Diaspora Matters

In Malawi they have the tasty Kilombero which is in high demand but Malawians only taking advantage of less than 0.5 percent of the market. Wake up call to our cousins from the Warm Heart of Africa-do more to market your rice beyond the Malawian borders. Set up distribution centres across Southern Africa, deliver the rice in an efficient manner. Your potential is unlimited in Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho.

We focus on this article on Zimbabwe looking at top products where entrepreneurs are not doing enough in order to benefit.

The Mazoe Orange Drink: Unlimited demand for this natural flavoured drink. It is the best drink in Southern Afrsca and demand is high in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. Demand is from Zimbabweans who have migrated to other countries across the region as well as foreign nationals. The history of the drink in Malawi is rather interesting as the first migrants who emigrated to Zimbabwe working in mines often took the drink back home as a sign of success. It is like Zimbabweans or Malawians working in South Africa-coming back home with a Gauteng Province (GP) Number plated vehicle is viewed as a great sign of someone doing well in Mzantsi. This is how the Mighty Mazoe gained influence in Malawi in the 1960s and beyond and up to now it still commands a lot of respect and demand.

Arts and Crafts: Zimbabweans are masters of arts and crafts in Southern Africa. In South Africa, women introduced hand knitted clothing in the early nineties known as Doilies or Madhoiri. This is how Zimbabweans entered South Africa with stone sculptures following suit in the late nineties. Our organisation last year introduced tapestry which was well received across the region. We were simply building on a reputation build over the past 30 years. We added entrepreneurship training and took advantage of Digital Marketing inorder to create a wave that took the region by storm.

Opportunities exist especially in the tourism sector with our crafts selling well in Durban, Cape Town, Walvis Bay and Maputo. We however need to learn from our tapestry programme on marketing and reach out to more clients from the region and beyond.

The next big thing from Zimbabwe is Maputi(Roasted corn)! Already a lot of maputi is being transported to neighboring countries such as South Africa. Initially targeting the Zim population, the maputi has also been accepted by other migrants in South Africa such as Mozambicans and Malawians. The competitive advantage of the maputi is its very low price. Other enterprising Zimbos have been buying maputi guns and making maputi for sale in South Africa, evidence shows instant success! Needed are Zimbabweans who can taior make the maputi for South African consumers and help market or promote this proudly Zimbo product.

In Zimbabwe these pre-cast walls are called ‘Dura Walls’ after the name of the company that introduced them in the  90s. They help beautify most homes that you find in Zimbabwe as fences. They are also used to build homes, churches and offices. The advantages of pre-cast walls are as follows:

1. Very cheap to make (You use cement, sand, corrugated steel and water)
2. You can create a long lasting structure within a few hours.
3. Easy to transport finished materials.

So dear reader, Zimbabwe has an instant solution to housing woes in Southern Africa through the ‘Durawall concept’. This is much better than container homes, much better than shacks. This concept can help a lot of entrepreneurs from Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa who are interested in the provision of innovative housing solutions. It is cheap and fast and produces beautiful homes. Interested in learning about this? Then whatsapp +263774081808 or contact us.

In South Africa its called an ‘Ice Lolo’ but in Zimbabwe we call them Freezits after the name of the company that created these flavoured cool drinks. What makes them a hit is their prices, very low prices retailing at 10-20 cents and thus ideal for school kids. We have heard a lot of inquiries from across the region when we advertised ‘freezit making machines’. Demand unlimited in Mozambique due to high temperatures and also South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Malawi. Our market survey in Malawi showed that a lot of people are interested in the product especially in Blantyre.

So there you have it, there is a lot to learn from Zim and you too can implement some of the products we covered in your own country and make a difference.

If you have no access to opportunities in Zimbabwe then you are at a great disadvantage! If you do not know where opportunities are, how to access them and when-then you will forever be behind as those who have mastered the art of knowing opportunities rarely share information that gives them competitive advantage.

One of the disadvantaged communities is our friends in the diaspora. You are not likely to find opportunities information on the internet which is your only connection with Zimbabwe. Most of the opportunities information is found in hard copy and our forum has come in inorder to plug the gap of information asymmetry.  We would like to thank the Diaspora community for supporting our book. Thank you very much, the book has been placed on our forum shop o the link http://zbinworld.com/shop/. We are glad that a lot of you are interested in tapping into local opportunities that are emerging in the economy.

The first stage in benefiting is to register a company in a field of your interest. Register a company and start operations on a low basis and build it up over time. We covered this on our book on  the section of why you should register your business. Only registered companies are going to win big in Zimbabwe! Get registered, sort out the paperwork and scout for opportunities.

As a thank you to those who supported our book, we have captured an advert in The Herald for your attention. What should be of interest to you is the construction or repair of roads is providing opportunities for many sectors of the economy. From engineering companies, security companies, Solar energy companies, printing companies, branding companies. Even hard ware shops are benefiting!

Now look at the bad shape of the state of most roads in Zimbabwe and ask yourself the opportunities that will come from the repair and construction process?  How many solar companies will benefit? How many printing companies will benefit? For engineers who had migrated to other countries-you can ignore local opportunities at your own peril.

The advert by Intertoll Zimbabwe (Pvt) Limited is a call for expressions of interest looking for suitable contractors and suppliers who wish to participate in provision of various goods and services for the maintenance of the R2 and R5 routes (Plumtree-Harare-Mutare). The EOI sought are relative to the categories listed below:

Provision of Road Maintenance Services

• Maintenance of Road Signs
• Permanent Road Marking
• Maintenance of Guard Rails
• Drainage Maintenance
• Vegetation Control
• Small Concrete Works
• Stabilisation of Slopes

Supply of Road Building Materials and Plant Hire Services

• Supply of Aggregate
• Supply of Bituminous
• Plant hire services
• Vehicle recovery services

Provision of Road Maintenance Consultancy Services

• Professional road engineers
• Surveying services
• Road construction testing

Supply of parts and/or services for vehicle maintenance

• Provision of spare parts
• Specialist vehicle repairs
• Supply and fitment of tyres
• Provision of staff transport

Toll Plaza Maintenance

• Solar sevices
• Generator repairs and services
• CCTV installations, repairs and services
• Electrical fence maintenance and repairs
• Plumbing, painting and general maintenance
• Steel structure maintenance and repairs
• Other Goods and Services
• Printing and Stationery
• Fire protection services
• General Hardware
• Branding

Requirements

• Company profile and 3 traceable references
• Proof of registration as a Zimbabwean company
• Proof of compliance with statutory requirements
• VAT certificate if any
• Letter from bank confirming banking details
• Available manpower (applicable to subcontractors)
• Available equipment (applicable to subcontractors)
• Proof of insurance (applicable to subcontractors)
• Capability and capacity (applicable to particular offering)

Geographical area of operation-applicants based in Plumtree, Bulawayo, Gweru, Kwekwe, Kadoma, Chegutu, Ruwa, Marondera, Rusape and Mutare encouraged to apply.

General Terms and Conditions

•  Intertoll Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd not bound to approve any company as a suitable contractor or supplier, and shall not be obliged to furnish reasons for rejecting any application/expression.
• Intertoll Zimbabwe shall not be liable for any costs incurred in the preparation of the application/expression
• Intertoll Zimbabwe reserves the right to amend, modify or cancel the requirements ad deliverables of the expression.

Applications/expressions shall be submitted by the 13th of April to the procurement committee, Intertoll Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd, 15 Fleetwoord, Alexandra Park, Harare.

The reason why this book is trending in Southern Africa is a simple one-it covers a lot of business opportunities in the region such as Angola, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, DRC, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It also captures researches and and business tours to Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland. The name of the book is Business Opportunities for Zimbabweans but opportunities and skills covered benefit every citizen of Southern Africa.

Buy the book here!

The revised version is coming and will be distributed for free to those who purchased the initial version. The second book we are compiling is titled Business Opportunities for South Africans and our sister organisation in South Africa will be handling the compilation of the book.

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Are youths in your church business savvy? Are they up to date with business information? Do they have skills on business opportunity identification? Are they up to date with available funds from Government and other sources? Are youths in your church forming companies? Do they know how and why? Do they know how to apply for tenders? Are they aware of opportunities that do not require a lot of capital?

The Good News
ZBIN is a Christian friendly forum and we have helped inspire hundreds of members from the Christian community. We have carried out church outreach programmes to the Christian communities in Harare and Chitungwiza. One worrisome trend we established was lack of entrepreneurship information! Few are reading newspapers, few are following local news…..the church community is out of touch with business!

In order to help plug the information gap, we have joined church groups to the ZBIN Whatsapp platforms with the first being Holiness Revival Church in Chitungwiza. They have been able to get latest information which we post on many groups on our platforms. We have made sure when we create new inspirational business groups such as the Chicken layer groups, they get first preference before groups are filled by others!

Your church can benefit too
Simply talk to your church leadership and create a business group and then add us and we will distribute freely business tips and information. Do not be left out, Zim is now Open for Business and churches should be open for business too!
This is a free service from the Zimbabwe Business Ideas and Network.

The number of business ideas from the forum is very high-a lot of innovative ideas from Zimbabweans based locally and abroad. Our forum with 34.000 members is growing everyday and every week close to 12.000 active members participate on our Facebook Digital Platforms and over 8.000 on our Whatsapp platforms helping to create a rich entrepreneurship society in Zimbabwe!

Our model, the first of its kind in Africa harnesses all digital platforms so that information is always flowing from one platform to the other. For instance discussions on our Whatsapp platforms help to shape content for discussions on the Facebook platform, the information is then stored on the website for future reference. Information can flow from the website to Facebook and Whatsapp or vice versa. Every minute a business discussion is going on, every minute an entrepreneur is getting useful advice on business opportunities in Zimbabwe and the region.

One of the major problem encountered by entrepreneurs is access to capital finance and in order to help members we will be introducing an innovative approach called Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding enables people with viable business ventures to showcase them and attract funders. If your project is good enough, funders will provide funding and this has been working across the globe with up to $34 billion raised across the globe in 2015 according to www.crowdexpert.com.

The concept is still in its infancy in the country with only one platform doing crowdfunding on a small scale. There is no crowdfunding platform for the SME sector and ZBIN is therefore filling this void. So do expect more information as we help our members to have access to funding for their viable business projects.

Having introduced the carpet making programme which was oversubscribed, one area of concern has cropped up-material! We started with reliable suppliers of wool or chunky wool which is used in knitting carpets but of late they have run out due to excessive demand. Great chance for entrepreneurs to source it from China at 25 cents per ball and sell it locally at $2 per ball and not be able to meet demand. Our organisation will help you in free promotion.

We would like to thank hundreds of people who have ordered our book. Thank you for the support and because of the massive support, we are going to be sending you a free supplementary chapter on Zim Arts and Crafts. Great opportunity for you to take advantage of the talent that our country possesses. We will share where regional markets are and how to tap into them.

Muito Obrigado

Digital Marketing is a key theme for ZBIN this year. Our members and followers should be experts on digital marketing! Zimbabwe currently has a population of 15 million and half of the population is connected to the internet. The good news is that the number of people joining the internet especially digital platforms such as Social Media is increasing everyday. When the economy recovers and start improving guess what will happen? An explosion upward with many millions being added!

This helps to explain why Dr Strive Masiyiwa said the internet will be more valuable than real estate. Do you want more evidence? Look at who is now the richest person on earth? Jeff Bizos of Amazon, you want to know who occupies the second spot? It is Bill Gates and how about Zimbabwe? It is our own Dr Strive Masiyiwa! ICT is therefore where the opportunities are across the globe, so you cannot afford to ignore its growth and increased influence.

We have covered interesting basics on Digital Marketing in our book. It shows how we potentially set a regional digital marketing record which resulted in us touring the region and helping to inspire thousands of entrepreneurs from Malawi, Swaziland, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa. We covered Zimbabwe last because the purpose of the project was to establish whether Zimbabweans can unlock opportunities across the region and be accepted.

Below we have posted a Digital Marketing Plan Template to assist you in your strategic planning. Assess how your strengths and weaknesses in terms of this crucial sector and then develop a plan for your organisation. Digital Marketing is the new competitive advantage!

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Name: Maria Zileni Zaloumis
CEO/Founder: Tuzini Farms Ltd
Age: 33
Nationality: Zambian
Educational Background:
She has a:
▪Bachelor of science degree in Nursing from Australian Catholic University
▪Masters of science degree in Cardiology from Wesley hospital in Brisbane
▪She plans on pursuing a Degree in Agronomy
Her farm employs over 62 jobs and generates a Gross daily income of over $500

Background story:
She is the last born in a family of 3.
In 2003, she travelled to Australia to pursue a Bachelor of science degree in Nursing from Australian Catholic University. While in Australia, she worked for 12 years as a nurse and also earned her self a Masters degree in Cardiology from Wesley hospital in Brisbane. She started working when she was 18 and raised $30,000 start up capital through savings.
In 2015, she returned to Zambia from Australia to settle. She found
her father ill with an incurable disease called Alzheimer’s disease,a disease that affects the brain functions. He started farming on a small scale but couldn’t continue farming due to the condition.
In August 2016, Maria took over the farm and started with half a hectare of tomatoes and has expanded to over 13 hectares. From the 13 hectares she harvests between 250 and 400 boxes everyday giving her approximately daily revenue of $500 (Kr5000) at the lowest price of K50 per box.

Her farm Tuzini Farms LTD, is located in chisamba on the northern side of Lusaka.
When she started, she used to selling her tomatoes at Soweto market in Lusaka and has grown to become the major supplier of tomatoes to Freshmark(SHOPRITE) country wide , also supplies tomatoes to Ndola’s Masala market , Kitwe’s Chisokone market, which is one of the biggest markets in Zambia and also supplies her tomatoes as far as Kasumbalesa boarder post.
Tuzini Farm produces over 300 boxes of tomatoes per day.

How she gives back to the community:
▪On weekends, her workers enjoy the privileges of a literacy program at which many of them are taught how to read and write .
▪She also supports kids who are under the care of the Mwachikoka Baptist church in Lusaka.
▪She mentors 20 Youths at Kabwata Methodist Church once a month for free
▪She employs local youths who are on holidays from school at her farm to keep them busy and have them earn some money as they prepare to open their school .

Achievements:
▪Maria broke records when she became the youngest to sit on the Zambia national farmers union board (ZNFU), which eventually saw her becoming the youngest Director of the farmers union after she was voted into that position by the farmers .
Apart from being CEO at Tuzini Farms , she also serves as the
▪Young emerging farmers initiative ambassador ,
▪ African pride insurance Ambassador and
▪National Chairperson for Fruit and Vegetables under ZNFU.

Projects on her Farm:
▪She won a grant for a green house from MRI seed and has now expanded to build more green houses for the onion,cabbage,tomato seedlings.
▪She has 4 green houses for onion
▪She has a pilot project for MRI seed for cabbage and seedlings
▪She recently launched a new variety of tomato seedling called Naetenella from Israel
When asked what are some of the major challenges she has faced as a farmer, Maria said the fluctuation in the price of tomatoes is a major challenge.
“Fluctuation in the price of tomatoes has been a major challenge for me as you can not project the income for the coming months”
In the next 5 years,she sees herself
▪Venture into farm produce value addition by processing tomatoes and sun dried tomatoes which will be exported to the international market.

▪Green housing over 50 hectares for growing organic ginger and avocados which will also be exported into the international market
▪She sees herself impacting and empowering Zambian farmers by establishing an outgrower scheme countrywide for export,which will boost the Zambian economy .

▪She sees herself also reducing through levels of unemployment by empowering and creating over 1000 job opportunities
She struggles with depression and is on medication.She would like to encourage someone whose depressed, to still believe they can achieve their dreams and impact lives despite the condition.
She attributes all the glory and success which have made her the youngest commercial tomato farmer in the country in less than a year of venturing into the sector to passion, hardwork and faith in GOD. She vividly remembers when she started in August 2016,she commited her plans to God and asked God to help her become the youngest commercial farmer in Zambia. Her focus was not on making money but making a difference in the lives of many through Agriculture.

What advice would you give a youth trying to pursue their dreams in Africa despite the conditions around them

“Be realistic about your Dreams. Donot be afraid to make mistakes,learn from your mistakes and look forward. Remember, to be disciplined and use the resources around you. Never give up on your dream,Never Quit. Finally, always develop your self by reading the right books, sharpening your skills and above all investing in your relationship with God”

Personal statement:

“Do not wait for opportunities,Create the opportunities. Do everything with Passion or not at all.work hard dream big.
Success depends on the second letter “u”
Success is not in the amount of money you make but in the difference you make in people’s lives

You can buy your seedlings and receive full support of your crop from team Tuzini
Cell: 0978320593.
Facebook: Tuzini Farms Ltd
Or you can visit Tuzini Farm Ltd at
Plot No. 12530,Chikumbi Road Chisamba, Lusaka.