Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Tariro Makina, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur providing virtual assistant solutions to clients across the world

[Bulls n Bears]

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For many small to medium sized businesses, getting ahead can be challenging
when you don’t have the resources in-house at your disposal. Recognising
this challenge, Zimbabwean entrepreneur Tariro Makina, was keen to find a
solution, and her business today,  <https://www.facebook.com/twenty47va/>
Twenty47 Virtual Assistant, is helping clients to streamline their business
processes by providing a range of virtual business solutions.
 


LoA found out more about this new business support venture that is looking
to make an impact on the lives of other SMEs globally.

What does your company do?

 <https://www.facebook.com/twenty47va/> Twenty47 Virtual Assistant
specialises in providing flexible and economic business support solutions to
small and medium sized businesses across the world. These solutions allow
growing businesses to have adequate support to business functions for which
they cannot afford to hire full-time staff. The services we provide include,
but are not limited to, social media management, research, email management,
customer support, document processing and other administrative services. We
manage to work with clients around the globe as long as they have access to
the internet and have work that can be carried out via the same platform. We
also service clients outside Zimbabwe with projects requiring someone to be
present here on a frequent basis. Our overall goal is to help our clients
streamline business processes through efficient information distribution,
stakeholder relationship management and resource utilisation.

 




 


"Twenty47 Virtual Assistant specialises in providing flexible and economic
business support solutions to small and medium business across the world."


What inspired you to start your company?

I used to work an average 12 hours a day in an IT job for a bank. One day I
woke up and decided I didn't want to work like this anymore. As much as I
enjoyed this job, I felt it was not giving me the flexibility I wanted. I
wanted to work from home or wherever I could find an internet connection. I
wanted to work on my own terms but still be able to serve and provide value
to others. I wanted to work with small and medium business because, from
experience, I had seen how many small businesses fail to get ahead due to
absent or inadequate staff to execute specific functions in the business. 9
times out of 10, this is mainly due to limitations on their budgets. I
wanted to be able to help small businesses execute these functions at a
lower cost than hiring a full-time in-house employee as I would be using my
own resources to work on the projects, that is, computer equipment, internet
connection, stationery etc. All these factors together led me researching on
this kind of work and finding out about virtual assistance, leading me to
start Twenty47 Virtual Assistant a couple of months later.

Why should anyone use your service or product?

I recommend startups and growing businesses to use our service because the
solutions are not only economical and flexible but there are so many
benefits to enjoy from working with another team of individuals who are
committed to achieving your goals just as you are. It's not rocket science:
Any business that is starting up hardly ever has an abundance of funding for
operational or training expenses and costs have to be managed very well. One
of the highest costs in any business is staffing costs. These are not just
wage costs but even the benefits associated with it. There are taxes,
computer equipment, training, telephone bills, benefits that usually need to
be taken into consideration. Having added together all these costs, it is
easy to realise why any startup or growing small business should consider
outsourcing some of its business functions to Twenty47 Virtual Assistant and
be able to manage these costs. Twenty47 Virtual Assistant gives business
owners an opportunity to adjust their business support needs as and when
they want at much more economical rates. Because we understand that every
business aims to develop and grow we are committed to growing with it even
through transitions. That is why some of our clients, depending on the plan
signed up for, get to enjoy training on how to perform the outsourced
functions at the point they decide to do so.

 




"We manage to work with clients around the globe as long as they have
access to the internet and have work that can be carried out via the same
platform."


Tell us a little about your team

Twenty47 Virtual Assistant, being a new company, was a team of one up till
early 2016. With the growing workload, I realised I couldn't serve my
clients well if I continued to work on my own. I decided to hire a new
member of the team to compliment my skills and we have been working together
since. The beauty of our work is that we don't have to be at the same
location all the time. We normally communicate and update each other using
the phone, email and other technologies like Skype - the same technologies
we have also adopted to keep in touch and interact with our clients. The
team is bound to get bigger in the coming years as we continue to seek out
serving more clients across the globe.

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

My parents started a functions equipment hire business they have been
successfully running for the past 17 years. They are also involved in
farming. We used to work in the company or go to the farming fields on
holidays especially during the early days when the company was establishing
itself and we used to do help out with almost everything. Having seen how
building an empire for themselves gave my parents the financial freedom they
couldn't otherwise get from day jobs, I secretly wanted to own a big
corporation and lead a successful business too. However, this is not how my
life looked on the outside at all. I doubt there was anything
entrepreneurial about me growing up. I would see my friends hustling,
selling this and that and just could not see myself doing it too. It seemed
stressful and I didn't wanted that stress on top of my already stressful
career at the time. But it was that stressful job that led me to falling in
love with the idea of setting up this business and working for myself. This
is, therefore, my first startup back in 2014. My client base has been
growing from the time I started but given the nature of the business model,
some clients have come and gone. This journey has given me an opportunity to
learn a lot about business through a series of successes and failures.
Having watched how my father, for example, dealt with some sticky situations
in his business, I have been able to draw upon the same lessons and apply
them in Twenty47 Virtual Assistant. Some methods never get old, whilst
others can't be used anymore in 2016. My biggest lesson on this journey has
been to never stop learning. There is always something new and valuable to
learn from someone every day and my mind is constantly open to this.

 


"Our overall goal is to help our clients streamline business processes
through efficient information distribution, stakeholder relationship
management and resource utilisation."


 




What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

At the moment Twenty47 Virtual Assistant is serving small to medium sized
businesses, but I would want us to provide tailored outsourcing solutions to
larger corporations across the globe interested in doing business in various
African countries. I plan to leverage my experience in IT to design
solutions beneficial to large scale corporations in Africa seeking more
efficient and productive business processes. All these opportunities will
create room for people to be employed and help in the development of my
country and Africa at large, as unemployment is currently a huge problem on
the continent, especially in my country, Zimbabwe.

What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?

I particularly love being able to set my own goals and knowing that there
is no limit to what I want to achieve, and as long as we put in the effort,
the value enjoyed by our clients is immense, acknowledged and appreciated.
This makes it all worth it.

What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to
start-up?

Savour the process. There are going to be a lot of flavours you are going
to taste from working on your startup. Bitter, sweet and everything else in
between. It is this process where you draw your lessons and experiences.
Regardless of how you finish, always live to fight another day. It could be
in the same venture or a completely new one. Whatever it turns out to be,
remember it is the process that takes you where you desire to be. Live it.
Savour it. Enjoy it.-- lionessesofafrica

 



Tariro Makina, founder of Twenty47 Virtual Assistant (Zimbabwe)

 

Invest Wisely!

Bulls n Bears 

 

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