SHOWBIZ 48 www.inbusiness.co.bw | <strong>Issue</strong> <strong>12</strong> | 2017
“RASP” MOIPOLAI: From ‘Small is Beautiful’ to ‘Bigger is Better’ NATASHA SELATO tells the story of the deejay who taught social studies and made the full circle to events management The story of Morapedi Moipolia is about never taking more than you can chew. With his parents running a lodge in Gaborone, the young man grew up in a business environment but went on to practise E. F. Schumacher’s principles of starting small as a surer way to growth. Hence Audio Tech began as a small sound leasing company that had only two speakers to its name in 2004. Morapedi had identified a gap in the sound and technical support aspect of event management because most existing companies had no equipment of their own. However, having to hire equipment from South Africa - which was the norm then – was resulting in two undesirables: lost employment opportunities and exorbitant charges on clients. “Local companies had resigned themselves to the dependency syndrome,” Morapedi remembers. Today Audio Tech is an award winning outfit whose track record is adorned by big calendar events like the All Africa Games and Fashion Without Borders. At its career fair for this year, the Human Resource Development Council could not miss the company for the outstanding layout at stalls that it had designed. Morapedi - a child of Gaborone’s aspirant middle-class neighbourhood of Extension 2 where he grew up with eight siblings - is proud to say he runs a 100% citizen-owned events management company that is making its mark in sound and stage. He will even go further and say he develops native talent. Of course, this is “Rasp” whose parents were the proprietors of Boiketlo Lodge; the selfsame deejay who used to mix and spin ‘em discs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He always aimed to one day become a businessman. Accordingly, his early life is marked by membership of Junior Achievement Botswana (JAB), an organisation that encourages early entrepreneurship and teaches young people how to regard the education that they receive today as a pathway to future success. Moipolia was a student at Gaborone Senior Secondary School then, having gone to Ben Thema Primary School and Nanogang Junior Secondary School before. As it turned out, he planted a seed for the future by spending his JAB days as a deejay, mainly at weddings. A glimmer of the academic glowed in 1998 when Moipolai spent his Tirerelo Sechaba stint as teacher of social studies and a badminton coach at a Molalatau school. He then entered Botswana Accountancy College in 1999 to study towards AAT. After a few years of going in and out of jobs that young people seem wonted to - including an early attempt at owning a business (MODMAX) - Moipololai was still pursuing a professional accountancy course when he joined the staff of Botswana Housing Corporation in 2005. That is where the ‘bean counter’ gained his good grounding in working with figures because he only left the housing agency last year. Now a full AAT Level 4 and dedicated to Audio Tech, happy clients are spreading the word that doing business with this outfit is worth every thebe. In addition to sound and stage, the company has expanded into lighting, plasma television, video production, road shows, photography, media management, catering and corporate gifts, among others. The list of happy clients includes Kgalagadi Breweries, FNB, and Hotwire. “The most memorable time was when we scooped two awards at the HRDC career fair,” Moipolai says. “But we often experience problems like customers who don’t want us to work with any of their competitors, the occasional miscommunication with a client, new technologies, and our own competition. We try to plan ahead for those we can anticipate and tackle those that arise unexpectedly. “ Attending annual media technology fairs in South Africa, exploring the East in China and Singapore, maintaining a website and having a continuous presence on social networks are important for Auto Tech to keep ahead of the competition. Presently situated at Broadhurst Industrial, the company is planning to relocate to a bigger address at G-West Industrial for more space this year. Now a married man with two delightful daughters, Moipolai has come full circle from his days as a deejay to running a fully-fledged events management business that employs eight people. Such is the success story of Auto Tech that having embraced the principle of “Small is Beautiful” when it started out in 2004, Moiplolai is now becoming an advocate of “Bigger is Better.” This is encapsulated in his parting shot: “Go big or go home,” he says www.inbusiness.co.bw | <strong>Issue</strong> <strong>12</strong> | 2017 49