Nomcebo Sibanyoni and Tshibvumo Skhwivhilu’s stories on their climb up the entrepreneurship ladder are very different – one’s journey starts a decade ago and the other is still in early startup phase.
What the two do have in common is the boost their businesses got from last year’s Eskom Business Investment Competition (BIC) for black-owned small businesses, which has propelled them to greater heights and enabled them to grow their customer base.
We met the two at an Eskom tour to Mpumalanga where the power utility showed off a number of its projects including BIC.
Sibanyoni owns her own printing business called Nomcebo Printers, based in Lydenburg , Mpumalanga and was the overall winner of the 2016 Eskom Business Investment Competition, beating out hundreds of other small businesses who had entered the competition and walking away with R150 000.
Skhwivhilu won the Johannesburg regional competition after entering his solar photovoltaic (pv) solutions business in the contest.
Nomcebo Sibanyoni
Starting out as a husband and wife team in 2007 was not easy for Sibanyoni and her husband. “We originally started the business in Johannesburg but the competition was so high and we had spotted a gap in the market back home in Lydenburg so we decided to move back and set up there,” she explains.
Soon, Sibanyoni started running the business herself, first approaching mines in the mining town for business – a task which proved difficult for a black woman starting out in a white male-dominated industry.
Today Nomcebo Printers is the only black-owned company of its kind in Mpumlanga and offers services such as graphic design, heat pres and manufacturing of branded log and invoice books.
Apart from the prize money, Sibanyoni says winning BIC helped boost her business profile.
“Now people know me and my business and find it easier to trust me with being their printer,” she explains. She hopes to in future employ more people in the business and expand beyond the borders of her town and eventually, beyond Mpumalanga
Tshibvumo Skhwivhilu
Most young businessmen start out in the working world before venturing into business, but not Tshibvumo Skhwivhilu. He and his partner immediately decided to start a business in 2013 right after graduating with qualifications in engineering from Wits University.
Their business, Lamo Solar, is currently based at the Riversands Hub in Fourways and employs four permanent and six part time employers.
“We started out doing everything ourselves, climbing on people’s roofs installing panels while doing all the business admin and attending meetings. Soon we discovered that we still need to learn a lot about business and so I registered for an MBA at the Wits Business School,” he explains.
While he studies, his partner runs the business full time and when he’s done, his partner will be doing his business course while Skhwivhilu handles the business side of things.
Skhwivhilu says he is grateful for winning the Joburg leg of BIC and that the prize money will help with a number of things including the expansion of a pilot project the company is running in the township of Diepsloot just a few kilometres away from Riversands Hub.
“We recently began a project where we took 100 girls from the township to train them in our trade so they can go out there and start their own businesses or be employable,” he explains.
Such projects are very vital in areas like Diepsloot which has an unemployment rate of over 50% and only under 4% furthering their education beyond matric.
With skills empowerment such as this, girls in the township who are at risk of falling prey to sexual abuse, violence and other social issues, can beat the poverty cycle and learn a trade which is growing in demand.
While Sibanyoni and Skhwivhilu are in two different industries and each have a business in different stages of growth and serve different sized communities, they both share the will to break through their limitations and make their mark in their surroundings.
[Main image – CC Public Domain]
