Diaspora Matters

Our forum is well known for innovations and this year we brought you the submarine locator innovation after the unfortunate disappearance of the Titan Submarine. The ‘invention’ attracted a lot of interest across the globe and it’s our hope it will contribute to the field of science and researches. https://zbinworld.com/zimbabwean-invention-submarine-chute/

Our biggest innovation to date however has to be Tapestry (Rugmaking) which saw us going viral across SADC in 2017 and getting an honour from the Zulu King in KwaZulu Natal. On agriculture we helped to introduce and promote hybrid Paw Paws or Papaya.

In 2022 we championed cruise ship jobs access by Zimbabweans with more than 5000 benefiting.And this includes a chartered plane ferrying successful candidates from Harare to Hawaii free of charge. So what is in store in 2024? We have started a new initiative of Madagascan Lima Beans.

The author bumped into what seemed like wild beans in his back yard and weeded out a lot of them but 2 survived and managed to grow at an exponential pace with the first plant producing more than 4000 bean seeds. I had serious reservations whether the beans were edible given the fast and furious growth rate and took to social media to inquire about the weird beans.

Zbinite Pepukai Chato carried out a research and finally got to the bottom of it—Its’ Madagascan Lima Beans!

And this is what he has to say;

That is actually a be-speckled lima bean from Madagascar. It grows for 7years.One plant can feed a whole family. I researched it because to me it was out of this world.

I later on had the beans cooked and really regretted why I had not paid serious attention to the tasty beans. Very fast to cook and therefore takes less energy. Zimbabwe needs more of Madagascan beans for food security as we face drought. The biggest advantage is that it does not need constant watering and can technically grow in the wild.

Official Definition: A vigorous climbing bean that has attractive white and purple speckled seeds if left to dry out on the vine, otherwise they can be eaten raw while still white.

On Australian websites such as www.boondieseeds.com.au/and https://www.localseeds.com.au/they are sold for US$1 for an average of 6-8 bean seeds.

According to forum discussions, a few people have the beans although grown mostly as a backyard plant. It has little maintenance costs as it grows like a wild plant with added benefits of continuous growth and harvesting up to 3-7 years.

So 30 Subscribed Zbinites will take part in trials this coming season with a target of producing 50,000 seeds by April 2024. Full commercial scale farming expected to commence in the second half of 2024.

So expect a lot of noise around Madagascan Lima Beans in Harare towards end of next year going into the 2025 Agricultural Season.

The youngest population across the globe is found in Africa and in Zimbabwe youths constitute more than 65% of the population. On our forum, youths are more than 75% and the forum essentially implying that ZBIN is a youths forum.

Despite being in the majority, youths have few viable business forums they lead and champion their causes. They face a plethora of challenges such as Access to Capital, Access to Markets, Access to workspaces and a supportive environment. How many business forums from youths are you aware of? So to assist youths empowerment, on the 25^th of November at Rokpa Centre, an interim committee was elected to lead Young Zbinites.

It is led by James Mupudzi and seeks to help youths to solve the challenges they face in business. Currently the Young Zbinites Forum has 667 members but expected to increase to 5000 members by the end of 2024. The first project the youths will work on is acquisition of a small piece of land in the peri-urban areas of Harare.

The place will then be used for small businesses events. ZBIN which holds tens of events such as Business Showers, Mumpreneurs Market Fairs, Chapter Meetings and End of Year parties—will be the first client of the Young Zbinites. This way we help in the growth of the initiative before they scale up.

The good news about the Young Zbinites is that they will leverage on the existing solid digital infrastructure ZBIN has built over the past 9 years. Therefore congratulations to the young ones in business and we are looking forward to your success in 2024 and beyond.

Generally Zimbabweans avoid boarding empty public transport especially unbranded buses, kombis or the mshikashikas. They just hang outside waiting for alternate transport or for the bus to fill up and be the last to join. Perhaps herd mentality of safety in numbers?

You have obviously witnessed this, or possibly experienced it. Getting into an empty bus comes with many risks of time wasted as it could take quite some time to fill up. When you take your time waiting outside—you have many options.

To rig the system-touts introduced an insidious Bus Full Strategy whereby touts hoodwink passengers that the bus is almost full and therefore triggering a rush. Once you get into the bus and comfortably take a seat, you will have one shock waiting for you as the touts will disembark leaving you alone or with a few other passengers cheated the same way.

A very frustrating experience especially those travelling long distance especially Harare-Bulawayo, Harare to Mutare or Harare to Beitbridge. You board the bus thinking its leaving, only for it to make a u-turn a few hundred meters and start picking passengers for the umpteenth time using the same strategy. Even in musical concerts, most fans are now preferring hanging outside venues till main artists come onto the stage.

Dear Zbinites, the same strategy used by touts is used across the board. The take- over of Twitter by Elon Musk was involved in a prolonged negotiations process  for a revised takeover price due to a record number of ghost accounts. Every Social Media site has had to secretly use ghost accounts to boost numbers which acts as a bait for unsuspecting new members.

What are the factors you use to view a musical video on Youtube? Are others following the video? How many views? Is it trending? The lesser the views, the more likely for it to remain so. Helps explain why fake views are now a big industry with artists parting with huge sums in-order to boost views.

Before joining a Whatsapp Forum, many first check out the numbers—the more the numbers the better. The same strategy is also used by Ponzi Schemers with the last one being E-Creator.

Of course this brings a lot of questions on ethics—where do you draw the line? To what extend can one use purchased views or ghost accounts? No wonder why this topic is best handled away from the finance professionals. But for start-ups—when considering launching a new product or service, you could use the Empty Kombi Strategy to overcome resistance. Zimbabweans view all new products with suspicion—they need numbers to build and boost confidence!

Balancing budgets post the Covid-19 pandemic has been a delicate and complex matter for many countries around the globe and Zimbabwe has not been spared. Many countries have been exposed to climate change shocks, the Ukraine/Russia War and the volatile global mineral prices.

Looking at the 2023 National Budget, a number of new taxes have been proposed to augment the budget and have drawn sharp criticism from analysts on social media. The proposed wealth tax on residential properties above $100k that now attract 1% in taxes has been a hot topic.

For balance—wealth distribution not bad especially in a country with a widening gap between the rich and poor. Therefore on paper, a welcome move—the wealthy should pay their share in national development. However this will automatically increase the cost of doing business and impacting on the nation’s competitive advantage on the investment front.

Increased rentals and a determining factor on those choosing whether to invest in real estate in Zimbabwe versus other countries in the region. We could witness capital flight on the real estate sector. We hope a thorough cost benefit analysis survey has been conducted.

Increasing tollgate fees helps in revenue collection but increments of 100% and above do send wrong signals on inflation—we are fast depreciating the greenback and the economy will follow suit and increasing the cost of doing business. Perhaps staggered increases? But then this depends on the urgency of plugging the budget deficit.

Our main concern is how have we performed over the past 11 months? A simple budget versus actual performance so as to get a clearer picture for analysis and planning purposes.

Anyway it is what it is, and comply Zimbabweans have to do with local laws and regulations.

We have a few areas we think should be considered in future as alternatives for raising revenue.

Peri-urban Land: There is need to regularize state land around urban areas so that the government is involved in the sale of the land and provision of amenities. A lot of state land is being illegally sold in what has become known as Sabhuku Deals. Millions of dollars exchanging hands between Sabhukus, land barons and buyers. Nothing gets into the coffers of government in areas such as Seke, Goromonzi and Domboshava. There is need for a comprehensive survey on the value of the land sold, and still to be sold.

Melfort Smart City: We have previously covered the boundless opportunities that exist in Melfot especially when it’s converted as a smart city. Our proposal was to invite land developers who can service up to 10,000 residential stands and then sell them to decongest Harare. Most diasporans are in need of land and would have been the first to pay cash up-front. Follow the model around the country and service up to 100,000 residential and commercial stands. A good cash cow where the government simply avails land and coordinate organised development.

Of course our 2 main proposals are land based but we also add strong engagement with the diaspora who are expected to remit a total of $2.4 billion by the end of 2024. What have we done to engage and attract investment? What incentives have we crafted for them to consider home investment?

The major objectives of the Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network forum are 1) Access to Opportunities Information, 2) Access to Markets, 3) Access to Capital and 4) Promotion of Networking. We have done exceedingly well on the rest of the objectives except Access to Capital.

Access To Capital is a universal problem for start-ups but we have introduced innovations such as Crowdfunding which has had limited impact but remains a viable option. But our best innovation has to be championing the access to capital through working on cruise ships.

Before the Covid-19 period—Access to Cruise ships was restricted to a tiny few but floodgates opened in late 2021 when the cruise ships industry started revving the engines once more with cruise liners back on the high seas.

The cruise ships had been the hotbed of Covid-19 infections with some employees unfortunately passing on and others moving on to other jobs. Recruitment policies were therefore relaxed allowing mass recruitment across the globe. This presented Zimbabweans with a rare opportunity to apply and get recruited.

Our forum was fortunate to have a member (Sherz) who had 9 years working experience on cruise ships. We sat down and brainstormed on how to get forum members on cruise ships by streamlining the process from developing legit links, design of relevant resumes and interview coaching.

And the result? More than 1000 have directly benefited from the advice shared and our estimate is a total of 5000 Zimbabweans managed to land cruise ships jobs. Most of them recruited for lower level positions such as Housekeeping, Galley Attendants, Youth Camp Staff, Assistant Photographers, Waitresses, Bar Attendants and others. Some got high level positions such as engineers, casino dealers, HR Managers, Pursers, ICT Managers, Entertainment Managers and others.

Recruitment was done online with some through job fairs conducted in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. Top destinations being Carnival Cruise, Princess Cruise, Msc Cruis, Royal Carribean and others. Salary ranges from $800 per month to +$5000in addition to benefits such as tips for selected professions and cruiseliners.

The estimated benefit to Zimbabwe being 5000 estimated employees x an average salary of $16,000 per annum or $80m per year minus living expenses. The biggest advantage of working on cruise liners is that most of the basic needs are provided such as food and accommodation—and no transport costs. Therefore one can save more than 90% of salaries earned and bring it home.

These Zbinites got a once in a life time opportunity to fly for free on a chartered plane from RGM Airport to Hawaii for visas en route to Carnival Cruise ships in July 2022.

Those migrating to other nations such as care workers to UK cannot afford to save above 30% of their income as most of their incomes eaten by living expenses.

Dear Reader, This is how we managed to partially solve access to capital for our members. Of course these workers have other pressing needs to sort back home, but the belief is after supporting relatives and building own homes—businesses will be the top priority!

Of course it’s not all smooth sailing on cruiseships as one has to adjust mentally, emotionally and physically to an environment of hard work through long hours.

The Future of Cruiseship Jobs: In 2021 and 2022, cruise ships were desperate for employees with potential candidates wary of human trafficking or recruitment scams. However when the word quickly spread that indeed the jobs were bonafide—most of the low level jobs were filled. Jobs still exist but one has to be fast in applications, and also know the correct procedures of applications.

For first timers—Be wary of scams, and no funds required upfront by agencies. You do the whole process by yourself—from applications, interviews, medical clearances and visa applications.

The small businesses sector dominates the economy in Zimbabwe and therefore its natural that the biggest forums in the country will come from this sector. However is it easy to form a well networked forum in Zimbabwe?

This is complex science as networking total strangers in business takes ages. It is easy to form a Facebook Page and Whatsapp too and these pages can fill up within a few months to years. However most of those who join have a focus on selling—any other business is not material.

Therefore finding a small business forum that attracts at least 50 members on a regular basis is almost impossible. For a start, most small business owners are busy and weigh the costs of attendance of a meeting especially where no monetary incentives such as perdiems are offered.

To hustle and earn an extra dollar or the opportunity cost of attending a business seminar or event?

With more than 70% of the economy dominated by small businesses or informal sector or 10 million people. Zimbabwe should have at least 10 strong small businesses forums with membership of above 200,000 each. Strong well funded forums with presence in all the 10 provinces.

It should not be difficult to pick random members from the street and ask them to name at least 3 forums. But this is not the case due to a plethora of reasons.

The good news is that The Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network has been trying its best to network members over the past decade. We have made considerable progress in this area through leveraging on digital platforms where we now have an active 90,000 members on Facebook and 20,000 members on Whatsapp.

In 2023 we made great progress with meetings in new areas such as Mutare, Bulawayo and Cape Town. Although we recommend self sustenance of chapters—however members still expect the Harare Office to come and give support. As soon as we leave, no meaningful meetings or events take place.

Looking at the 2023 ZBIN Events, we believe the great work and support from members make us the biggest forum in the land although there is still great improvement required in many areas. Our members need access to capital as a top priority.

Our Mumpreneurs Forum launch in April attended by 150 members and showing the power of women in networking.

Women entrepreneurs support has been phenomenal.

Our third Mumpreneurs Markets on 25 November 2023.

Our first chapter meeting in Cape Town held in August 2023 and attended by 20 members.

Our biggest ever Bulawayo meeting held in June 2023

Introducing new initiatives always a challenge but the Sports Day was a success.

Again women entrepreneurs helped to contribute to the success of the Sports Day.

We conducted 3 Sports Days in 2023 with the first one in March, second one in June and third one in October.

Our ZBIN SA Chapter has been holding regular forum events for the past 5 years.

Its early morning in Harare, and a truck delivering bread makes a screeching halt at Tindo Tuckshop in Mabvuku and the driver goes to the back of the truck, takes 4 crates of bread and hands them to the Tindo Tuckshop owner. The driver quickly signs a delivery note for Tindo and is back on the driving seat heading to the next tuckshop.

In exactly 2 hours or less, the delivery truck returns and collects cash for the bread sold. Now this would qualify as one of the shortest credit facilities in the world! The shortest term credit was popularized by bread companies and currently Bakers Inn is the leading brand.

Tuckshop owners do not have upfront cash flows for ordering most products, but most of them are capable of consistently moving volumes—and this is where credit providers came in to plug the hole.

It started with bread but now more products are being pushed this way and they include mealie meal, sweets and candy, snacks and others. Some deliver the products and collect their cash in the shortest period of time ranging from a few days to a week.

You have possibly witnessed a lot of vendors at traffic lights especially in Harare who will be selling various goods from brooms, sweets, snacks and biscuits. Where do they get the products? Do they pay for them? An underground distribution channel now exists with registered vendors accessing products—sell and cash the proceeds to the supplier.

On the ground opposite Rainbow Towers in Harare—a motorbike truck delivers ice-blocks to vendor cart owners. Sometimes the delivery bike comes earlier than the vendors and then just leave the ice under trees and collect funds later.

Thinking of launching new products in Zimbabwe? You may need to analyse how this credit model is being used for inspiration. Interestingly we once employed this model when we launched a Crowdfunding Company that delivered mealie meal to high density suburbs in Harare.

The trick is not to leave your cash in the hands of tuckshop owners for too long as the propensity to spend it is very high thereby increasing the risks of default.

In 2017 our adverts on Tapestry or Rugmaking accidentally went viral across SADC attracting millions of followers across the region. We definitely made digital history as the ads which we shared on Facebook were eventually shared across Whatsapp Platforms in South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana and Malawi.

An atomic explosion that earned us an award from the Zulu Kingdom for the impact of our work across South Africa and KwaZulu Natal Province in particular. What was just an experimental advert turned out to be a complete opposite as thousands responded and we could not manage the avalanche. The power of digital marketing—nobody knows what can happen to content posted!

Is it possible to do a repeat? Yes we did in 2018 with a follow on project of Hatmaking although we could not reach the benchmark we had set in 2017.

We got a firsthand insight of the link between Facebook and Whatsapp—the 2 a formidable power in triggering viral content. Whatever is covered on Facebook and if good enough, eventually goes to Whatsapp where sharing is convenient. In the past there were no restrictions on sharing on Whatsapp but restrictions—one can no longer share forwarded  messages to many groups at once—only one group allowed at a time if it’s a forwarded message.

The Share Button is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools and need more analysis. Are you developing content that is easily shared? How many times has your content been shared? Shared across all social media platforms. Do you do content share audits?

We used to have Mambos Chickens dominating social media with their content finding loyal followers. We don’t know what happened—perhaps change in management?

Others are engaging SHARING Teams—the teams share content on their behalf helping to create or trigger viral content. We will research more on this and share with the forum.

The last box for ticking in digital marketing is the SHARE BUTTON—can the content be shared? Not shared by the creator but by independent followers. Is the value in the content or graphics good enough?

For ages local tourism has been concentrated in a few areas such that when one visits them all, there is no more appetite to keep returning. Some have been to Victoria Falls right from school trips, work assignments or workshops-and even on personal tours. The same applies to Great Zimbabwe, Hwange National Park, Nyanga, Gonarezhou and a few others. The marginal utility is bound to kick in as value of consumption goes down due to familiarity,

We would like to congratulate the Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Industries, Hon Barbra Rwodzi and we come with one appeal. Kindly visit the scenic Binga Beach along the Zambezi River and help promote the area by bringing investors who can spruce up the place and make it a preferred destination of choice for locals interested in our biggest local beach.

Instead of flying out to Durban or Capetown, locals could fly or drive to Binga and enjoy the little known side of Zimbabwe. The beach need ministerial endorsement and inviting locals interested in developing the place such as setting up hillside lodges, swimming pools, ablution facilities and food courts. In addition locals can benefit by selling curios to visiting tourists. In short economic development in Binga can be enhanced through investment on the Binga Beach.

Internal tourism can help keep greenbacks locally especially during holidays. Therefore Honourable Minister, our plea to you is to make Binga Beach one of your key areas by first visiting it and then develop a plan for promoting it.

Raising rabbits is not much of a problem, the process is fairly simple and many people can do it. However the biggest challenge happens to be access to markets. Despite great taste and health benefits, many shy away from rabbit meat. However, over the years more restaurants have been adding rabbit meat on the menus and the Chinese Community in the country has been one of the key drivers of demand.

Our forum has an active Rabbits Whatsapp Group where members share resources on raising rabbits. And one of our star members is Bulawayo based Trymore T Cee Nzou. Instead of complaining about markets access, he innovated and introduced Rabbits Biltong which he branded as Rabbit Bites and the response has been encouraging.

He leveraged on the 100k Active forum members and partnered with distributors such as Gwenn Chimuti and Audline Matsika in Harare who stock and push Rabbit Bites to Hararians. Massive demand for Rabbit Bites from Zbinites as the tasty rabbits gain traction.

The last time he travelled from Bulawayo to Harare for a ZBIN Sports Day, he boarded a night bus and then sold samples to fellow passengers and the response was overwhelming proving that a market does exist. Zbinite Tinashe Makuvise bought 20 Rabbit Bite packets and took them to hotels in Kariba and the response was the same-great uptake and positive reviews. Pause for a moment and calculate the distance between Bulawayo to Kariba via Harare!

The Bulawayo based youngster will soon be running out of space as demand surges. There have been inquiries from as far as UK from fellow Zbinites interested in pushing the bites.

The Power of Innovation!

There are more opportunities to be unlocked when youngsters add value and then collaborate in market development. Only the sky is the limit for those who combine thinking in other terms and hard work. Just like we helped push hybrid paw paws and cruise ship jobs-our next success story is on Rabbit Bites from Bulawayo based J&J Rabbits.

To those interested in Rabbit Bites, do contact Trymore on +263 777 988 092 or his Harare based distribution agents-Gwenn Chimuti on +263 719 224 766 and Audlin Matsika on +263 779 210332