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Bulelani Balabala has become one of the most authoritative figures in township entrepreneurship development, and it is easy to see why when one chats with him.
The 31-year-old Tembisa-born entrepreneur and business coach founded Township Entrepreneur Alliance, an entrepreneur development programme focused on the township economy.
City Press met with him and was impressed by this eloquent trailblazer.
Raised in a household of 14 people in a four-roomed house, Balabala started school at Tersia King Primary School before moving to Olifantsfontein Primary School and then Elite College in Isando.
“My mother got retrenched, so there was no money for me to continue at the school where I was learning. After Grade 9, I left for a further education and training [FET] college called Ekurhuleni West College instead of going to another high school,” he said.
He completed his technical national certificate in electronics before money ran out again.
“I sat at home for about two years. I wanted to specialise in IT at another FET college and achieve an N4 qualification,” Balabala said.
During this time, he confesses, he was mostly a loafer, which showed itself one day when his mother gave him and his cousin money to go and submit job applications at an electrical company that was hiring in Johannesburg.
“The job was to dig trenches, so my cousin and I took the train to Johannesburg. When we got there, we just looked at each other and, because were lazy bums, we threw away our CVs and returned home. I guess we thought too highly of ourselves and were just lazy,” said Balabala.
After two years, he got the idea of printing personalised jackets for matriculants after a friend introduced him to a printing company in Bedfordview, Johannesburg.
He registered a company called Intercessor Army Franchising, which is now an award-winning printing and brand manufacturing entity.
Armed with his idea, Balabala approached the deputy principal of Roosevelt High School, where he delivered an impressive pitch and bagged a deal worth R15 720.
“I made R800 from that deal and it was the most I had ever had. I gave my mother R500 and she thought I was selling drugs. I had to explain that I was making moves.”
But it was soon time to think of another idea to make money as the printing business would only make money once a year.
Balabala decided to start an internet café in his garage at home, but didn’t have any start-up capital.
“My neighbours were renovating, so they gave me their old wardrobe doors and I used those as table tops. My brother gave me an inkjet printer. I went to a local supermarket and asked for their old crates to use as tables.
“A few of my friends and my aunt gave me some cash donations, and another friend lent me a Pentium 4 computer. The first day we opened, we made R5 and I wasn’t too disappointed,” he said.
After six years, it was time to rethink his strategy, so he decided to go back to the printing business.
“I approached a printing company and offered to resell its products, but the guy did me one better and offered to show me how the entire printing business worked. He showed me the business and I even volunteered to drive his workers around so I could learn the value chain,” he said.
Because he then knew the ins and outs of the business, the company made him a broker and he then started doing his own printing – with a machine that he had leased – until 2014.
His company later bought its own printing machine with the help of one of his clients.
With that business doing well, Balabala was able to pursue his passion for public speaking, which was when he got involved with the Sbusiso Leope Education Foundation as a volunteer, assisting the musician-turned-businessman in his road shows.
“After two years of volunteering at his foundation, he [Leope] was opening doors and making calls I didn’t ask for and I didn’t have to give him anything in return,” Balabala said, adding that Leope showed him the ropes of social media marketing.
He said volunteering opened many doors for him and his business.
His company has managed to scoop several awards and Township Entrepreneur Alliance has attracted some of the most influential corporate personalities to be guest speakers.
“I am not self-made; I am made by people. I am community-made because people have made sacrifices for me to be here,” Balabala said.
He added that he learnt to convert his network into money.
Through his development platform, which he described as a knowledge-sharing programme, Balabala has been credited with helping numerous township businesses get off the ground.
He reckons that one of the most overrated problems for township businesses is funding.
“If you need funding to start, chances are you’re not an entrepreneur at all because every idea should have multiple income streams. There are industries that are capital intensive, but it’s not impossible to start even in those.
“Some people have a problem with articulation. They will say they need funding when they actually mean they need clients,” he said.
The passionate speaker is also a youth ambassador in the presidency and, judging from the rave reviews of his work, he is someone to watch.
