As a young man growing up on the East side of South Africa, KwaZulu Natal, Charles used to see his grandmother’s business keeping her sweat and knew that it his destiny of having his business too. No matter how it strained his grandma, he simply knew he would be an entrepreneur.
Charles Mbhele who is Twenty-one years of age loves entrepreneurship and had a vision of starting a business since he was young. His grandmother had the greatest impacted on his dream. He chose to move and permanently stay in Port Elizabeth since 2017 because he saw there were a lot of business opportunities.
“I don’t have a role model but my grand mom, I don’t look up to somebody or whatever but my grand mom, like it’s just my thing. Maybe I could say my grandmother in a sense that she had a business, I inherited that gene.”
On 2017 he and James Mokoena referred to his business partner at the time, started a project called Master Innovation and Master High Pressure Cleaning South Africa situated in New Brighten. The project was about serving the needs of Port Elizabeth and a country as the whole. But most importantly creating employment and uplifting the community. They for example hired people who were eighteen years and above just for them to make pocket money. They offered various high-pressure cleaning services like roof top cleaning, car washing etc. He left the project to start his own business.
“I’m very committed to entrepreneurship, it is my first priority then come school, that’s how committed I am.”
In July 2018, he established Quiqstart and referred it to be born by Master Innovation. Quiqstart is a business that is mostly about a bicycle rental service for all students. It is developed after there was an observation that, there was a need for an alternative reliable means of transport. It also considers the way of reducing pollution and promote recycling by working on paperless system, electronic payment and e-receipt. It supports cash and card payments and most likely Intelli for NSFAS users as it is based on students. Although it does not want to exclude from benefiting from its service.
Currently it is for Nelson Mandela University students but hoping to provide bicycles for all students of South African as the company continues to grow. It is now situated at North campus. The rent for students is R20.00 for a half day, R25.00 for 24 hours and R200.00 for 5 days. For general public for 1 hour is it R80.00 and for 2 hours it is R150. If you want to extend it for 2 hours again, you only add R50.00. the business operates 24 hours in all seven days of the week.
It has no physical office online but an online platform. When a student wants to offer a bicycle, they book it using Quiqstart app or websites provided on Facebook page, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter. They call back to confirm if it is available or not. If it is then students go and take it at North campus and whenever they done using it bring it back to North. There is no obligate or fixed contract for rentals, it is flexible, meaning that students can cancel the offer anytime they want to.
“We do not really have suppliers and we do not contract with them. But with customers, they have a lot of power in a sense that flexibility is number one. You can take the bike anytime you like, and you can return it anytime you like. We don’t have contracts like obligatory contracts in a sense that it’s like a fixed agreement. You can cancel it anytime basically we got flexibility and flexibility is power.”
He had hired 3 members who are to help him make students rental experience amazing. These members are Gugu Mngomezulu, Phonsto Chuene and Ongezwa Konkwana who are also students. The reason he chose to make a team of students is the fact that they will make it easy for other students to put in motion the service.
There were workshops made, there are sales made also, there are free rentals made. This is done in the intention to attract and inform more students of the service.
In all the company progress, he had come across some challenge as any other businessman would. Some bikes get broken or need to be maintained. It requires his time and money to fix them. He does that by himself and sometimes get assistance when his team is free hence, they are students.
“First challenge is maintenance like the bikes take up a lot of time maintaining them I mean look at my hands right now. I have to fix these bikes almost every week and it’s costing a lot of money and time.”
The distinction about his business is that, it is all of its kind in South Africa specifically in Port Elizabeth, in a sense that it is located in the student environment. There is no other rental company in South Africa of bikes for students. Secondly, it has an online platform, everything is autonomous, it is the matter of someone going to where bikes are situated to pick it. And lastly, it is the most rental company, not just most rental company but even car rentals. It means that when they you want you to pay deposit and at Quiqstart they do not charge you a deposit.
“My vision with my team is to have bicycles everywhere, high schools, universities, on primary schools and even in shopping centers. We are aiming is to provide mobility solutions for students as it is the first of its own kind.”
Andisiwe Sifembela 