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.

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.