Diaspora Matters

Zimbabwe has a lot of entrepreneurs with a lot of brilliant running projects that however faces capital challenges. The good news is that with the country being open for business, a lot of people are showing interest in investment and this includes locals, the diaspora and foreign investors. Some are interested in investing in viable business ventures and will only do so if the ventures are visible.

Inorder to help entrepreneurs, we are creating a database that registers and showcases local viable opportunities that need investors. This is a free service and those registered will feature on our Crowdfunding Page which will be accessible to more than 8000 unique or regular visitors to this website. They will also be accessible to our more than  40.000 Facebook platform members and 8.000 Whataspp members.

So how does crowdfunding work?

Crowdfunding is a method of raising capital through the collective effort of friends, family, customers, and individual investors. This approach taps into the collective efforts of a large pool of individuals—primarily online via social media and crowdfunding platforms—and leverages their networks for greater reach and exposure.

Inorder to attract investors, you need to fill out details on the form below which we will capture and place on our database.

In early 2012,  like all the other graduates, I found myself unemployed. I had finished writing my last exam in November 2011 and  remember this exam explicitly, it was a communications exam. I then, like all the other graduates who come to the big city to study, went home for the December holidays. I only started hyperventilating about my no work status in January when I had to make my way back to the big city to look for employment.

By Oluchi B Carter

I would like to paint the sad story about my poor parents having to use money they didn’t have to get me to Johannesburg and having to financially support me until I could find employment; and having to use all my money and time in internet cafes and subsequently remaining unemployed for four months.  I cannot put in words the amount of frustration and depression I endured during that time period. However, this is not the article for that. The article aims to give direction on how to avoid that and be pro-active in looking for an organisation before you even graduate so that you can avoid being part of South Africa’s unemployed graduate statistic which is getting bigger every year.

I thought I would work for Draft FCB after my graduation, little did I know that things would turn out so differently. First, as an undergraduate, you need to identify industry players in the field you are aspiring to work in. Identify at least 10 players and follow them on all social platforms including but not limited to company website, Facebook, twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for budding careerists; please use it as frequent as possible. Do check employees and senior management profiles on Linked in, specifically their qualifications as well as previous employment. This helps you get the gist of the organisational structure and its culture. It may seem like a lot, but as a tertiary student, one of the few things you have in abundance is the internet.

Take risks, find a manager in the department you want to work it and send them an email asking if you can job shadow for at least a week at no cost to the company. This will look good in your resume. The aim of job shadowing is so that you can be familiar with the work environment in the filed you aspire to work in. You might not get a response, you might get a no or you might get a yes.  Life is about taking changes. I was fortunate enough to job shadow for a week at an electrical engineering company in high school. In that experience I learned that I actually do not want to be an electrical engineer. And nor do I want anything to do with the sciences.

The aim is so that you get a job, and get a job that you want. Websites like Gradza etc. are doing a great job in directing graduates to companies that offer internships and learner ships. The limitation is that they only offer direction, like any other regular job hunting site. I was not one to be buddy buddy with lectures but I have learned that some form of relationship with a lecture helps in steering one in the right direction. Pick their brains on best companies to work for, what to expect once you start working, do they have any contacts in the industry and so on.

Last but not least, your CV speaks volumes. Please use a professional template. Also, make sure that your cover letter is at least two paragraphs long, get to the point as well as add a recent professional picture of yourself.

The sooner you start your job search, the higher your chances of finding employment. Start while you are still a student. If you are fortunate to know certain individuals that work in a similar field, ask them for guidance. The more visible you are, the higher your chances of being employed. Again, take risks.

Article republished with full permission from Oluchi B Carter from his page: https://blackchronicles101.wordpress.com/2018/05/01/the-unemployed-graduate/

Are you a car mechanic? Do you want to have more clients than you currently have? Then here is excellent news for you this year, do register with us for free. We have already added 500 mechanics to our database and would like to add an additional 500 to the list.

Our database will be available to the country free of charge so that anyone interested in your services can easily get in touch you. Registration is free. Send us your details and location and wait for the next client through our platforms. Our whatsapp contact number is +263774081808.

The Zimbabwe digital marketing landscape is made up of 1 million locals on Facebook, over 5 million with access to internet and an estimated 4 million connected to Whatsapp. The figures do not include diasporans where an estimated 3 million are based. Many companies are not aware of the huge numbers that exist on the platform and this is an advantage to those that grab a market share before saturation.

So who has been doing well on digital platforms?

1. Nash Paints
2. Marrilier Properties
3. Kubatana.net
4. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Page
5. Seedco

The battle is between Nash Paints and Marrilier Properties and whoever is helping in designing their digital marketing campaigns need a half year bonus! Students of digital marketing need to analyse the above top 5 champions and get hints on what works on the Zimbabwean digital landscape.

Raising money to buy residential properties in Zimbabwe is not easy. Some take several years saving money, some get bank loans or mortgages and some use pension savings. Losing all of this investment to scammers can be heartbreaking! So make sure you do everything right from the start.

So how can you lose money in Harare when buying residential stands?

1. Buy residential stands from individuals
2. Buy Infill residential stands
3. Buy from unverified real estate agents
4. Buy from people who are not resident in the area where the stand is
5. Buy residential stands which are still under development
6. Residential property sold for cash

If you are buying a residential stand and you manage to tick 3 or so of the above factors then you sure are on your way to losing your money.

Individuals: Buying from individuals always pose a risk. They may not have a reputation to protect and can disappear without trace! A reputable institution such as Old Mutual, First Mutual, Way Mark or FBC cannot afford to drag their reputation onto the mud buy being involved in dubious land deals. There are no reported cases of anyone who has taken large institutions to the court over dubious land sales.

Infill Stands? Our estimate is over $3m has been lost in fake infill stands sales. Any sale of land in established residential areas like Mabelreign, Marlborough, Sentosa, Warren Park, Kambuzuma, Hillside should immediately raise an alarm. The word ‘infill stand’ goes hand in glove with the word ‘scammers’. A lot of undeveloped residential stands are being sold to unsuspecting members of the public. You will be shown everything…title deeds and in some cases you can even verify with authorities and finding everything in place.

Non Residents: If a person selling a residential stand does not stay in the same city as you then raise a red flag! If you are being asked to go and complete the deal in say Bulawayo or Beitbridge then raise the alarm bell. The modus operandi used by scammers is to sell stands in areas they do not stay. After selling dubious residential stands the next thing in their mind is to flee from the crime scene.

Cash Sale: If it is a cash sale then the risk level rises to 99%. A residential stand in area still to be developed poses many risks as well.

So before buying a residential stand make sure you acquaint yourself with how a lot of people lose money to fraudsters. Check the latest trends fraudsters are using and take your time in verifying the authenticity of the real estate agent you are dealing with. Verification with the Title Deeds Office does not guarantee you anything, a lot have viewed their title deeds only to go back and find them missing. Using a lawyer does not guarantee safety as some lawyers have also been duped by highly organised fraudsters.

We covered more risk on Harare Scammers in our Book ‘Business Opportunities for Zimbabweans’ visit our online shop and grab a copy.

When considering investment in Zimbabwe make sure that you do not forget rural district councils. There are a lot of opportunities that range from tourism, agro processing and mining. When looking at Harare, you may need to consider inquiring about opportunities from Zvimba Rural District Council which has residential stands in the low density area of Sandton which is adjacent to Westgate. Goromonzi Rural District also has a number of interesting commercial stands near the capital city.

The only challenge with rural district councils is accessibility with a good number of them with no presence on digital platforms. The Zimbabwe Business Ideas is therefore assisting our members by featuring contact details of selected rural district councils. We feature four of them below:

Hurungwe Rural District Council

Mobile Phone :0712347918

Email Address:hurungwerdc@gmail.com

Chimanimani Rural District Council

Mobile Phone:0773222016/0735214094

Email: chimanimanirdc@gmail.com

Chivi Rural District Council

Phone:0337 691/286/787/792

Email:chivirdc@gmail.com

Website: chivirdc.net

Kusile Rural District Council

Mobile :0774007829/0717743221

Email: kusileruraldistrictcouncil@gmail.com

Are you completing college this year? If yes then congratulations in advance from the Zim Business Ideas and Network. In this post we look at possible entrepreneurship opportunities which you can pursue.

Job Prospects
Beef up your resume with voluntary work experience working for organisations in your community..small businesses, preschools, churches etc. When you finish college, your greatest disadvantage is that you do not have work experience. So beef this up with a lot of voluntary work which you can do on a part-time basis. You can even talk to your pastor and come up with a small income generating project that gives you and other youngsters practical work experience.

Spruce up your curriculum vitae,writing old fashioned curriculum vitaes  where you have four pages of your academic transcript is medieval! Talk to your guardian and approach Human Resources Practitioners in your area and get skills on writing winning cvs and interview techniques. Cv writing is forever changing and the best way for fresh graduates is to get professional help. Less than 1% of college graduates do this, so gain a competitive advantage by working with professionals. 

A recruiting manager usually has less than 5 seconds to make a decision whether to shortlist your cv or not. The cv above 2/10 and the one below 4/10. Know how to get 6/10 and you are on your way to improving your chances of landing an interview.

Know all the sources of job postings and join. In Zimbabwe The Kubatana.net online newsletter has a number of intern jobs coming out on a weekly basis.

Entrepreneurship Route
It is best to keep in your field of study for the first few years after college. We recommend this because you need to beef up your cv with relevant experience. If you studied Marketing then doing Digital Marketing …helping SMEs, Churches or NGOs with Digital Marketing work means you can put work done on your cv. With the Digital Marketing field expanding, you may not even need to look for work again!

If you study accounting and you get no job, then consider registration of companies (very easy), developing business plans, setting up online stores, developing websites, helping the SME sector with bookkeeping or accounting services. You beef up your cv and also earn extra income.Set up your own registered accounting services company and slowly develop it. Imagine applying for a job with your peers and during the interview.

If you studied Human Resources Management, set up your own HR Consultancy firm. Business is not going to come easily but if you master digital marketing then only the sky is the limit. Think of small companies in need of HR services?

If you studied law but got no job, think of areas that are expanding…business! We have few legal minds entering the corporate law field.Enrol for ACCA, consider CISA, Fraud Examination courses. If you can learn app development then you will get ahead of everyone especially with online legal services being the next big thing. Closely look at areas you did not study enough at college…look at the needs of society and fill the gap. Digital Marketing is not part of the law degree and a good number of legal firms would be needing these services in the not too distant future.

Extra Skills for Graduates

1. Website development: You can learn on your own by researching on Youtube. I developed Zimbabwe’s best followed small business website in 6 hours! No prior knowledge of website development and noone to direct me how it is done. Look at the number of companies or NGOs with no websites or those with no up to date information on their websites. If you cannot learn on your own then enrol for a formal course. Certification is a big plus on your resume!

2. Graphic Design: It is closely related to Digital Marketing, learn how to do graphic designs and charge a minimum of $20 for small company logos

3. Online Store Setups: E-commerce is the next big thing in town, help clients to set up and earn between $300-$500 per client. Also set up online shops for many products and services

4. Dial a Service: Did you read our article on ‘convenience and competitive advantage?’ Dial a Service is gaining momentum especially in the leafy suburbs. Dial a beer, dial a meal…we comprehensively covered this area in our book on opportunities for Zimbabweans.

Last but not least, Learn Arts and Crafts with the regional market in mind. Huge potential in regional cities such as Durban and Cape Town for art and crafts. You can also try  Tapestry which our organisation launched regionally with huge success. Tapestry or shaggy rug making is providing extra incomes for those making carpets or teaching others. You can also make money through the selling of carpet making material such as tapestry mats or knitting yarn. Great demand in South Africa where many of our trainees have made a lot especially in Cape Town, Limpopo, KZN and Gauteng.

So build up experience in your relevant field and do other side hustles such as vending, baking cakes, bead making, mabhero, car selling. Do not lose money on Online Forex Trading, Bitcoins or other ponzi schemes.

Taken and edited from the book ‘Business Opportunities for South Africans’.

An entrepreneur should know all the sources of income in your country, province and district. How do people in your area get money? Where does it flow from? You also need to be knowledgeable of spending patterns and habits. What are the top areas the government is prioritizing in terms of expenditure? What are the top priorities of NGOs or NPOs in your area? What are companies prioritizing in your area. This is a simply study which helps you to effectively plan and strategically place your business. You cannot be expanding or borrowing funds to invest in an area where the major source of income such as a mine is  planning to close down. At the same time if the government intends to open up new projects in your area, then green light for you to follow the money and be the first one to establish business before others.

We are compiling our second book and we believe this will be one of the best entrepreneurship book for South Africans. The book has a lot of interesting analysis and key insights and also provide a good number of opportunities and resources which will help entrepreneurs in Mzantsi.

One of the areas we have covered is ‘Opportunity Identification Skills for South Africans’ . An entrepreneur need to have more than 10 universal skills for identifying opportunities and one of the skills is ‘following the money‘ or following the spending habits of people in your area. You need to check how priorities are changing and what is causing the change. You reduce your risk of failure by investing in top priorities for most consumers. Information comes courtesy of Statistics South Africa and is for the last survey carried out in 2016.

When it comes to investment in Zimbabwe, rural district council opportunities are the most underrated! What make investment difficult with rural district councils is the absence of online presence. A lot of them have a lot of commercial and residential stands which are available but finding no buyers! Our rural district councils are not ‘Open for Business‘ despite having plenty of opportunities available. ZBIN is playing a small role to bring you a few opportunities and the hope is that in future someone will create a platform that helps to showcase investment opportunities that abound in our rural areas.

Below we feature investment opportunities from Mutasa Rural District Council which has the following:

Investment in sustainable tourism enterprises

Mining of precious stones

Investment in gravity fed irrigation schemes

Investment in wind and solar energy projects

Investment in agro-processing industries

investment in value addition and beneficiation initiatives

For inquiries contact the council on the following details:

Telephone : 0772 136925/0772136926

Email:info@mutasardc.org.zw

Did you know that you can actually make your own paint for sale to local hardware shops? Paint production is a profitable business venture you should consider as an option. You just need to look at the demand for real estate or the number of new buildings or homes coming up. So how does one start a paint making business? Read more about this business below from the information we found from Nigeria where Paint Making is BIG BUSINESS:

Paint product is in three major category: We have emulsion, Textcoat and Satin (Nylon paint).You can start your home-based paint production with as little as $600. The raw materials are readily available in the local market. You don’t need any expensive equipment to produce paint; you only need some buckets and your two hands to do the mixing.What is left for you to do is to penetrate and capture the market by producing good quality paints and marketing it very well.

Hence, for a small scale business, it might require you to have at least a half plot of land for the production environment after a successful registration of your business name and the approvals from Standard Boards. With a minimum number of five employees you can fairly begin the production.Though, with just two people paint production can be done based on the scale of production within a room space environment especially for a very small beginner.

In order to survive the choking dominance of the market leaders in the industry, new start-ups can map out their self-sustaining marketing strategy. While some could afford to distribute in the open markets to compete amongst others, some may solely depend on personal contacts and placing of orders before embarking on production.

Here are some of the essential chemicals that must be in place to achieve a desired high quality paint:
1. Water
2. Titherni (used only for the production of white paint)
3. Calcium carbonate (calcium)
4. Colourite
5. P.V.A
6. Formalin
7. Nitrosol
8. Ammonia
9. Hydrosol
10. Marble dust
11.Geniple
12.Bama cork
13. Buffa Solution

Steps to making Emulsion Paints
Emulsions are those ordinary paints that are not roughened with sand-like objects but plain. It could come out in different beautiful colours.

Step 1.
Mix Calcuim Carbonate in water for one bucket production (hence we shall be referring to bucket i.e. normal — 20 litres of paint as drum), pour water in the bucket up to half (10 litres of water) you can always increase the volume of water at any stage if necessary. Add less than half bag of Calcuim (add until the mixture rises to about 17 liters in the bucket) by now the drum will be quarter empty.
NOTE: if you are producing white paint, you will mix titherni in water before adding calcium. Few spoons of titherni are enough. Mix very well.

Step 2:
Add your colour. It is assumed that by now you must have diluted the colours as required with water if they are oxide. Now put colour in small rations and keep turning until you get your desired result. You can always add more if you like. Suppose you added more yellow for example, than you need, you can correct it by adding more calcium (but not after this stage) Bear in mind that the colour may be deeper when wet and lighter when the paint is dried.

Step 3
Add 1kg of P.V.A to the mixture. After turning, add half glass cup of nitrosol. Nitrosol is always in powdery form so you must dilute it in small water before adding it to your mixture.
Next in the process is to add about 10 centilitre of formalin and about same volume for ammonia and hydrosol sequentially. Turn very well at any addition of a new chemical.

When you have completed the above steps, make sure you turn the above mixture very well. As you are turning it you might be a little fidgeted that you have wasted your resources. You don’t need to be afraid. Just add acrytext to the mixture and turn. Add it in small quantity until you get the thickness you desire. However if you add excess you might spoil your mixture. When you finally arrived at the desired thickness, then, the adventure has come to an end and a product called Emulsion paint is produced and ready to be used.
Warning: Please the chemicals must be added in the order it`s stated above. If not, you may have problem; for example, if you put ammonia before Nitrosol, the paint will get blocked or coagulate. And if ammonia drops in Nitrosol, the Nitrosol will get blocked as well. More so, when formalin is poured into ammonia it will explode. The only time you can add ammonia before Nitrosol is when you are turning on machine speed. Just be careful.

Production of Textcoat
Step 1:
Pour about 10 liters of water into the bucket, add 1 bag of Calcuim (or less) then add your colours as it is supposed to be.
Step 2:
After turning the mixture above, you will need to add marble dust. You will notice that some textcoat paints have a kind of lining and some have only rough surface. And there are those that are called designer textcoat, such are the ones that are used with the aid of a special roller to design houses so that its end effect will be something like flowers or blocks made of paint in houses. It is called artwork in the painting industry. All these are textcoat but it is the mode of application of this chemical that brings out the artwork variation.
For rough textcoats, use only rough marble dust in your production. For lining textcoats, use a combination of rough and smooth marble dust in equal ratio. For artwork textcoats, use only smooth marble dust in production.
In adding the marble dust, you will notice that the volume of your mixture is increasing. Just add according to your own discretion because there is no specific measurement. If you are confused on the quantity to add, just keep adding until the drum is half empty. Use your initiative. Please do not use only smooth marble dust for production unless you are producing artwork that needs a designer roller.
Step 3: When you are through with turning of this mixture (turn very well), you will now add your P.V.A. and other chemicals like we said in emulsion. However, you will need to increase their volume a little. For example you will need full glass cup of Nitrosol and increase the volume of other chemicals a little. When you have finished adding all the other chemicals up to Hydrosol, you may need the gym in order to activate your muscle for turning the paint as you add Acrytext. On the addition of acrytext the paint will become strong.
Now to know if the Acrytext you added is enough, take a small portion of the paint and paste it on the wall. If the teething is not falling, congratulations but if it is falling, add more. The journey to this end could deliver to you a ready- to- be –used Textcoat paint.
Satin (nylon paint)
This is called nylon paint because it is washable (Water can be used to wash it off when it`s dirty). Use About 10litres of water. Add calcium in a small quantity to make the paint light. What I mean is that the thickness of the paint at this stage will be less than the thickness it has when we are producing emulsion.

Now add your favorite colour.
You do NOT use P.V.A.
Add 1kg of buffa solution and 1kg of Nitro sol (just enough to make the paint thicker and drawing)
Add ammonia and formalin as usual and finally add1kg of hydrosol. With this simple process, you are sure to have a satin paint occupying a market space.

Do not miss out our Business Opportunities for South Africans book which is coming out in two weeks time.