SA Entrepreneur Zamokuhle Thwala Shares How The Pandemic Helped Him Scale His Business
SA Entrepreneur Zamokuhle Thwala Shares How The Pandemic Helped Him Scale His Business. In an interview with AlphaCode Club, South African entrepreneur and co-founder of Agrikool, Zamokuhle Thwala shared how the pandemic helped him scale his business.
The entrepreneur said, “We were badly affected by the pandemic, especially when the first lockdown was announced, the informal market was closed so that affected our market and at that time we were only serving informal markets so we pivoted to the formal market to supply retailers. We have grown our revenue from R160 000 per month to R300 000. We have acquired some great partnerships with companies like Fruitspots and we also growing our market with Boxer, they want to give us more business so that has been our greatest achievement.”
As much as the pandemic has been affecting a lot of businesses in a negative way, some businesses were thriving during the lockdowns. This is because these businesses were able to adapt and find new ways that they can conduct their business, for some it meant closing their business and starting another one, while others just had to innovate how they do their business so that they can stay afloat.
Thwala’s business was very innovative as they saw that the informal market was no longer working for their business during the lockdowns so they chose to focus their efforts in the formal market and this is where the company found most of its success. When a problem arises, entrepreneurs are supposed to come up with new ideas of how they’re going to conduct their business, when done right their innovation could build their company to the heights that it has never reached before.
Agrikool is a digital crowd funding platform that enables individuals to empower small holder farmers who are deprived an access to finance by conventional banks by investing in their agribusinesses. The company also infuses more financial inclusiveness by linking small holder farmers with market access opportunities.
