A twenty five year old Lehlohonolo Ts’eisa, popularly known as “Boots,” is a fourth year student of Bachelor of Commerce at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). He is redefining the magic ticket to good life!
He and nine other graduates from Lerotholi Polytechnic (LP) and Centre for Accounting Studies (CAS) have ventured into a tricky construction business, and succeeded! Even more, the fearless risk-taking youngsters are already creating jobs.
Drawing from his accounting skills, “Boots” joined forces with his colleagues to form a company called 10 Talents Design Build Construction (Pty) Ltd. It is a small emerging company of designers founded in November 2014. After winning a fuel injection of M100, 000 from the LNDC Business Plan Competition, the company never looked back.
10 Talents is not your typical construction company. It is a one-stop-shop that brings together expertise from various construction disciplines. A clear reflection of the diverse knowledge and skills of those who breathed life into it.
Among its successes, the company has worked on a subcontracting project, building a road from Oxbow to Mokhotlong. It dealt with a reconstruction of stone pitch. They employed 23 workers, each earning no less than M2500 in the project.
Mr “Boots” does not hesitate to delve into his philosophy of life driven by his passion for business. He thinks we live in a new era in which life isn’t as simple as our parents had set out. “Go to school, get good grades, and get a good paying job.” Somewhere along the road the cycle gets broken. We go to school, get good grades but struggle to find a job. It is a typical story of an average local graduate.
With this reality in mind, he has joined a host of other local youngsters who are beginning to think out loud. Should students still come to school with the aim of getting good grades, so that they can guarantee a good paying job when jobs are becoming ever scarce? While school is fundamental to him, he is not sold into a survival mentality that is crippling some in his generation.
He thinks many need a new mindset; urgently. For him times have and changed so should we. So he has devised a premise for the new cycle that parents should inculcate in their children. The new cycle now should be; “go to school, acquire knowledge and create something out of it,” just as he and his colleagues are already doing.
With this peculiar worldview, Mr “Boots” and his colleagues could not have been more prepared to meet the challenges of the world of business head on.
Their company never smooth-sailed from the onset. Like many aspiring entrepreneurs they had capital problems. However, this never discouraged them, in fact the preyed on their challenges.
They started off with savings from their NMDS allowances. And later got a huge boost from LNDC Business Plan Competition where their plan was among the top 4 that got a cut of M100, 000.00! The competition was organised by LNDC in conjunction with UNESCO under a program called STEP.
That was a far cry compared to where they launched. They say you can never dim the light that shines from within. When they started, 10 Talents didn’t have an office to operate in; “Boots” and his colleagues would meet at LNDC’s open space in Maseru.
As they endured the scorching sun, and put up with rains and dust in the open, they just couldn’t allow anything to come between them and their dream. Today, the same company operates from Tradoratte Complex in Maseru, what a change!
Young as it is, 10 Talents is already engaged in social corporate responsibility campaigns. It rewarded best performers at Morapeli High School both at high school and secondary level.
Apparently, “Boots” has other interests too. Apart from being the chairperson of the board at 10 Talents, Boots considers himself as an entertainer. One would say a comedian with great impact on social media. He achieved 500+ attendances on his trial show in one of the NUL classrooms, DTF 117, earlier this year. His is also a radio presenter at Dope FM. Besides, he is currently working on his motivational book entitled: “A dream of yesterday.”
With folks like “Boots” in view, the sun is getting brighter and brighter until full day light!
This blog post was originally written by NUL Research and Innovations