This is part two of Desmond Makondo’s story. Part three will appear in the next quarterly Entrepreneurship survey.
In August 2002, after much pestering from Makondo for some help to earn money, Zii Sithole, at that time HP’s chief executive, gave Makondo a camera and two printers with an instruction to earn the money to pay them off in two months — an opportunity made possible by HP’s corporate social responsibility programme.
Towards the end of the first month, Makondo saw an advertisement on TV publicising radio personality and DJ Oskido’s Church Grooves concert. Makondo spent the night taking photographs of anyone and everyone, including DJ Oskido with his friends, printing them at his “photographer’s table” and then selling them to those in the photos. It was such a hit — nobody had experienced this type of service before — that he made R2 000 in one night.
Realising what this meant , Makondo decided to follow DJ Oskido around Gauteng on weekends, taking photographs at his concerts. By the end of that first month, he had made R10 000 — enough to pay for the equipment and make a profit of R2 000.
In September 2002, when the final DJ Oskido concert was over, Makondo took the money he’d made and walked into Sithole’s office to pay him back. Sithole gave him another two cameras and two more printers, with the same proviso — pay for the equipment in two months.
The first step he took after leaving HP was to set up a small business and register a close corporation, Digitally on the Move CC. With the new equipment, Makondo was on a mission. He had the equipment, the opportunity, the idea and the drive. Now he had to source clients and fill up his diary with more events.
He signed up business from the likes of HP and Old Mutual and had soon turned his R2 000 profit into a turnover of R650 000 and an annual profit of R150 000. By 2005, Makondo was still the only permanent employee in the company. But his business had developed so dramatically and was growing so rapidly that he couldn’t keep up.
He was also starting to feel that his lack of business expertise was holding him back. So he started weighing up the pros and cons of bringing a partner into the business.
Was this the right time for this move? How would it affect his autonomy? And how would it benefi t the company? He wanted to do the best for the company he had worked so hard to create, and knew that it was important to make the right decision.