She said it all started 30 years ago when she was developing her garden at home. By then she was just following her passion without knowing that it would at some point pay her bills.
By then her garden was also coming up nicely catching the eye of passers-by and neighbours who started asking to take pictures in her garden. As many requests started pouring in, she then realised that she could monetise her garden and started charging a fee for photoshoots.
“As a housewife, I had ample time and was always idling doing nothing. Instead, I decided to use my time effectively to come up with ideas to make money. I then took some of my savings to buy a sewing machine and started making curtains for my household. People liked them and with that orders started pouring in giving me the confidence to start making other products,” she said.
Her sewing business also started picking pace as she made different designs for her clientele, which included brides, bridesmaids, as well as people who wanted to dress up at parties.
“I couldn’t stop and was always thinking of doing something. When we moved to the flats, I realised that our neighbours needed home-cooked meals as most of them were always buying takeaways from restaurants. I started cooking and selling food to them. The business started booming as I got more clients. Some started asking me to cater for their children’s parties. I started with orders to cater for 10 people and the numbers kept growing till I was catering for a crowd of 100,” she said.
There was no turning back for the serial entrepreneur who then decided to take some of the profits from her businesses to expand and become a fully-fledged catering and decor company. She bought a tent with chairs, plates, cups, spoons, and drapings giving birth to Wame Catering and Decor Company. They started providing services at parties, funerals, weddings, and events across the country. By then, the business was booming as there was only a handful of them providing those services.
Unfortunately, as the years went by, many players entered the space, which made competition tough for her. She said recently her business has been on the downhill, due to the fact that some of her clients fail to return all the inventory that they hired.
This has, however, pushed the serial entrepreneur to come up with other ways of making money, hosting tea parties for women's gatherings, kgotla meetings, and other special functions. As a natural-born creative, she says she will still find ways of penetrating the market as she usually markets her business through social media and word of mouth. “Businesses need someone dedicated and patient. You need to know that there are challenges which are there to make you stronger not to break you,” she said. Tlagae-Tsele also has a cause where as Kika Charity Organisation she normally donates to schools.
