Diaspora Matters

Over the weekend one of the trending stories was the extent of fake academic qualifications in the country. This is regrettable as it tarnishes the reputation of the country. Our educational system is revered across the globe for producing top notch graduates who go on to excel in various fields.

The article published over the weekend lifts the lid on a flourishing industry of fake academic qualifications and our forum also discussed the prevalence of the problem. Indeed fake qualifications are being bought with a lot of unscrupulous people benefitting and getting away with it.

This writer once met someone with the same degree, same class but the man never attended the same institution. He was not part of the graduation ceremony either—so where did he get the qualification from?

The traditional approach of qualification verification included approaching universities which would task the registrar departments with verification in their IT systems but fraudsters are creating academic records by hacking the systems or colluding with the registrar departments. So this approach is no longer good enough as its now also prone to corruption.

One of our forum members shared an experience of an accountant who graduated from the University of Zimbabwe, went through articles and then obtained a suspicious MBA during a period when a local college was suspected of selling MBAs for as much as US$3000.

Wary of the tag of a suspicious MBA degree, he later enrolled for another MBA from Masters Degree in Corporate Governance from another local college. In official audit questionnaires, he would cover up for his earlier MBA by writing that he had acquired it from UZ. A bizarre arrangement of pursuing 2 masters degrees instead of pursuing professional accounting studies.

Those that acquire fraudulent qualifications always have a way out—acquiring more qualifications on top to bury down the fake ones. Some even go up to doctorate level and no one will question someone with a legitimately acquired doctorate whether they faked their undergraduate qualifications!

How to solve the problem

Colleges: Internal controls at registry departments should be strengthened and internal audit departments should play an active role in designing systems that minimise the risks of academic fraud. Are academic results databases safe? Do hard copies of graduation lists tally with what is recorded in the databases? Do external audits cover this area? What are the control procedures for verification of results?

Outsiders: The verification results you obtain from colleges could be fake! In future consider asking graduates names of fellow graduates and lecturers and then verify.  Who are the lecturers who taught you? Who else was in your class?

The period at most risk is when the economy started facing challenges from 2003-present. Some have been known to fake professional qualifications but verification is usually easy especially for international bodies.

The academic fraudsters usually perform well as work with some being star performers but they are usually given away by lack of ethics especially making life tough for those who sweat for their academic credentials–they always feel threatened!

Even in-house, some may avoid applying for posts that require interviews and qualifications verifications and prefer growth by promotion. Human resources experts therefore need to regularly check qualifications even for those that would have been in the system for decades.

With our education in the spot light for the wrong reasons, it’s the duty of every stakeholder to flush out academic fraudsters.

We have added a massive 30,000 new members  over the past 3 months to our Facebook Page and our members now stand at 80,000! We welcome you all to this forum. We are registered as a trust with a board of 10 members and a management team of 40. Our offices located at No 34 Quendon Road, Monavale, Harare.

Purpose of forum: Provide small businesses with a platform for resource sharing, networking access to capital and markets

Access to resources: There are thousands of inspirational posts on our Facebook page, over 700 free articles on our website www.zbinworld.com , active business discussions on our more than 50 Whatsapp groups and we also published 5 books.

Access to capital: We pool resources through Crowdfunding initiatives and to date there are 4 registered companies owned by members.

Access to markets: We allow our members to advertise on Facebook 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Look out for consolidated posts that attract an average of 18,000 views or 600,000 views per month. Our Whatsapp platforms also provide a great platform for access to markets. The bonus is the forum is growing at a rate of 300 new members per day—so bigger market for members.

Networking: Before the Covid-19 lockdown, we had started holding monthly meetings attracting more than 200 members. We hope to tap into Zoom facilities and hold monthly fairs to network members starting from August 2020.

Member Expectations

Active participation on forum posts: Share your entrepreneurial experiences, inspire the next person.

Buy from the forum: Do not just use the forum for dumping ads, support others too and grow the forum. The spirit of support on the forum is extremely high.

No spamming: Posting the same ad over and over on our Whatsapp platform is a NO! Our admins will self quarantine you.

No Ponzi schemes: Post ponzi, phishing links or commit fraud and you are automatically out.

Politics: It is a divisive topic especially in Zimbabwe. Avoid political posts as not everyone shares the same view with  you. If the urge to discuss politics is too strong for you, our ZBIN Social App group is a great platform and in there the members are evenly balanced. Those who support Political Perspective X and those for Y. Whatever you support has an equal number of those who oppose it. Outside the ZBIN Social, its advised to avoid this topic.

Diaspora Friendly: We are diaspora friendly and have a good number of diasporans participating in our programmes. Our board is made up of 50% diasporans and we regularly write posts to keep the diaspora clued up on business developments on the ground.

Subscribed Members: They keep the forum running through yearly subs, they have preferential treatment for ads as well as access to our yearly books. They have a separate forum and  are the first to benefit from forum initiatives.

 So enjoy your stay, be visible, promote your brand, support others too. Keep your prices reasonable and deliver what you promise. The Facebook admin team tries their level best to share as much information as possible and is made up of a Digital Marketer (Darlington Letala), Social Entrepreneur ( Kevin Farai Moyo), Lawyer ( Taffy Dube) and Accountants ( James Foster & Chenjerai Takawira). The Whatsapp platforms have Catherine Shava, Theresa Sithole ably supported by a team of 40 admins.

Zim Business Ideas and Network

One of the common reasons why businesses fail is due to venturing into business ventures without carrying out market surveys. More than 95% of start-ups in the country simply deep dive into projects without scientific evidence of the existence of a market.

In most cases, entrepreneurs base investment decisions based on what is trending.What are other people doing? Ndezvipi zvirikupa mari? Are Covid-19 masks the in thing? Then plunge in without enough information.

So why do entrepreneurs avoid detailed market researches?

Little appreciation of the concept and associated benefits

Generally considered an expensive process

No developed SME Experts industry, so few market researchers available

To those knowledgeable-the process can be time consuming

Lets take you back to a few years—do you still remember the sack potato which once took the country by storm? How many people got burnt?

Market researches should have pointed out the grey area of wild animals and related legal restrictions. Of course pointing this out when many people are venturing and benefiting is a futile exercise.  

In this article, we hope to assist you with conducting market researches on your own but our advice is always for you to get experts advice.

Market Existence: Is there a market for the products or services you intend to bring to the market? Is there a gap sufficient enough for you to invest funds and get a reasonable return? If there is no market, then you better hold on to your resources.

Size of the market: If for instance you have established that there is a market, what is the size of the market? This is where you need scientific evidence rather than guess work. You need a helicopter view of the whole industry. For instance The Herald reports today(24 July 2020) that Zimbabwe has a housing backlog of 1.4 million people and it will take between 15-20 years to clear the backlog. If it is agriculture, then responsible ministries such in charge of agriculture publishes regularly information on market sizes and gaps-Output forecasts and actual figures. The donor community also chips in with estimates. ZIMTRADE helps with foreign markets market researches.

So we have an overview of market sizes on a national level but this is not enough—you need to zero  in on your area of interest. For instance the supply of soap to Ruwa or Norton. How many people live in your area?

What are the changes in the market? Business going online or new suburbs being built? New shops coming up?

Active Market Players Analysis : In your area, who are the active suppliers? In the case of Ruwa, we may find that many people buy soap from local shops—Spar and TM and other tuckshops. Are they meeting the demand? Are customers satisfied with their products—quality, prices and other conveniences. Is there a gap to supply own soap? For instance if a bar of soap is being sold for US$1—can you also manufacture and sell at the same price or even lower?

What are the changes in terms of economic environment? Disposable income changes and preference for lower priced products? Can you tap into online business opportunities? For those used to buy from the CBD, how does the lockdown restrictions affect buying behaviour?

Conducting the research

There are key stakeholders involved in conducting a market research and they are;

The buyers: You need input from the people who will buy your products and this process is no stroll in the park. Your sample size should be big enough for instance if a suburb has 100,000, then reaching out to 10 people is not good enough but a few hundreds can help but this can be an expensive process. Solicit their feedback, what are their pain points in buying existing products? Can they buy your products? Having samples of the products can help. Document information collected.

The suppliers: Who are the key suppliers in your industry? You may obtain crucial information of prices, availability of products and changes in their business. Document information collected.

The competitors: Who are the major competitors in the industry? What are their business models? Are they expanding or contracting? What are the challenges they are facing and how are they dealing with them? What is the level of competition in the industry? Document key insights for decision making.

Regulatory agencies: What are the regulatory forces in the country? For instance price controls? We witnessed the ban of kombis—what were the public statements issued in the run up to the ban? What are the priorities of the government? Is your business legal? What anticipated legal challenges can come your way? Refer to our VUCAH Skills articles.Just like the quail birds, you risk investing into a project that can later one be banned and adversely impacting your operations. Highly unlikely to have an opportunity to interview regulatory agencies so your source of information likely to be search engines and general knowledge.

Boots on the ground approach

Unfortunately you cannot conduct researches without getting your feet on the ground. You need time on the ground observing events or carrying our researches. Structure your research so that you have desktop work as well as on the ground. Engage student interns in cases where you cannot afford to engage market research consultants.

Report Compilation and Review

If you were actively involved in your market research, then you are going to need a different pair of eyes for review. It’s difficult to critique a document you would have been involved in drafting. You need someone who will review the adequacy of your report –the independent eye that picks out grey areas you missed out and provide an objective and balanced assessment.

Launching your product

Often times, start-ups prepare projections that span more than 6 months but is this realistic given the dynamic nature of the environment?

Instead of investing all of your funds based on market research evidence—rather choose to test the market with a few product samples for learning purposes. Investing funds for learning purposes? It’s a tough decision as this means resources usage but its important rather than proceeding full throttle. Read more about the lean method.

On a parting shot, this information is just elementary stuff but gives you an overview of how to carry out your own market research. This is an area largely ignored by many start-ups! Even those who can afford to engage experts choose not to but with disastrous consequences!

Do watch out for examples of market researches for our subscribed members.

One of the trending news is that of the smuggling of bodies from South Africa with most of them suspected to be of victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. The clearance of the bodies of Zimbabweans who die in South Africa is unnecessarily cumbersome. The processes required do not take into account that some citizens would have skipped the border without proper documentation and this affects thousands of people dotted across the Rainbow Nation.

Immigration officials take advantage of the situation and demand thousands of dollars to process papers or even turn a blind eye to body smuggling.

Whilst this has worked in the past without serious health repercussions recorded, the Covid-19 pandemic is a totally different period. Smuggling of bodies risks the health of immigration officials, authorities that check vehicles and the drivers.

With some of the bodies sharing space with groceries—there is even more risk for those receiving the goods being imported from South Africa. Most recipients will be oblivious to the condition of the transportation of the goods.

As South Africa heads for the peak of the novel pandemic, it’s inevitable that our daughters and sons of the soil will be affected. Even as SA records statistics of infections and deaths, they should inform respective governments of the victims where feasible so that repatriation can be facilitated in an efficient and effective manner.

How is the South African government dealing with foreigners succumbing to the pandemic? They should have easily available guidance of who to contact and the sort of assistance they can provide.

How is Zimbabwe also handling the issue of citizens succumbing to the Covid-19 pandemic on foreign soil especially South Africa? How is the country dealing with bodies properly processed and cleared and those smuggled?

The Covid -19 task forces in both countries should engage each other especially at government level as this has the potential of posing serious health risks for a lot of direct and third parties. Our borders risk becoming epicentres of the Covid-19.

Why is repatriation expensive? Why is the repatriation process information not easily available to the public? How can our responsible governments come in and solve the bottlenecks?

Business opportunities information is hard to come by as noone is willing to reveal their secrets of how they are making money! The information is a closely guarded treasure and for good reason. However inorder to help inspire many entrepreneurs, our forum has focused on researching and giving you the scarce opportunities information. It is no easy feat as it involves a lot of hard work in researches and analysis of opportunities. Sometime it involves even undertaking tours to regional countries and then compiling opportunities uncovered.

Consider yourself fortunate to bump into our short book that covers 5 chapters. The full book has 11 chapters but the 5 free chapters will go a long way into giving you an insight into opportunities in the country. Our site has a lot of visitors from other countries too and we believe some of the information covered applies to your countries too.

There is so much to learn from the music scene by entrepreneurs. When it comes to stiff competition then look at the FCMG sector ( Fast Moving Consumer Goods)—your OK, TM, Spars etc. We used to have kombis too and who still remembers kombis stopping in the middle of the road blocking traffic in order to pick passengers? We hope when they return-they will be disciplined.

The music scene is one hell of a tough industry—talent is not enough! Getting regular airplay an impossible feat as more than a million songs are recorded each year and yet we have a few radio stations. For new artists, most of their recordings never get airplay.

Enter Van Choga;

A weirdo artist who rose to prominence during the lockdown—I wasn’t impressed when I bumped into his videos—perhaps passage of time. More comfortable with more mature music….Thomas Mapfumo, Tobias Areketa, Ndolwane Super Sounds, Mokis Connection, Bhundu Boys etc

But in my youth we once had a weirdo song from Papa San-look for the song ‘I cant take it nomore’It is a dancehall song from the 90s that rocked the airwaves. In Kenya they have an artist Victor Ongengo-check out for his song Amani. Van Choga is cut from the same cloth.

The Ruwa based artist got signed by Seh Calaz, a leading Zimdancehall artist who recorded and promoted his early works and it paid dividends with the release of his first album.

We expected more collaborations from his mentor but fate had other ideas. Immediately after releasing his album, the 2 parted ways attracting the ire of music followers who thought Van Choga was in ingrate who had cut the hand that feedeth!

Everyone expected doom for Van Choga who had joined a new team.

A few weeks after the acrimonious exit, Choga collaborated with a rising hip hop artist from Ghana called Ay Poyoo and they detonated a bomb! Expect their hit to be a party anthem in the coming weeks with young ones dancing to the fancy beat and lyrics. In 2 days the song has attracted more than 112,000 views.

He becomes the first Zimbabwean to collaborate with a Ghanaian musician….something established musicians failed to do, even his previous mentor never crossed the borders!

From an unknown musician a few weeks ago, Van Choga is now trending in 2 countries. Now this is what we call scale up on steroids!

In your business, are you operating alone? You may need a team that thinks in other terms like the new Van Choga team.

Horticulture is one of the most lucrative fields in Zimbabwe but can be challenging for most new entrants. In this article we explore some of the most common mistakes which you need to be aware of;

1. Poor site selection: Badly drained soils– soils in the selected site should be free draining to 1.5m depth. Gravelly soils: The more stones /pebbles present the smaller is the water holding capacity of soil. Too close to trees or buildings or too steep a slope with excess run off of irrigation water? This can affect the yield of your crops.

2. Poor choice of variety for the market, time of the year, day length, and area. Lack of proper crop planning.

3. Poor soil preparation: The soil must be porous, aggregated, oxygenated to a depth of 0.5M for top yields. See Charter Seeds soil preparation technique to convert badly compacted soil into an excellent tilth in a matter of weeks.

4. Badly planned rotations: Subsequent crops must not be in the same family or group of plants.

5. Inadequate isolation distances between crops.

6. Temperatures and humidity levels are very important for many crops especially in greenhouses. The most frequent fault seen in greenhouses is lack of temperature control.

7. Poor Irrigation: Too much water in winter – especially March – April in Zimbabwe. Too little water in summer – especially September – October. Affects both the nursery and the field. Often the case with drip irrigation which is not really understood by many farmers. If you have a white efflorescence of salt on the surface of the soil it is likely you will be under watering. Examination of the soil will show the subsoil is dry.

8. Poor seedlings: A good well prepared, well hardened seedling is the foundation of a good crop and vice versa. Not too large or not too small and no excess leaf. Must be of the right size, 12-15cm tall, with strong, sturdy stems to prevent post planting shock, and a good root structure. The plugs must hold enough water to carry the seedling in the time before it starts to use soil water. Seedlings of cucurbits for instance need a larger volume of medium than seedlings with a smaller leaf area like cabbages and tomatoes. Use sleeves for cucurbit seedlings, especially watermelons and cucumbers.

9. Poor fertilization: Fertilize according to soil analysis taking both nutrient intensity and nutrient capacity into account. The fertilizer must be carefully placed in the soil so that it coincides with root development at critical periods of growth like vegetative growth, flowering and fruit development. Know your variety so that in a well prepared soil you know where the roots will be in the soil at a given time.

10. Poor planting. Water plant into a soil at field capacity. Never plant into dry soil. Make sure the seedling is full of water when transplanting. Water the night before pulling. Shade cucurbit seedlings after transplanting to minimize water loss.

11. Badly planned pest and disease control. Before the crop is planted have a spraying program planned based on previous experience. Start spraying before the problem occurs and rotate chemicals to prevent a build- up of resistance and stick to your planned program.

 Finally, horticulture is a business: Inputs must be governed by the likely gross return – but the more you put in the more you will get out.In modern horticulture absolute attention to detail is necessary in all aspects of production to make use of the factors incorporated into modern vegetable varieties.

All Credit: Charter seeds, distributors of Stark Ayres in Zimbabwe.

Emmanuel is a qualified Agronomist and development practitionerwith more than a decade’s experience working in the agri-business industry and development sector. You can contact him on edndsep@gmail.com or whatsapp on 0783495396

Brilliant business plans, a lot of enthusiasm, you have attended many seminars, followed role models, read plenty of books and you have mastered the basics—you look forward to launching a successful business project. Good luck to you, thorough researches done—you can do it!

In soccer the coaches would also have followed the same approach. A lot of practice, watched videos of competitors, done self analysis—got psychologists to psyche you up. Confidence full to the brim—bring it on!

Come match day, you enter the pitch and as soon as the referee whistle goes off, its game on!

Then you find the conditions totally different from what you had been taught and practised for.You concede many goals than targeted, you make life difficult for you in the second half. How can you reverse the 4-0 score line?

In entrepreneurship, you learn that the economic environment is not as predicted. New statutory instruments come from nowhere, Covid-19 comes, inflation conspires to make your life difficult. All the business plans and researches rendered useless.

Meanwhile you have sunk a lot of capital into your project, some employees involved in fraudulent activities, some debtors not paying up, currency changes and money stuck in banks or Ecocash banned.

Hold on, all of these events did not appear in your business plans! Like in soccer, you have a 4-0 loss and you are considering quitting to save the little capital that still exist.

Welcome to the second half

Your coach has been studying the opponents, their strengths and weaknesses. Analysing too your own performance vs the opponents and coming up with a remedial plan to overturn the first half losses and record a draw or a win!

For entrepreneurs, there is no coach who was observing your performance and if you do not pause and self reflect then you are headed in the familiar direction travelled by 95% of entrepreneurs—doom!

In soccer teams that finish last get relegated and we can track all the teams that got relegated across the world. The statistics are easy to get…

In the Zimbabwean context, statistics are hard to come by and the absence of the statistics mean thousands to millions of people keep falling into the same trap.

Even when we follow popular entrepreneurs in the country. We only read of successful case studies but how they made losses in the first half and then miraculously survived in the second half to win the match is classified information!

Some of the first half experiences are so embarrassing that many are not comfortable to share them. The education system taught us to be proud of success and be embarrassed by failures and this extends to the business sector.

How to survive the second half

• Complete the match, do not flee due to adverse performance in the first half.
• Bruised, beaten, angry—seek half time expertise. Those who have played the match before—seasoned coaches. They will assist to point areas of weakness and strengths. They will analyse the industry too and other contributing factors. Together you will come up with a plan that also involves working on your deflated ego.
• Draft a second half business plan: Chances of your first business plan failing are more than 90% especially for first timers. Yes its well researched, Yes the same business plan has worked perfectly well for others but that business plan is bound to fail in spectacular fashion too.
• It’s a team sport: Serena Williams only has a team of experts behind her but she performs on the tennis court alone against competitors. Entrepreneurship is a team effort and not golf, boxing, motorsport or chess. You need a team for various roles (Financial Management, Strategic Management, Marketing, Risk Management, Business Management and more)
• The founder can have the passion to succeed but recruiting a competent team that shares the same vision is an almost impossible task in the Zimbabwean context. Refer to those who have operated kombis where in most cases the drivers and assistants have their own selfish objectives. How do you recruit and work with a team that is interested in starting their own businesses using your resources? Your business plan is not going to adequately cover this agency problem—you will have to experience it to appreciate the complexities. The biggest risk is seasoned employees working for a first timer!
• Don’t invest 100% capital in the first half instead craft your business plan such that its creates more cashflows for reinvestment and therefore adding up to your initial targeted capital. Do not invest too much when you entrepreneurship resume is at zero. This is akin to a coach using all substitute players in the first half.
• Success is anchored on experience (80% negative) and (20% positive). You know where you have lost money and how and you avoid making similar mistakes. You now know of events that lead to a statutory instrument being formulated and introduced. You know the type of employees to avoid, your own weaknesses and strengths too.

How about people who are employed and they resign or are retrenched and enter the entrepreneurship sector? You may have been a CEO or Director with a lot of perks and associated prestige and society expects you to continue living at the same level. You cannot all of a sudden be seen getting your hands dirty working at Siyaso.

Unfortunately entrepreneurship starts from the bottom, if you are entering the mealie meal production then you need experience of being a mugaisi. If you own trucks, then you need to sometimes drive the trucks. Starting a soap making business? Then you need to know how to make the soaps yourself. Because of self esteem, employed professionals just want to transfer their positions to the entrepreneurship sector with disastrous consequences.

Once those below you know that the founder knows very little about the nitty gritties, then they will craft strategies to start their own companies within your company.

So get experience—negative and positive and win the match in the second half.

The Newsday reported last week of a Mutarean based businessman Mr Simbarashe Charamba who launched a program to supply retailers in Manicaland with goods for resale and save them spiralling transport costs.

The concept is called Wholesale Van Selling which is a moving vehicle delivering different sort of goods to all peri-urban and rural areas. It will cover all the 7 districts of Manicaland.

What can we learn from this?

Economic challenges and the Covid-19 pandemic have opened new opportunities for some.

Entrepreneurs solve problems at a premium: What are the top problems we need to solve as a nation?

• Energy: We do not have sufficient energy for the whole country: Solutions? Solar power opportunities.
• Transport: Kombis not able to operate: Solution: ZBIN Ride, Vaya, Hwindi etc
• Drought: Second consecutive season with below average rainfalls. Solution? Borehole drilling, water tanks, water tank stands, dam construction and irrigation systems.
• Access to capital: More than 8 million entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe but facing challenges of access to capital from banks. Solution? Crowdfunding.

Homework for the week

What other challenges do you see around you? What innovative strategies can you employ to solve them?

ZBIN Ride Members

Sterling job going on in terms of parcels movements across the country. Our forum initiative has become the leading small courier startup in the country. We will upscale the model in the coming months.

How about lessons learnt from the province of the wise—Manicaland? Members should think in other terms and introduce more services. What are the needs of the remote areas? How about arbitrage opportunities of goods that can be sourced cheaply in other areas and fetching a great profit margin in others? This should not only be restricted to Zimbabwe but should be regional in nature.

We hope our members innovate and unlock opportunities during these economic challenging times.

Later during the week, we hope to cover mining opportunities.

Kea leboga

We witnessed the talented Barcelona star Lionel scoring his 700^th goal this week and coincidentally we also posted our 700^th article on this website….what a feat!

We formed the forum after realising that there was no effective platform for small businesses in Zimbabwe where entrepreneurs would easily access opportunities resources. No platform for small businesses discussions, resource sharing and networking.

Our first port of call was the creation of a Facebook platform which was anchored on business ideas or opportunities. The rest of the business Facebook pages focused on adverts, members posting as many ads as possible with no platform for business discussions.

Our forum has now grown to 75, 000 in Zimbabwe and 95,000 in South Arica. We linked the website to the Facebook platforms and also created various Whatsapp groups with more than 10,000. A complete cycle of information was therefore formed linking active platforms allowing members to have access to information and other resources, market places and networking.

The biggest small businesses forum in Zimbabwe was therefore formed and the forum is growing at a rate of 1000 new members in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

When we launched the forum in October 2014, only the ZBIN Mozambique members preparing for a tour of Mozambique attended and we are sure they did not know of the future impact of the website not only in Zimbabwe but across the region. When we redesigned the forum in 2015, we lost more than 300.000 views but if we are to add the tally to the current one—we have close to a million views of the website from 2016-2020!

We would like to thank everyone who supported the website which attracts hundreds of readers every day. Our innovation on Facebook of consolidated ads has resulted in monthly views of more than 700,000 with top posts attracting a viewership of 20,000.

The future of the website

• We are now ramping up our Youtube channel so that we can convert most of the articles into visuals and audios. This means readers will take less time viewing them than written content.
• We are also in the process of creating a mobile app and an E-commerce platform so that our members can have a secure market place for their products and services.
• Creation of a ZBIN Approved member list to reduce risks of scammers on the forum
• We have selected the top viewed posts and compiled them into 3 books
• Creation of a subscribed section with polished articles.

We would like to thank you all for the support including the ZBIN Board which funds the operation of the site. Our first website registered locally was inexplicably pulled down but this did not damper our spirits as we created another one.

As for the diaspora, we realised that there was no site to update you of local opportunities development….therefore this site came in handy.

Posting 700 articles on a constant basis for 4 years is not any easy feat as there is no rumeneration associated with it BUT we did it anyway as a patriotic way to uplift and inspire not only Zimbabweans but a lot of African entrepreneurs dotted across the globe.

Thank you all, keep visiting your site and giving us feedback. We also welcome talented correspondents to be part of our team as we upscale to the next level.

Zikomo

We witnessed the talented Barcelona star Lionel scoring his 700^th goal this week and coincidentally we also posted our 700^th article on this website….what a feat!

We formed the forum after realising that there was no effective platform for small businesses in Zimbabwe where entrepreneurs would easily access opportunities resources. No platform for small businesses discussions, resource sharing and networking.

Our first port of call was the creation of a Facebook platform which was anchored on business ideas or opportunities. The rest of the business Facebook pages focused on adverts, members posting as many ads as possible with no platform for business discussions.

Our forum has now grown to 75, 000 in Zimbabwe and 95,000 in South Arica. We linked the website to the Facebook platforms and also created various Whatsapp groups with more than 10,000. A complete cycle of information was therefore formed linking active platforms allowing members to have access to information and other resources, market places and networking.

The biggest small businesses forum in Zimbabwe was therefore formed and the forum is growing at a rate of 1000 new members in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

When we launched the forum in October 2014, only the ZBIN Mozambique members preparing for a tour of Mozambique attended and we are sure they did not know of the future impact of the website not only in Zimbabwe but across the region. When we redesigned the forum in 2015, we lost more than 300.000 views but if we are to add the tally to the current one—we have close to a million views of the website from 2016-2020!

We would like to thank everyone who supported the website which attracts hundreds of readers every day. Our innovation on Facebook of consolidated ads has resulted in monthly views of more than 700,000 with top posts attracting a viewership of 20,000.

The future of the website

• We are now ramping up our Youtube channel so that we can convert most of the articles into visuals and audios. This means readers will take less time viewing them than written content.
• We are also in the process of creating a mobile app and an E-commerce platform so that our members can have a secure market place for their products and services.
• Creation of a ZBIN Approved member list to reduce risks of scammers on the forum
• We have selected the top viewed posts and compiled them into 3 books
• Creation of a subscribed section with polished articles.

We would like to thank you all for the support including the ZBIN Board which funds the operation of the site. Our first website registered locally was inexplicably pulled down but this did not damper our spirits as we created another one.

As for the diaspora, we realised that there was no site to update you of local opportunities development….therefore this site came in handy.

Posting 700 articles on a constant basis for 4 years is not any easy feat as there is no rumeneration associated with it BUT we did it anyway as a patriotic way to uplift and inspire not only Zimbabweans but a lot of African entrepreneurs dotted across the globe.

Thank you all, keep visiting your site and giving us feedback. We also welcome talented correspondents to be part of our team as we upscale to the next level.

Zikomo Kwambili

Kwambili