inBUSINESS Issue 15

Swimming With the Blue Whales
For some people, the idea of starting a business came through a revelation that struck
them overnight while others are in business by default. For Botho Mokopotsa, a threehour
conversation with a highly successful businessman in Gaborone showed him what
to do when swimming with the big whales
Words: Malebogo Ratladi
Botho Mokopotsa is the founder and
Managing Director of One Man Journey
Construction Company, an outfit that
offers architectural, brick moulding, civil
and structural engineering services.
When he sat down for a conversation
that lasted for three hours with property
and media mogul Sayeed Jamali in
March 2014, this young man of 23 could
not have guessed that the dialogue
would become a wellspring for OMJ -
as his multi-faceted company is called
for short - that it has proved to be.
At that time, construction was just
a business venture that he wanted
to explore. “I met with Mr Jamali for
a lengthy three hours at his office at
Block 3,” Mokopotsa says. “He may not
remember what he told me, but to this
day I remember that meeting vividly
and almost every single word he said.”
He recalls also that a refrain that
Jamali, with whom he is a fellow Baha’i,
kept returning to was how saving is
critical to the growth of business. Any
business. Such an impact was the
conversation that he registered OMJ
three months later, having decided to
put school on hold.
He has a Certificate in law from
Gaborone Universal College where
should have progressed to the Diploma
level. Instead, he set up OMJ and
subsequently enrolled for accounting
with the Institute of Development
Management, a course that he is still
pursuing.
Today Mokopotsa speaks with pride
of how, having started from humble
beginnings, OMJ is a 30-man strong
company that bids competitively for
lucrative tenders in both the public and
private sectors. Within a year, he used
Jamali’s advice to set up Bluejack, a
subsidiary that moulds bricks.
“In business, it is not about the
problem but how to solve the
problem,” he says after revealing that
some investors abandoned him at
the beginning of this year inspite of a
healthy outlook for the company. As a
result of that experience, he wants to
turn OMJ into a company that will not
depend too much on investors.
Integral to such a ‘firewall’ are his
plans to branch into the hardware
business to sell building materials
directly to OMJ. More diversification
should also see this young man open a
garage.
Meanwhile, among other things,
Mokopotsa is driven by a desire to
make a mark on reducing the rate of
youth unemployment. To that end,
his vision is filled with opportunities
because in his view, there are still
gaps to fill in Botswana’s construction
industry. “On one hand, people
think there are too many construction
companies in Botswana,” he says.
“On the other,
Batswana are reluctant
to venture into
construction. Those who
do register construction
companies merely
angling for tenders and
soon after quit.”
But what are the challenges he has to
deal with? “Age,” comes the answer
straight away. He explains that there is
an attitude of “belittlement of young
people” that is often a problem.
“Clients often question the wisdom of
entrusting a lad in his junior 20s with a
million pula project,” Mokopotsa says.
“My project manager has had to take
over the duties of MD because clients
had trust issues with me because of my
age.”
A fun fact about One Man Journey is
that in the company’s stationery, the “e”
is missing from the “journey” because
the person who registered the company
on Mokopotsa’s behalf allegedly had
spelling issues. Nevertheless, it has
been three years since OMJ came into
being and the mainly one man’s journey
continues.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 15 | 2017 23