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0 By Amanda Ellen Nicola Jojo
STARTING an entrepreneurial venture is a significant and bold move, and for Tinashe Nyaruwanga it was the next logical thing to do after gaining experience as a digital marketing. After building a solid foundation, Nyaruwanga established SocialMe which is a creative and full service marketing agency. Through his company, he is on a mission to make an impact through content curation, social media marketing. They amalgamate engaging storytelling with effective strategies to steer outcomes that build lasting relationships between their clients and customers.
Below are the extracts of the interview.
Highlighting the kind of person you are, please tell us a brief background about yourself including your life before entrepreneurship.
I am an easy going person who is passionate about what I do, a family person, blessed with a beautiful wife and three boys (my squad). I have a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Zimbabwe. I got into digital marketing somewhere around 2009. Then I was still working at Innov8 Bookshop, owned by Milton Kamwendo, who is a businessman, strategy coach and Zimbabwe’s foremost motivational coach. Learnt a lot during this time, then joined First Mutual as a sales and marketing officer and then ZOL/ Liquid Telecom as the digital manager. I love sports especially watching and playing basketball and more recently golf.
What pushed and pulled you into entrepreneurship? Whilst at it, tell us about your business interests?
My time at Innov8 shaped my thinking and made me want to get into entrepreneurship, whilst I was working at the bookshop I would read inspiring stories of entrepreneurs around the world and other books by Robert Kiyosaki, Robin Sharma, Paulo Coehlo, and so on that made me want to start my own business.
But in 2019, I got an opportunity to visit Ethiopia for an MIT and Liquid Telecom event, where they had a huge gathering of exciting and upcoming entrepreneurs from all over Africa. That experience of being with people of the same age and others younger that you running their start-ups made me want to start my own agency. A few weeks after I came back, SocialMe was born.
You have experience in the digital marketing industry. How has this experience benefited you in establishing SocialMe creative?
It’s everything really. Digital Marketing is a big part of what we do, in fact it’s the bedrock of the company. And the thing with digital marketing is that you have to know what you are doing in order to provide value to your clients. There are so many things that we are able to do at SocialMe as a result of my experience that other agencies can only dream of.
How big a risk were you taking [starting your own firm]?
Leaving a proper corporate job with guaranteed income, medical aid was a huge risk especially in a country like Zimbabwe. I can only thank God for everything we have achieved so far because it has been His Grace really that has made it possible for us to be where we are. As an entrepreneur, a lot of times you live by faith. Sometimes you don’t even know how you are going to make payroll or where your money is going to come from. But I have really benefited from my network.
SocialMe was the only thing that I did. It was my only source of income, so if it didn’t go well, there was no safety net.
Whilst at it tell us about the challenges that you face in the day to day running of your business?
Every day running in Zimbabwe is a challenge, we face normal challenges like every other business in Zimbabwe like liquidity, a harsh environment, inflation and so on, but we thank God that through his Grace we have been able to stay in business and grow.
Share with us some of the OPPORTUNITIES that you forsee in this specific industrial sector?
As technology continues to evolve more and more opportunities will arise. Already we are seeing opportunities around the use of artificial intelligence, data science and automation. I am really excited by the future.
How would you describe the future trends that might reshape the economy especially in as afar as digital marketing is concerned in the next decade?
Companies are beginning to wake up to the power of digital marketing, so we are going to see more companies playing in this area. In fact, we are already seeing a merge between traditional marketing and digital marketing. In a few years, there won’t be anything called digital marketing, it will simply be called marketing.
How do you approach leadership when tackling major projects, especially across different departments?
To be honest I have a really great and talented team. Every hire I make I make sure that there are more talented than I am in their area of specialty or there have the potential to be better than I. So we always sit down as a team and brainstorm ideas and execution strategy before embarking on a big project.
According to our research, it indicated that you co-founded your entity with someone. In brief, kindly unpack the importance of partnership when starting a business.
Business is tough, you need people who can complement you and cover your weaknesses. Look at the big companies around the world like Apple and Google, the founders were either two or more.
What do you still hope to accomplish in your life?
I have not done anything really, or at least that how I look at things. So I really want SocialMe to be successful and possibly venture into other businesses.
KEY TAKEAWAYS ON INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY: #NoshaveNovember (laughs), being a man just like a woman is tough in its own way, so any form of celebration is welcome. So for me to be able to be a good role model to other upcoming male entrepreneurs is very important.
ADVICE TO UPCOMING ENTREPRENEURS: I think you have to understand business and run it correctly, so one must make sure that there are learning as much about business as possible.
