You do not mix friendship with business if you want a successful venture but that seems to be fast fading out as three gentlemen are seemingly breaking the Jinx of that old adage. Working and sticking together as a team is not something people can pull off easily and be successful if they decided to jointly venture into something.
However a team of three Makerere University students are riding high on working and sticking together as high school & campus friends and today, they’ve got that friendship to thank for the success of their wine venture. Niwagira Breach, Otai Marcel Tegu and Kaijage Josephat were tight buddies back in high school and went ahead to join campus and all did a Bachelor in Business Computing at MUK.
While at University, the trio started up a saving scheme and decided to venture in Mushroom supply in 2013 but the venture proved profitless and they decided to drop it because of enormous frustrations in the business. After graduating in 2015, they decided to enter the job market but they always had time to catch up for drinks as life and hustles tagged along.
Like one gentleman once said that ‘productive ideas are given birth to while in a bar’, being true and relating to that; the three gentlemen on a night out drinking came across an advert in the newspapers that was calling upon agriculture innovations and when they tried their luck, it paid off. They were to turn an idea into a product and that gave birth to the first ever coffee wine in Uganda with a brand name; Legend Dark Coffee Liqueur.
The product won the sponsorship and they were funded to take it up to a bigger stage. Today, the three Breach the Sales & Marketing manager, Otai Marcel the Procurement & Production Manager and Kaijage Josephat, the General Manager successfully run their business as friends.
Speakign to Campusbee, Josephat, the General Manager believes that sticking together as friends has got them this far.
Achievements
The team has seen their product come off as the fastest growing company and the hardwork has seen them get the Uganda National Bureau of Standards [UNBS] Standard Mark in just one year and they are eyeing the Quality Mark. As a reap from the business, the boys are able to fully depend on the business as their jobs, run errands and handle their upkeep.
”In a month, each of us is able to take home an income of close to 500,000shs to 1million as salary and this depends on the sales”, stresses Otai Marcel the Procurement and Production Manager.
Challenges
“We can’t seem to run away from challenges such as high rent charges and the fact that taxes seem to be increasing day by day,” notes Josephat the General Manger in a sad tone. The team also complains about the fact that the dollar rate affects them and the small scale operations make their product only known to a few.
However, plans of penetrating a wider market are getting underway as they plan on going global after capturing the Ugandan market fully.
The Campusbee reporter tasted the wine. The sweet but subtle taste and crisp clean scent of coffee makes this wine unmatched and it could be the next generation of drinkers especially Campus shawties.
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