Diaspora Matters

At 120,000 active membership, the Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network forum has become the biggest business forum in Zimbabwe. Our focus is on startups with a good number of medium scale businesses.

Our growth has taken us a good decade as its complex to network strangers. The good news is we keep pushing with our target of a million active membership by 2030. The high engagement by our membership is highly encouraging as this also allows us to easily conduct surveys. And one of the surveys was on the riskiest businesses in Zimbabwe and our findings are captured below;

1. Mining
2. Mabhero (Second hand clothing)
3. Betting
4. Online Forex Trading
5. Crypto Currency Trading
6. Ponzi schemes (E-Creator, MMM and others)
7. Transport businesses(Kombis, mshikashika and trucks)
8. Boutiques
9. Tuckshops
10. Fish Farming

Of course these are general responses from more than 400 members. The observation is lack of researches before plunging into business. Many are just plunging in and meeting the same fate of failure. Those doing enough researches and through experience, are thriving in most of the sectors considered too risky. Take for instance online forex trading-this is a complex area where one needs to spend a considerable amount of effort in learning before starting earning returns.

You do not just join the mining industry today and tomorrow profits are flowing. Get rich quick mentality is often disastrous. Every business is risky and remember the adage-the higher the risks, the higher the profits. We can add the experience curve to the mix. Get the skills and experience and eventually it will work out no matter the business that you choose.

Headwinds are blowing across the world with so many changes taking place resulting in some cases, companies laying off employees.

Now the question is what next after retrenchment especially when it’s coming as a surprise?

We cover below some of the tips that can help you survive or even thrive;

• Take time off and clear your mind. It can be a holiday, or short trip to your rural area. Just move away from your normal environment. Relax and then plan the way forward.

• When you return, if funds permit—seek the services of a professional coach who has travelled the same path you will be travelling. Where this is not feasible—look for peers with the same experience.

• Your whole family should be involved in shaping how you will navigate the tricky waters where no regular income will be coming. And this is the most difficult part as often this includes downgrading lifestyles to suit the new environment. This sometimes includes the most complex part of changing schools for your children. Changing from a private school to a boarding school will cause the biggest stress in the home. Returning from colleges abroad to local ones can trigger Blood Pressure and other diseases both for parents and affected young ones. One could be pressured to maintain lifestyle by using all savings and gratuities in order to manage the stress—but this hardly works.

• Venturing into business: If you already one foot in business, then it’s a bit better to adjust as you will have full-time focus. If you are starting a business from scratch then you need to be extremely humble—and its not easy. From c-suite to the streets very humiliating—but if you accept humility—beyond it lies your break through. If start a soap making business—make sure you know how soap is made. You should know all the formulas before hiring staff. Avoid the pressure to Start BIG in line with your previous high class status. If farming then start from a small scale and get your hands dirty. Many regret skipping the dirty hands phase—and payback is losses.

• Pay the School Fees: Many just plunge into business without engaging experts. Not bad to do so but there are school fees to be paid and it’s called experience. The streets will teach you the hard lessons packaged as losses. If going into fish farming—engage experts for a small fee. Or pay a small fee to those already in the business and learn the whole cycle.

• No fast returns for newbies: You are supposed to be earning a salary right? Then you invest looking to cover the salary gap right? Well all the investment can be wiped out as the rate of success in business has been documented as 20% over 5 years. The rate of success is 1 in every out of 5. Study the risks in areas you would like to venture in—but this should not deter you from giving it a shot.

• Avoid Ponzi Schemes and Partnerships: The pressure to quickly earn income and maintain previous lifestyle likely to lead you into more misery. Online forex trading could be sold to you as a fast returns business, Bitcoin too. If you intend to venture into it then take time to learn and master it. You could easily fall into the trap of partnerships with unscrupulous characters. It’s better to start slowly and learn on the road.

• Balancing Cashflows: We covered this in detail in our 2022 Business Opportunities for Zimbabweans Book. You will need to juggle businesses that bring daily cashflows, monthly cashflows, quarterly cashflows and long term cashflows.In summary—short run cashflow cycle, medium term cashflow cycle and long term cashflow cycles. This should determine your investment decisions and a very complex area.

• Make new acquaintances: Maintain solid relationships with ex colleagues as they could be some of your potential partners and clients. Be humble enough to reach out to them. In addition join business forums and actively participate—your new colleagues will teach you a lot about business and street science.

• The Good News Phase: Yes the new life will mentally drain you—losses inevitable but don’t give up. You will eventually hit the target after many misses. You will eventually graduate and forget about the trials and tribulations. Its a lone and difficult road but you will survive like others before you.

After successful trials on Madagascar Lima Beans, our farmers are now patiently waiting for the coming of the rain season which is expected to commence in October 2024. We have gained valuable experience over the past 12 months building up seeds for planting in the 2024/2025 Agriculture Season.

More than 300 farmers expected to go full scale commercial farming and our conservative estimates is we could collectively produce 300 tonnes by April 2025. Figures expected to continue to increase over the coming years.

Meanwhile we also introduced another bean variety with Madagascar roots-the Gros Pois variety which is the premium version of Lima Beans. So how has been progress? Well the trials began in July 2024 and seeds distributed to 100 members and there are signs of progress.

We will be sharing results in due course. The good news is that we will be using experience acquired from the speckled lima variety.

Madagascar Lima Beans Farming Trials Verdict

It started as a research experiment to see whether the Madagascar Lima Beans can be grown commercially? And our forum had over 200 members signing up receiving 5 bean seeds each for trial farming on a project that ran from January 2024 to August 2024.

So how has been the progress to date?

Our results do show great success from our members dotted around the country. Good harvests recorded especially from those who planted around January and February 2024. An average of 300 grams per plant recorded for beans planted on land and buckets. The good news is that the beans were grown organically (no fertilizer applications).

Frost bite did affect many plants during the winter period but our members who had planted early did register good harvests. Planting in winter is discouraged after witnessing a lot of plants dying due to frost bite.

The surprise success came from bucket planted seeds which was an experiment and the good news is the bucket plants survived frost bite.

Now that most farmers now have seeds for upscale to commercial farming—we are now eagerly awaiting the onset of the next rain season as most of our farmers do not have access to irrigation water.

The best farming period is September to December using experience from last year. The experience gained by our farmers expected to improve yields as they go full commercial with some farming on bigger spaces of land such as farms, plots and rural land.

What is the key question that helped to form this forum back in 2015? We struggled with answering the question ‘How do you identify business opportunities in Zimbabwe?’ Reference to school and college studies did not help much as this material was previously not well covered.

So a journey started with more focus on opportunities and in 2018 we compiled our debut book which unfortunately leaked and going viral. We followed with the 2020 and 2022 editions and now on our 4th book on business opportunities.

Not easy to compile and helps explain why the books come at 2 year intervals. So its a pleasure to present to you our 2024 edition and we hope its going to inspire you and help in improving your business operations. The book is available in print copy at $20 and soft copy at $5 and for inquiries do get in touch on +263 773 055 063.

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Our Madagascar Lima Beans farming trials will turn a year old next month and how has been progress?

From less than 20 plants, I have managed to fill up a 20litre bucket with the Madagascar Lima Beans which should be the highest in the country. I accidentally bumped into the beans around August 2023 and at first ignored them but only taking interest during November when the first beans became ripe. I was still oblivious to the immense value of the beans and had to seek help on the type of beans in my backyard garden—and eating the first beans took a leap of faith.

So it’s almost a year now and I have shared the beans with hundreds of others with the first distribution in December 2023. Amazing results from the trials showing great potential for those interested in going commercial.

For home consumption—you just need at most 5 good plants and this is what a few Zimbabweans have been doing for decades. Going commercial is an unpatented idea from ZBIN and hundreds of farmers are getting ready for the 2024/5 Agricultural Season.

Winter farming—Winter has proved to be what is already written by researchers—a difficult period with reduced growth due to frost. However with continued watering, the impact is reduced. Only old plants are mildly impacted but plants from March and April are doing well.

The verdict? Great potential for Zimbabwean farmers to grow Madagascar Lima Beans which have an explosive growth rate and cost effective as there is no need for fertilizers and pesticides.

It could well be Harare’s greatest hidden gem—A Great Zimbabwe miniature of historical importance. It should be attracting thousands of visitors that include tourists, locals, archaeologists and school children on trips.

It should be a tourists magnet generating millions of dollars in revenue per year. But this magnificent place lies hidden and buried despite close proximity to Harare. A place of historical significance as it shows ancient civilization. Before touring Great Zimbabwe monuments from the capital—the first place should be Chisvingo Ruins.

Of course not really located exactly in Harare but from the capital, its a distance of 87km in an area called Masembura a Bindura South District. The desolate place could be spruced up—with lodges, theme parks and other tourism infrastructure built around it.

However the million dollar question is why has this place remained neglected and hidden? Perhaps there is a cultural spin to it? If not then relevant authorities have home work to visit the site and develop a master plan to turn it into a key tourism site. There are a lot of opportunities to be unlocked from it.

Zimbabwe is home to one of the world’s largest informal economies, where about three-quarters of all employment is informal (World Bank). And the size of Zimbabwe’s informal economy is estimated to be 64.1%. Despite the enormous size of the sector, financial inclusion remains a drop in the ocean due to a plethora of reasons. The main one being lack of trust in all matters formal, and others including lack of engagement and literacy from key stakeholders.

Despite high risk exposures, the sector is under insured and the good news is our forum partnered with Champions Insurance to launch a special package for small businesses. The launch took place on the 16th of March 2024 at a colourful event at Mcintosh Gardens, Hatfield Harare.

Our members turned out in huge numbers and warmly embraced Champions Insurance with a lot of engagement and of course the bonus of signing up to insurance packages. This confirmed that indeed a market exists for insurance products on the informal sector! What is only needed are strategies of penetrating into the sector especially through well networked business forums.

Small business owners rarely have time to leave their busy operations and find time for business meetings or events. Its extremely difficult to lure them away from their businesses as most often calculate the opportunity cost. However with Champions Insurance, close to 100 members attended and endorsed their affordable insurance packages.

There is still more work to be done for our members to appreciate the risk management peace of mind that come from insurance. From a strong forum of 110,000 Active Membership, we believe with time, more of our members will sign up. In addition, Champions Insurance also shared opportunities for those interested in being agents.

We would like to thank Champions Insurance and forum members for the support during the launch and the continued interest in signing up. For members interested in insuring their businesses-the forum contact is Sheena on +263 777 909 139

Our forum is anchored on strong business relations and to this end, we have invested heavily in networking of members over the past 9 years. We have various chapter meetings across the country such as in Mutare and Bulawayo—we also extend to South Africa with strong networks in Johannesburg and Western Cape.

Sports Days, Market Days, Admin Visits, Forum Tours, End of Year Parties and other events. On tours, we have conducted several tours to Mozambique (Tete x3) and Beira. We have also conducted various trainings across SADC in countries and created Whatsapp Groups of our trainees.

Now at 180,000 members on Facebook and 20,000 on Whatsapp—we recently reached a huge milestone of 100,000 Active Members on Facebook thereby making us the largest Business Forum in Zimbabwe. A significant number of the 100k members do know each other through networking and business transactions. Interactions amongst members do happen 24/7 as our forum is open for business.

Our main competitive advantages have therefore become;

Product Launches: We managed to successfully  launch 2 products across SADC in 2017 and 2018. Rugmaking(Tapestry) went viral as it blew up in Botswana, Eswatini, Malawi, Lesotho, and South Africa. It attracted thousands of trainees and resulted in us being honoured by the Zulu Kingdom.

In 2018 we made a follow up with a training on Sinamay Hat Training and the results were almost similar in uptake with an additional country of Namibia added to our list of coverage.

Therefore for corporates interested in launching new products across the region—we have the regional channel for engagement. From Durban to Mzuzu, Gaborone to Windhoek, Lilongwe to Cape Town.

Local Distribution Channel: Our well networked members have been pushing their products using the forum network with one of the trending product being Rabbit Bites from J&J Rabbits. From Bulawayo, more than 2000 rabbit bites are pushed throughout the country including to markets as far as Mutare and Kariba.

Therefore do you have launch headaches? If yes, then you may need to get in touch with us.

Have you done your 2024 Strategic Planning yet? Chances are very high that you did—now it’s time for you to review what you planned versus the latest results from the Households Welfare Monitoring Survey for Zimbabwe.

The latest Round 10 survey shows access to basic food necessities shocks due to various factors, chief of which is inflation and affordability. It also shows the currency use by households and the main sources of income at household level.

The economy is now almost full dollarized and this will bring in new opportunities and risks. Neighbouring countries likely to be lured by the greenback and flood our streets with their products. Enterprising Zimbabweans to also venture more into import opportunities. Will there be currency reforms to reverse the dollarization? There are already plans in place if we are to go by recent currency reforms. However once a country crosses the Rubicon of Dollarization—almost impossible to reverse.

Anyway some o f the highlights include the following;

The main source of income for households are 1.Farming, followed by 2.Salaries and 3. Non farming Enterprises. In your business plan—you should have captured the above 3 income line items. For instance if you have a vehicle servicing business—are you capturing farmers in targeted marketing? If you are an NGO—do you have farming as one of your programs?

Farming and Non Farming Enterprises account for 42% of income for households in Zimbabwe which is twice the income coming from salaries. This shows the rise in impact of the small businesses in the country.

Formal and informal diaspora remittances account for 8% of households income. Therefore for every dollar circulating in the economy, at least 10 cents is officially from outside the country. A very important benchmark for business planning as some of the decision makers at household level are based outside the country. Are you targeting the diaspora in your marketing campaigns?

The country doesn’t have unemployment benefits—which is worrisome as NGOs are contributing a paltry 2% to household income and 5% is coming from the government. However the gap is being filled by family members assistance which is at 13%0. There is a gap for insurance companies and banks to create pensions and small businesses.

Not much coming from property income and therefore projections from the wealth taxes not expected to significantly contribute to the fiscus.

Perhaps time to tweak your focused outputs in 2024 and worryingly, the nation continues to experience inflation shocks despite significant dollarization moves.