Zvikomborero Jane Chigumadzi, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur making grocery shopping easier — Lionesses of Africa

What inspired you to start your company?

Due to COVID-19 many women were affected as they lost their jobs and among those many was me. I also had just given birth to my first born child and my former employer didn’t pay me my salary for that month, even my 3 months’ maternity wasn’t paid for. Instead of chasing her, l redirected my energy to starting up new initiatives, as it is a jungle out there and the popular jungle belief is “the survival of the fittest”. My husband and I had to survive through the jungle and our fitness was tested during that time as we both had lost our jobs. We pulled through and can safely say it is now our family business that serves the diaspora community and we are now in our second year running. The quest to create a better future for him made us start this entrepreneurial journey.

Why should anyone use your service or product?

We keep our promise to our clients, we are efficient and transparent, and that is why we have lived to this day regardless of the economic hardships in Zimbabwe. I can safely say that we have been tried and tested, and now we have one goal – to serve smiles in every delivery made.

Tell us a little about your team

My team is myself, my husband, and Aubrey Ncube, a self-driven man who is very hardworking and a perfectionist. We have merged our talents together to create an

organisation that will soon be an epitome of success. My husband is naturally a marketer and a hard worker. I am a graphics designer and videographer by qualification. With all our efforts combined, we will make the strongest legacy ever. It is one of the best things, spending time with your partner and sharing ideas as a couple – we have become more like friends. Though we have our ups and downs we always emerge stronger.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

Yes l have an entrepreneurial background – all females from my paternal side have white collar jobs, but both my dad’s two brothers are entrepreneurs, the other one is late unfortunately. The same goes for my maternal side all my mom’s sisters are successful entrepreneurs. How we started, my (mom) mom’s sister who is into poultry gave us 20 crates of eggs to kickstart our business and she had so much faith in us growing. So from those 20 crates we advertised on social media platforms and we got a massive response which was positive. From eggs, people from the diaspora started asking if we do groceries and who were we to say no? So, we took up the challenge. Our first batch of clients though were funny. l remember when we started in October 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was prevalent, most people in the diaspora at that time had become panicked by it’s onset. It has been a journey worthwhile so far. We have our ups and downs here and there. The business terrain in Zimbabwe is not smooth especially for entrepreneurs, but we always find our way up.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

I am a proficient video editor and cinematographer to say the least. So the future of our brand is to take a lead in that field as well. To have another brand that will be budded on Juli’an’s Basket Groceries when we save advertising money, as we will be doing it all under one roof. I have attached some snippets of the designs that I have done of late. Also, my aspiration is that our grocery store should be a household name here in Zimbabwe and the diaspora.