“Seeing an oblique future in the dancing profession that I had candidly pursued for years, I threw away the dream and started venturing into other things,” that’s the story of one Ashlee Nyathi a 23-year-old entrepreneur who has achieved what most young men of his age group can only wish for.
Nyathi is the founder of MegProm Trading a company that specializes in kapenta selling.
Before venturing into kapenta selling, Nyathi had always loved to dance and dreamt of becoming a professional dancer one day.
But, fate had other plans for him following an eye-opening experience at Zim Talent talent search where he contested and lost.
“I was one of the contestants during Zim Talent’s 2015 edition where I realised that it was pointless to pursue dancing. I performed very well but because all the attention would go to musicians I was chucked out of the talent show.
“This was the turning point that made me realise I could never make it in Zimbabwe through dancing. I decided to venture into kapenta selling business,” said Nyathi.
He retraced his humble beginnings from one 50kg bag of kapenta to today where he now affords over 50 bags per load from Mozambique.
“So after that experience, I aborted my dream to pursue kapenta selling, starting with one bag. I gradually built from that one bag to two, three, four going up and because of my consistency, my clientele base here in Mbare started to grow and I moved from the small corner I used to operate from moving to a bigger shop,” said the 23-year-old.
Nyathi spoke of how his life has changed through the kapenta business.
“From then on, I started to gain momentum, and my life started to change for better also. Today, about four years since venturing into this business, I am a proud owner of three properties, two in the avenues area and one in Madokero. I can now afford a holiday trip to Dubai, something that I had always wished for,” he said.
However, Nyathi did not totally trash his dancing dream as he plans to start a program that will accommodate dancers and allow them to pursue the dreams.
“I may have failed to achieve my dancing dream but I would love to assist a lot of dancers out there who may have lost hope like I did, and come up with a program that will accommodate them,” he said.
