Solgas Energy founder and director Tafadzwa Mundicha has credited his former boss, who took him under his wings for the success of his business venture Mundicha (TM), whose company runs a five megawatt solar plant in Hwange’s Cross Mabale area, told Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube (TN) on the platform In Conversation with Trevor that some of the lessons he has learnt in his business journey, included the importance of exposure.
Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: Tafadzwa Mundicha, welcome to In Conversation With Trevor.
TM: Thank you very much Trevor.
TN: You know I say this all the time.
Every time I meet a young man who is doing actual work to put food on the table and advance the country I get very excited.
So I am looking forward to this conversation. Thank you for creating the time.
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TM: Thank you for such an honour I am an avid follower of the show and I am really honoured to be here.
TN: Fantastic. You are an entrepreneur, and a renewable energy expert. You are, at 27 years old ... you co-founded SolGas in 2015.
My question to you is why renewable energy? Where did the spark for renewable energy come from?
TM: Trevor it has been a journey.
I think Steve Jobs said it's very easy to connect the dots going backwards, but it is difficult to connect the dots going forward.
Now that I am looking at it in hindsight, it is so much easier to...
TN: It makes sense?
TM: It makes sense. It never used to make sense.
TN: Right.
TM: Yes.
TN: So shall we connect the dots going backward? Now that we are here?
TM: True. Before I started SolGas I used to run a company called Mamela Metals.
Mamela Metals was a partnership between myself and my former boss.
TN: Okay. Who is your former boss?
TM: Themba Hlongwani.
TN: Okay.
TM: With Mamela Metals we used to buy scrap metal and it would go into the induction furnace, and we would make deformed bars or what other people would like to call reinforcement steel.
This is a business that I had started after going to the Canton Fair in China with a friend of mine.
That trip was also funded by my former boss, Themba.
Him funding that trip was purely because I had gone to him and said you know I think I am not adding value to this organisation anymore because I had reached the apex of G-Way Holdings, the holding company of all his companies.
TN: What was it called?
TM: G-Way Holdings. It is into mining, it is into property development, and it is into technology as well.
What then happened is when I went to my boss intending to resign he then said to me look young man I like you, you are leaving me, where exactly are you going to go?
Then I said to him; you know I am not too sure, but I just feel like I am not adding as much value as I used to at some point.
Then he says to me why don't you research what you want to do, come and pitch it to me and then see if I would like to partner.
TN: Let us park it there, research, come back to me see if I want to partner...
But I want to go to the point where you say; boss I am not adding value. What does that mean?
TM: In any journey in any organisation, as an individual you want to be able to really feel that you are making an impact in the organisation and you are to a certain extent the change or the consistency in some instances that you want to see.
In my case, I had contributed initially as a finance director and then I had also contributed as a managing director at a very tender age.
TN: How old were you? How tender was that age?
TM: I was 24 years old. 24 years at that time.
TN: Wow.
TM: When I went to him to propose to tender my resignation, he then says okay you can go to the Canton Fair.
I had always wanted to go to the Canton Fair.
TN: Was this your way of going to the Canton Fair or you were actually resigning?
TM: My intention was purely to resign, but when he then offered me to go to the Canton Fair, you know being young and impressionable and your boss is going out of his way to accommodate one of your bucket listings.
I then go to a point I said okay if you can fund me to go to the Canton Fair with one of my friends then I will come back to you with my business proposal.
So I went to the Canton Fair, I was in Guangzhou for two weeks.
When I came back, I came back with a catalogue, with a suitcase full of catalogues.
I was a bit confused, but what actually helped me was one of the friends that I went to, Praise, still very close friend of mine.
TN: What is his full name?
TM: Praise Madzingira.
When I went to the Canton Fair with Praise, we then went to see one of the factories that manufacture induction furnaces, and the idea to go and research on induction furnaces had come from the fact that we were now running Jet Master Engineering on a part-time basis, so we had come across a lot of scrap metal.
Praise is very studious, he had always said to me, look why are we selling this scrap metal instead of value adding on it?
What is it that people are doing with this scrap metal that we cannot do ourselves?
TN: I like those questions.
TM: So, it kind of triggered something in me to say, okay, what business are these people doing with this scrap metal?
We went to the Canton Fair, we went and looked for prices for induction furnaces.
Prices for rolling mills, we went to a city called Foshan in China.
TN: Funded by your boss?
TM: Funded by my boss.
TN: And your boss is? We need to acknowledge him?
TM: Themba Hlowani.
TN: Themba Hlowani. Wow. Well done.
TM: We then basically came up with a business plan whilst in China. By the time that we came back I went to my boss and said look...
TN: Themba Hlowani.
TM: Themba Hlowani yes. I went to Themba Hlowani, and then I said to him we need money to buy the induction furnace, we need money to buy the scrap metal and the different raw materials that would need, but we also need a premises.
Through his contacts we managed to find a factory, an idle plant in Ruwa, for which he then funded the business 100%.
And he then says okay I am just a shareholder, 70% shareholder in Mamela Metals and because it is your idea I am going to give you 30%.
I became the founder and managing director of Mamela Metals at the age of 24.
We set it up nicely, we started producing deformed bars for Mamela Metals and this was in 2014.
Then load shedding got introduced in 2014, and this business, you know when you are running an induction furnace...
TN: You need lots of power?
TM: You need lots of power. We were basically pushed out of business because of load shedding.
Then I said it to myself, what can I do to ensure that I run...Initially the plan was to find a solution to run the induction furnaces. I thought I would be able to build a solar power plant and run the induction furnace.
I soon realised that I actually needed a farm, you know a mini-farm to...
TN: Because of the amount of power this place would consume?
TM: Exactly.
By the time that I did the research I went back to my boss, fortunately we were able to sell off the raw materials and everything and I was able to settle him in terms of his capital contribution.
TN: What lessons did you learn from that experience?
You get into this, you are excited to just come from China, and suddenly the environment changes.
TM: There are a couple of lessons in this Trevor. Lesson number 1 is exposure.
When I went to China I got exposed to the technology that was being used in this particular line of business.
Number 2, the lesson that I learned is the challenges that we face in an environment are the opportunities.
TN: That is powerful.
TM: Yes. I faced the challenge in the sense that I needed power to power induction furnaces.
Eventually I landed up where I am today, which is in the renewable energy space.
TN: Wow. So you shut down Mamela Metals?
TM: Sadly yes. I had to.
TN: But another door opens?
TM: Another door opens. After Mamela Metals I then started researching more and more into solar and renewable energy.
Whilst I was working for Themba as well, he had introduced me to a certain lady, Thule.
Thule is now based in Kenya and Thule had moved from G-Way Holdings to go to work for Solar Hut, the company that was awarded the contract to do the bulk of the electricity prepaid meters, but they were a power and electrical engineering firm at the core.
When Thule started working for Solar Hut, that is the time that I was also leaving Mamela Metals, and I was a bit confused in terms of what my next move would be.
I just knew that I had to do research in terms of how to make electricity.
So I called Thule and she said to me, you know what Taf, funny enough I am working for an electrical engineering company.
I think there are lessons to be learned here.
Why do you not come and join me as my finance director for one of the subsidiaries?
Instantly, I said to Thule of course I will come and join you any day.
One of the reasons why I actually joined Thule was because she has always gone to Ivy League schools.
I never got the opportunity to go to Ivy League schools, and when I worked with Thule briefly, she was actually supposed to come and be my boss at G-Way Holdings at some point.
She said to me Taf I like you, you are a diamond but you are a rough diamond, you need a bit of polishing...
TN: Hahahaha.
TM: So it was an opportunity for me to go and get polished.
I needed to learn the lessons that Thule had learned while she was going through her paces in all these Ivy League schools.
TN: Thule’s father is Mungayi, former World Bank?
TM: Yes. So that is why I said initially, connecting the dot going forward is impossible...
TN: Does not make sense.
TM: But now that I am sitting here, in hindsight, I can connect the dots going back.
I joined Solar Hut, the company was called E-Ven.
E-Ven had won the tender to do the prepaid tokens for electricity.
That tender somehow somewhat got controversially taken away from Solar Hut.
In no time I was almost being threatened with unemployment yet again.
Then because Tinashe Nhete, the CEO of Solar Hut took a liking towards me, he then said to me okay I think I am going to co-opt you into the main business, into the parent company Solar Hut.
So, I joined Solar Hut in the business development department side, working under Thule; I worked for Solar Hut for a very short period of time.
I think it was for six months.
I think this was God's way of making me meet certain people, learn certain lessons that have helped me to get to this particular point.
It was just by grace you know that I just found myself there.
