BY Nkosazana Ngwadla
Thabiso Mnguni, 29, was born in Soweto but because his parents were forced to move back to rural KZN in KwaNongoma because of the ongoing political violence at the time, he didn’t spend much time in the popular township in Gauteng. He spent his formative years in eMatsheni eziNduna (commonly referred to as eVuna) in KwaNongoma before moving to Pietermaritzburg at the age of seven.
“To be honest I was a restless kid, I got into trouble quite often and had an aversion to school and rules. My dream as a child was firstly to be a soccer player, which was quickly replaced by the job of president, not because of the prestige that the title carries.
But because I thought it was cool that the only other person who was allowed to speak on the radio beside the well-respected radio presenters was this person my grandmother called uMongameli, which means president in isiZulu,” Thabiso tells The Fuse.
“I had no idea what a president was at the time and what he or she did for a living. KwaNongoma didn’t have electricity until 2001 so our only source of news or entertainment growing up was the radio. By the time I was around ten years old I already knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I’ve never wanted to be anything else ever since,” he adds.
After completing high school, Thabiso graduated with a Bachelor of Finance from the University of Johannesburg, majoring in Investment Management. He went on to complete Equity and Bonds Trading certifications with the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. He is currently in the process of completing an Advanced Diploma in Financial Markets.
The birth of Kofi Kulcha
In May 2019, Thabiso started his business, Kofi Kulch. Having always loved coffee, he knew he wanted to get involved in the coffee industry somehow.
“I began the process with the purchase of a VW Kombi, which I was busy converting into a mobile coffee bar before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
“It prompted me to halt the idea of completing the conversion of the kombi and go ahead with launching my instant coffee line, which I had initially planned to do in 2021,” he says.
As challenging as it proved to be launching a product during a lockdown, the business started operating officially in October 2020.
Entrepreneurship is a huge learning curve that provides so much opportunity for growth but a lot of headaches as well. Among the challenges Thabiso experienced was gathering enough capital to get the business started and operational.
“The manufacturing process for instant coffee is quite costly and full of risks, which could be quite frightening for any entrepreneur. I used up my entire savings and investment accounts as well as my provident fund when I left my previous job in 2019 to get the business up and running. Since then, the biggest obstacle, which many entrepreneurs face, is that our business hasn’t been immune to the complexities of mastering distribution and scaling up of the business as there are so many moving parts to take into cognizance.
“On the personal side, my biggest challenges would definitely be time management as well as multitasking as I dedicate so much time to new ideas and trying new approaches that can improve both myself and the business.”
It takes a village
Since starting his business, Thabiso has received overwhelming support from all quarters to an extent that Kofi Kulcha has received orders from old friends in places as far as Kenya and the UK.
“I consider myself lucky to have great business and personal mentors who have become family to me. I also have a great support structure with my aunt being my biggest cheerleader and motivator,” Thabiso fondly shares.
One of his highlights was being nominated for African founder of the year under 30 by the FOYA Global Awards, and his fondest memory is the immense support he received from the late Dr Sindi Van Zyl who was one of the first people he sought advice from before starting his business.
Thabiso’s take on entrepreneurship
“I’d say the biggest misconception about running a business is that everything must go overwhelmingly right as a confirmation of the viability and success of the business and that anything contrary to that is a sign of possible failure. It’s honestly far from that.”
Thabiso compares entrepreneurship to the trade of farming; often the effort and energy invested today may not be reaped immediately but rather in a few months or a year. Relationships one has built and fostered years prior can play a pivotal role in your success when you least expect it. So, rather than seeking, more days are spent trying to connect dots that refuse to connect, putting out fires and avoiding disaster than anything else.
Without the risk of coming across as a business expert of any sort, the best advice Thabiso can give from his humble entrepreneurial journey is to start today and start with whatever resources you have, and once you have begun don’t stop no matter how difficult it seems.
“We often wait for the ‘perfect’ time to start, unfortunately, there is no such perfect time. The sooner I started the sooner I made mistakes that I learnt from, and early successes gave me the momentum to keep going and since then it’s been a process of rinse and repeat.
“A book I would recommend for any budding entrepreneur is The Alchemist. It may not be a book about business, it’s more so a book about self-discovery and in many ways that is what entrepreneurship is. It’s basically a journey of self-discovery and self-actualisation in the form of a business, which is usually an extension of our personalities, hobbies, or passions,” he concludes.
Purchase Kofi Kulcha: www.kofikulcha.co.za
Socials: @Kofikulcha | @Kofikulchasa
