Nombulelo Mgxoteni is an entrepreneur with an unusual but smart business initiative. She is the owner of Buli’s Cellphone Chargers, a stall located in the Information Tent at the Village Green.
Nombulelo Mgxoteni is an entrepreneur with an unusual but smart business initiative. She is the owner of Buli’s Cellphone Chargers, a stall located in the Information Tent at the Village Green.
Mgxoteni says that she first came up with the idea for this business after she had read an article in Grocott’s Mail where the municipality, who helped to fund her business, urged people to come up with business ideas for this year’s Festival.
Buli’s Cellphone Chargers is one of four businesses that was started from an initiative headed by the Makana Municipality, the Rhodes Investec Business School and the National Arts Council.
The project helped educate entrepreneurs such as Mgxoteni to sustain a healthy business and provide the seed money to kickstart their businesses.
“The municipality had asked us to come with three business ideas. My other two ideas were baby-sitting and laundry but, I had to drop them since the training for these would take too much time.
That is why you see me charging people’s phones,” said a visibly happy Mgxoteni. Although she admits that business has been relatively slow over the past couple of days, Mgxoteni believes that things will soon change.
John Booi, who is a customer of Buli’s Cellphone Chargers, says that the business is a very good one and that he is impressed by the originality of the idea.
Mgxoteni says that she knew her idea would be a hit seeing that so many people would be running around, not even remembering to charge their phones.
Charging your phone at Buli’s will cost R15 and you do not need to bring your own charger since they have a wide range of chargers for the different types of cellphones.
