inBUSINESS Issue 12

“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 | Issue 12 | 2017 49