How Basani Cleaners Founder McMillan Masoka Went From Being Homeless To Owning A Successful Business
How Basani Cleaners Founder McMillan Masoka Went From Being Homeless To Owning A Successful Business. In an interview with Mpoomy Ledwaba, founder of Basani Cleaners McMillan Masoka shared his story on the journey he had in order to arrive to where he is today.
Masoka shared that he ran away from home at the age of 16, he believed that something was pushing him towards running away from home. “Something was pushing me towards something, you know there are things that you have no control over, and you ask yourself ‘why did I do that?’ but it needed to happen.” Masoka told Ledwaba.
Masoka explained further that he was a very soft child and he needed to stand on his own in order to find himself, “I needed to find my strength away from my mother who loved me so much and was always overprotective of me, because I was this short young boy with a squeaky voice.” said Masoka.
He also explained that when he got to Carlton Centre he met a young boy who was also living in the streets. On the third day of him living in the streets of Johannesburg, Masoka and his new friend met some prostitutes in the city who were sitting around a fire and they asked to join them because it was very cold. One of the prostitutes told Masoka that he will not be going back to the streets and that she was going to take him in as her brother and she begged her ‘pimp’ to allow Masoka to live with her. After staying with them for a while, Masoka was given money by his new family so that he can go back home to finish his education.
Masoka also told SunBuzz that: “Basani started off early in 2017 while I was working as a banker. One of my friends who had a cleaning company introduced me to the business and since then I have not looked back. We have been doing well since day one. I have had businesses before but they failed. This one was the first one that ever became successful. Before venturing into the cleaning service, I went to a business school and the knowledge has been very helpful.”
“The reason we are as big as we are today is because of DJ Zinhle. We clean for almost all celebrities in Gauteng because she introduced them to us. Everything started with her. We clean for her almost once a month and because she liked our services, she went online started recommending us and our clientele grew.” Masoka added.
