adminyear’s auditions for the reality show start in the City of Kings.
The first round of auditions for My Own Boss entrepreneurial television reality show begin tomorrow with aspiring entrepreneurs from Bulawayo and its environs getting the first opportunity to prove their acumen.
This is an opportune time for Bulawayo to realise a new crop of businessmen and women that will underline Bulawayo’s status as Zimbabwe’s industrial hub.
The large-scale closure of businesses in Bulawayo has resulted in a lot of anxiety and uncertainty but the time is now to fulfil the Buy Zimbabwe mandate of wealth creation, jobs and pride.
Merging cutting edge ideas and entrepreneurship, My Own Boss Season 4 — Buy Zimbabwe edition is committed to promoting nation building through a new generation of entrepreneurs who draw inspiration from seasoned business executives.
This year’s show wittingly brings together My Own Boss and Buy Zimbabwe in a mother-child relationship as the television reality show actually gave birth to the Buy Zimbabwe initiative.
I am proud to say that I was part of that experience that saw Buy Zimbabwe emerge from an idea being implemented as part of a task on the show to a national vision.
It is now a competitiveness and empowerment driver that is promoting the production and consumption of local goods and services. My fellow contestants during that final task that delivered Buy Zimbabwe will agree that we benefited immensely from the mentorship of current Buy Zimbabwe chairperson Mrs Grace Muradzikwa, TN Bank group chief executive Mr Tawanda Nyambirai and Zambian businessman Mr Bwalya Chiti.
For this year’s contestants coming from the Matabeleland region, a lot of inspiration to get into the business bandwagon will presumably be drawn from the likes of Mr Delma Lupepe, who contributed immensely to the growth of Bulawayo’s local economy.
Mr Lupepe created a vast empire, which cut across sectors from manufacturing to mining to agriculture and even transcended into sport resulting in the creation of thousands of jobs for Bulawayo residents.
The amount of business potential in Matabeleland is huge and my two cents worth of advice to would be contestants is for them to focus on the competitive and comparative advantage of the region. The show presents a unique opportunity to create innovative ways of building on the resource base of Matabeleland.
In any case, the environment that surrounds the individual first molds their entrepreneurial ideas.
For the benefit of those that might have missed the previous article, I shall summarise the mechanics of the show. The idea behind My Own Boss Season 4 is to ensure that persons will be recruited from all the ten provinces of Zimbabwe to become brand ambassadors for Zimbabwean products and services and develop practical and effective methods of ensuring that Zimbabwean quality products are preferred locally and internationally.
The contestants will also be required to come up with bankable business proposals, which will attract capital investment. Considering that the contestants shall be carrying out practical business task on behalf of local firms, Buy Zimbabwe partners are particularly encouraged to take advantage of the entrepreneurial minds of the contestants on the show and opportunities are availed to sponsor particular real business tasks.
However, the only condition is that the company must be registered in Zimbabwe and producing quality Zimbabwean products.
This is all part of a move that will see Buy Zimbabwe respond to the call to move the initiative from the boardroom to the streets and right back into the boardroom.
The focus is really on the interaction between all stakeholders. Countrywide auditions and selection criteria include age 18-35 years, must be Zimbabwean, business understanding, good team leadership, communication skills, aspires to be an entrepreneur and must have a bankable business idea.
Only 20 contestants are selected countrywide and get into My Own Boss House. Each week contestants are given real business tasks and within 48 hours to a week the task should be completed and a review of the task by prominent business executives is done in the boardroom. In the boardroom, a losing team sees one or more contestants eliminated. Judging criteria are based on task profitability, leadership skills, communication, innovation and exploration of new opportunities.
The top five contestants will present their projects to venture capitalists who will buy equity in the different companies, thereby financing start-ups.
The eventual winner of the show based on the success and viability of their project will walk away with a prize of US$25 000 to be invested in their business. The price money has been increased from US$20 000, which was won in 2010. With that said, I conclude this week by saying the Buy Zimbabwe magazine is out.
The magazine is designed to influence decision making in Zimbabwe and our thrust is to ensure that every day-to-day decision we make is progressive, profitable and pro-Zimbabwean.
Anyone who is interested in getting a copy or in contributing to the magazine or taking advantage of our unique advertising opportunities can get in touch with the Buy Zimbabwe team on the given details.
Till next week . . . God bless.
Robert Garai Muganda is the Media and Communications Executive at Buy Zimbabwe. mobile: 0772 714 233 email: [email protected] Facebook/Twitter: Buy Zimbabwe Campaign
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