner Volwana matriculated at Nyanga High School in Ngcobo and met Sibanda in 2011 while the two were studying at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University towards a diploma in Business Management. They started their e-commerce company, MIllbug, in 2012.

Apart from the solar tablet, they also manage an e-commerce marketplace online site, forefin.ga.

The site is free for small businesses to advertise their products and services. They make a profit by taking a percentage of the items sold on the website. They also design apps for small businesses.

Growing up in Ngcobo has inspired the soft-spoken Volwana to be passionate about bringing mobility to the rural areas and this is the main driver behind all their business ventures – to make access to the internet more affordable and accessible. "We are very excited about the business and the possibilities it holds," Volwana said.

The Port Elizabeth business pair are currently in negotiations with corporates and academia to subsidise the cost of the solar tablets, which will be sold for R1499, as a corporate social initiative.

The tablets can be charged by electricity and the sun. Keeping their overseas manufacturer a secret for now, Sibanda said their company's long-term view was to possibly manufacture the tablet in the city, possibly at the Coega Industrial Development Zone.

"We basically took a recipe to a chef and listed all our ingredients and how we wanted the tablet to work. We created a schematic and gave it to the manufacturer to make," Sibanda said.

The business partners received funding and advice from the Information Communication Technology Small Enterprise Development Agency based in the city, who were instrumental in facilitating a meeting with the overseas manufacturer and helping with the various licensing agreements.

• Never give up on your business idea.
• Work with your fellow entrepreneurs in partnerships and joint ventures.
• Give back to your community, instead of focusing just on making mone.
• Understand your market – desktop e-commerce is more focused on items like clothing while mobile e-commerce is focused on buying digital items like apps and music. - Cindy Preller