Lusikisiki-born businesswoman, Zethu Nyali is a 24-year-old CEO and founder of an award-winning company “Zee_Organics”, a business she started as a hobby and a passion for helping those with hair and skin-related problems.
A biochemist by profession, Zethu used the skills she acquired from her degree to start her very own successful business.
The idea came about when her best friend was diagnosed with cancer and went through chemotherapy which left her with patches all over her body. Seeing how her friend lost confidence in herself Zethu decided to start putting her skills into use. She only had R500 from her NSFAS allowance and she used it to buy the ingredients needed to cook the remedies that helped her friend. From there on Zethu helped more people and received good reviews. She says as a victim of being bullied for having a burn scar on her hand, it was easy for her to put herself in the shoes of those who lost their confidence because of losing hair or having skin problems. She then decided to make money out of her passion and help more people with similar problems.
With figures of unemployed graduates rising on the daily in our country and the South African economy being faced with a crisis. This was a wakeup call for her because she did not want to end up being one of the many unemployed graduates. “It breaks my heart when I see graduates sitting at home with their qualifications, unemployed and doing nothing.” Said Zethu
Although she has never received any funding from the government, Zethu has managed to grow her business and has even employed three graduates to work in her company. The only way her company is funded is through the winnings she gets from winning competitions. And she has won two pitching competitions which are ‘The first watch entrepreneurs challenge’ which was held in Johannesburg where she won R50 000 and has also won the ‘Township Entrepreneurs Alliance’ which was held in Durban, Umlazi where she also won R50 000. When Zethu started her business she was still a student. So she had to juggle her academics and business which included cooking the products, packaging them as well as delivering them. Being proactive, determined and believing in herself is what helped her business grow. Zethu emphasizes starting small and teaches many lessons she says “Let us not be scared of humble beginnings, when I started I was running around. I would attend classes during the day, after classes deliver to customers and cook my products at night. I had to multitask.”
Zee_oranics was started in 2020 during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. And like most businesses in South Africa Zee_Organics was faced with various challenges of the pandemic and one of those being the looting. Zethu says “I lost almost everything during looting and had to start from scratch, it wasn’t easy but I had to gather courage to start again. When you have a passion for what you do no matter how difficult it is you always push on and overcome it because business is an ON and OFF thing so you need to be strong mentally, emotionally and physically for you to run a business.”
Zethu says she has always been a person who wants to help others so she is hopeful that the business grows more so she can help employ even more people.
“Self introspect and discover what it is that you love, what you are passionate about , what you would not mind doing even if it doesn’t bring money immediately, what are your skills. Then use that skill and make money out of it.” This is Zethu’s message to the young people who would love to start their own businesses.
