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A man with passion.

A man on a mission
Bandela B. Mgoqi, founder and CEO of Chek Africa Holdings,
took a leap of faith, leaving the pharmaceutical world to become
an online entrepeneur. BBQ talks to him about his journey
I
n 2010 when Bandela was doing
his internship as a pharmacist he
came across the movie, The Social
Network, which portrays the founding
of Facebook. The movie captivated
and fascinated him. He also happened
to discover that the founder was
a university drop-out and a self-
made billionaire at the age of 23.
That was a wow moment for me, says
Bandela. I just knew there was something
remarkable about the internet; something I
had to persue.
When BBQ spoke to Bandela about his back-
ground in entrepreneurship and the things that
inuenced him most, he enthused: From the
beginning, I had entrepreneurship in my blood.
Both my parents did not have an opportunity to
attend school and consequently had to utilize
whatever they had to make a living. My father
was a bus driver turned taxi owner, while my
mother was a street vendor who sold fruit. In
the early 90s, they opened a liquor store and
a supermarket, which are still operating today.
Throughout my childhood, I grew up in that
business environment, helping where I could.
That experience moulded me into the entrepre-
neur I am today.
He sums up the personal characteristics that
proved most valuable in building his technol-
ogy companies: Passion! Having passion for
what I do keeps me on cloud nine. It fuels my
creativity for creating products or services and
allows me an opportunity to solve problems
and make life easier, cheaper and better for
people. Self-belief and condence are other
key personal traits that I have found to be valu-
able. As the founder, I am the ultimate brand
ambassador.That means I need to believe in
the products I offer before others can believe
in them. Starting a business is like running a
comrades marathon ve times a week. Also,
having vision, tenacity and being exible has
helped me to keep going, even during tough
times. But I must add that the words of Steve
Jobs, delivered in a speech in Stanford in 2005,
inspired me incredibly:
Your time is limited, so dont waste it
living someone elses life. Dont be trapped
by dogma which is living with the results
of other peoples thinking. Dont let the noise
of others opinions drown out your own inner
voice. And most important, have the cour-
age to follow your heart and intuition. They
somehow already know what you truly want to
become. Everything else is secondary.
Asked about the challenges and difculties
he faces, he answers: One of my challenges
is nance, mainly managing overhead costs.
I have managed to overcome some of the
difculties by embracing technology, assessing
business needs over wants, by going green and
out-sourcing man-power.
Although Bandela has been described as a
serial internet entrepreneur, he manages to
hold back on exciting new ideas while his cur-
rent projects are on the go.
I try not to spread myself too thin and I
dont take all the opportunities that come
my way, even if my gut reaction tells me to
do so. I only tend to be serial about excit-
ing new ideas, products and services if and
when I have assessed their potential impact
on consumers.
Bandela goes on to talk about the opportuni-
ties for online companies as the country and
the continent expands with ever-growing
smartphone and online access. And he speaks
a little about his philosophy around the efcacy
of good websites.
There are many opportunities for companies
online as the market is not yet saturated, due
to the fact that the internet is slowly penetrat-
ing the continent and consequently there is a
huge untapped market. With this ever-growing
internet access through mobile phones, tech-
based companies have an opportunity to tap
in to various lucrative markets such as mobile
money, e-commerce, leapfrog tech and more.
When we build our websites, we ensure
that they achieve three things: that the plat-
form works as intended with no steep learning
curves; that it provides solutions to existing
problems: and, that it improves the quality of
peoples lives. We incorporate factors such as
superior effectiveness, better value for money
and greater convenience.
One thing that has been a challenge to me
has been to keep up with marketing trends
and strategies. To be known and noticed
online, I have to get the attention of the pro-
spective audience and get them interested in
the product I am offering. In addition to that,
I also need to measure and analyse the value
of the efforts I put in to measure the return
on investment. I have not invested a lot on
non-digital forms of marketing, but intend to
in the near future.
Asked about the importance of strategic
partners or investors, he responds: Strategic
partnerships are imperative, but I am not a fan
of investors at the early stages of online growth.
To a certain extent, for me, the risks outweigh
the benets. I prefer to put my own dent on
the market by charting my own path through
Bandela B. Mgoqi, founder and CEO of Chek Africa Holdings
bootstrapping. Being capital-constrained drives
me to be more creative and helps me to gure
out how to be more resourceful.
Speaking of resourcefulness, we ask him
what inspired his choice of the name CHEK.
The main reason people use the internet
is when they want to chek for information
or anyhing else. For me, the name CHEK has
enough panache for my businesses, as it is
associated with searching for something,
which is exactly what the ecosystem of our
sites offer in a simplied manner. Also, the
name is short, unique and self-explanatiry; it
creates a positive image and, as a logo, has
visual appeal.
And your plans for the future?
My Father once told me that Whatever your
dream is, goal mapping can help you achieve it
the most. And I have a dream to change Africa for
the better. To accomplish this, I had to set goals
that are beyond my reach. Because the company is
the main vehicle in the ultimate execution of these
goals they had to be part of the companys DNA
in order for it to remain focused on its core and its
consistent understanding of what it is truly about.
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