Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Rwandan industrialist always hunting for the next big business idea

[Bulls n Bears]

 <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> 


 


“You can never be too young to make money. Age is just a number when it
comes to business.”

So says Rwanda-based entrepreneur Jean de Dieu Kagabo. He was just 14 when
his father died, making him responsible for his family. His father’s petrol
and transport business had done well, but after his death, the family lost
everything.

With $3,000 at his disposal, Kagabo began importing cars from Dubai to sell
in Kigali and invested the profits in a fuel station. When Rwanda stabilised
after the genocide, international fuel companies returned and pushed out
small independents like Kagabo. But the multinationals needed trucks to
transport their fuel. Enter Kagabo, the serial opportunity-spotter.

Fast forward 10 years and his visit to China to search for export
opportunities: “I couldn’t pinpoint a single product they didn’t already
have.” He did see a machine for making toilet paper, though, and says, “I
was looking for a basic mass-market product, nothing fancy. Toilet paper is
something people use every day.” Even so, he says, “It was tough, really
tough, to introduce a new product in a small market like Rwanda where
everyone was accustomed to one brand.” Yet being in a small country also had
its advantages, though, and once people began buying his toilet rolls, the
business grew by word of mouth.

He added plastic straws to his product line and when the Rwandan government
banned single-use plastic in 2008, he turned to plastics recycling. (“Many
people saw it as a problem. I saw it as an opportunity.”) In 2011 his
company, Soft Group, moved to the Kigali Special Economic Zone, where they
make 15 products, including biodegradable sacks for farmers.

Soft Packaging is among the 360 African companies featured in the London
Stock Exchange’s 2019 Companies to Inspire in Africa report, but Kagabo
still does not feel as if he has arrived. “I do not have a limit on what I
am doing now or in the future. When I take an exit from this world, I will
not take anything with me and so I intend to push myself until the end.
After my end, others will take over and continue.” For the immediate future,
he has his eye on expanding into East Africa with his environmentally
friendly products.—Howwemadeitinafrica 



Jean de Dieu Kagabo

 

 

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