How R3 000, a trip to Joburg and a stack of good shirts turned a hard month around
Some months hand you a bill. Lido's handed him a whole stack of them.
His wife had just had their baby, congratulations all round, but there were complications, and then the medical bills started arriving with an enthusiasm nobody had asked for. So Lido came to us looking for more work.
Now, we knew something about Lido that those bills clearly didn't: the man is a businessman. So instead of only offering work, we asked him a question.
“If we lend you R3 000, can you pay it back in six months?”
He didn't blink. The plan was already loaded and ready to go: get himself to Johannesburg, buy good-quality clothing at the right price, bring it home to the North West, and sell it at a 100% markup.
Reader, that is exactly what he did.
Through August he bought his stock, hauled it back and sold the lot. All of it. Not “most of it, still got a few jackets in the boot”, sold out.
Then there are the shirts. We donated about 20 second-hand shirts to add to the pile, and he is steadily working through those too. Five sold at R50 each so far, with the rest lined up and waiting.
Why We Do It This Way
The recipe at Venture Catalysts is simple. We lend a small amount. If it comes back, we lend a little more next time. If it doesn't come back, well, we helped somebody through a difficult stretch, and that was worth doing anyway.
We've now run this exercise with a handful of entrepreneurs, and the same thing keeps showing up: people rarely need a lecture. They need a bit of runway and somebody willing to back them.
Lido had the plan all along. He just needed the first R3 000.
You can't hand somebody prosperity. But now and then you can hand them stock money, and they'll go and build it themselves.
Go well, Lido. And congratulations on the new arrival.