London-based Ghanaian entrepreneur and computer science specialist Patrick Adom is inducting children into the fascinating world of jigsaw puzzles while teaching them about African culture.



AS COUNTRIES begin to grapple with the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic, rapid adoption of activities outside the traditional content- streaming platforms is now beginning to gain traction.



The puzzles market is one such. Focusing on jigsaw and 3D puzzles as well as board games, it was estimated to be worth a staggering $11.88 billion globally in 2019 and on track to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.6% from 2020 to 2027, according to Grand View Research.



The lockdowns implemented the world over spelled disaster for many who lost their jobs and livelihoods.



But Patrick Adom, a computer science specialist, saw a silver lining. Inspired by his daughter, the IT professional decided to see it as an opportunity and take a chunk of the lucrative puzzles market with his African-inspired creation, Very Puzzled.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Africans are patriotic and want to pass down their heritage to their family. So, our sales have grown..”</blockquote>



Known for its success in improved visual and enhanced cognitive skills, Adom wanted to create a jigsaw concept that not only helped people learn more about Africa and the African diaspora, but also something that was fun and engaging for the whole family.



“I wanted children to be able to also learn without realizing that they are learning anything, and [offer] something the family can do together and start a conversation and use that to do further exploration on their own,” says Adom.



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50050" width="357" height="237" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 357px) 100vw, 357px" /><figcaption>Photo supplied </figcaption></figure></div>



After graduating from Kingston University in the United Kingdom (UK), where he studied Computer and Information Systems in 2000, Adom continued his further education with an MBA in general management from Liverpool University before working in various roles within the IT industry.



But throughout his career, the entrepreneurial bug which bit him when in secondary school, where he would buy and sell hip-hop posters to his fellow classmates, was always looking for an awakening.



“I saw that there were not a lot of things around my daughter that focused on her cultural heritage and I thought jigsaw puzzles were an innovative route that nobody was doing. I found an illustrator and it so happened that the illustrator had a map of Africa that was very bright and colorful that resonated with me and so I reached out and asked if it could be customized for me.



“They agreed and I paid them and they delivered the customization I wanted. I then looked on a platform called Alibaba and from there, I was able to secure a manufacturer in China. I made 100 pieces to test the market and reached out to black-owned shops in London to generate buzz about the products and also using Instagram and social media to let people know about the product,” says Adom.



His hard work paid off. Very soon, the products were out and people were buying it.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I made 100 pieces to test the market and reached out to black-owned shops in London.”</blockquote>



Now, Adom has his eyes set on raising further investment and funding to expand the company’s unique offering. He began drilling down and creating puzzles for other countries like his hometown Ghana, South Africa, and Jamaica. 



“Africans are patriotic and want to pass down their heritage to their family. So, our sales have grown and we continue to add more stockists to our list and that helps grow the business as well. We reached the bold decision to approach a number of premiership clubs to make their own jigsaw puzzles for them featuring their intellectual property and we got licensing agreements with four premiership clubs so that was a huge success for us,&#8221; says Adom. 



The move comes at a cost as Adom has to pay licensing fee to the clubs, a risky move but one he needs to make to help broaden the appeal to a wider pool of consumers, the key to draw in the ever-elusive tranche of investors who will eventually help his business scale, and he can make his own indelible mark on the map of Africa.

Patrick Adom

The Entrepreneur Who is Piecing Africa Together One Puzzle At a Time

Self-made Ghanaian entrepreneur Nana Kwame Bediako bought his first car by age 16 and made a million pounds in the United Kingdom before he turned 21. The fearless, unabashedly ambitious property tycoon is now on a mission to transform Accra’s skyline.



The bigger the risk, the maximum the return.



That’s the mantra of Nana Kwame Bediako, a real estate mogul who has had stints in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ghana over the past decade, and who has always believed in hunting for opportunity in the midst of a crisis.



Take, for instance his decision to drop out of the University of Westminster in the UK after six months, only to make a million pounds by the age of 21. Bediako, who turned an entrepreneur by age eight, when he started his own poultry business to support his cash-strapped single mother, continues to stay undeterred in the face of challenges.



Meeting Bediako is like having an encounter with a young presidential aspirant. He is fearless, ambitious and revolutionary in his foresight of building an Africa the world has never seen before.



And then there is his belief in a higher power. Bediako attributes his lucky streak in business to an inner voice which he says has steered him in the right direction ever since he was a child. His company Wonda World Estates is on a mission to not only change the skyline of Accra but also to show the diaspora community that they too can return home and add value to the development of Africa.



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That mission has birthed a real estate portfolio that boasts over 560 homes in Ghana and one of the most ambitious projects in the West African region, Petronia City, an industrial park, which will become a petrochemical cluster in Africa. The project, once completed, will be a 2,000-acre city development project that will provide the first fully-integrated business hub for West Africa’s oil, gas and mining industries, according to the 40-year-old entrepreneur.



“To secure the land, I had to convince 60 families, six chiefs and three sub-division chiefs to embrace my vision,” recalls Bediako.



Feats like these and other remarkable landmark projects have made him a household name in Ghana. But even while Bediako became a name to reckon with in the country, it hasn’t been smooth sailing all the way. A mix of factors such as luck and ambition has paved the way for Bediako to succeed. Above all else, he credits that inner voice, for helping him identify the right moves to make.



A voice he first heard in Kumasi, a suburb of Ghana, located 300km from Accra. “My mother was broke and penniless but my father had money. One day, he gave both my brother and I money and I told my brother not to spend it and use it to help my mum. The next thing I saw, he had gone out to buy bread and eggs, which was a luxury at the time, with his money. I was very angry with him,” says Bediako.



His anger at his brother quickly turned into a hunger to make money. He decided he would buy a hen and cock with his money and start a poultry business to help his mother.



Very soon, the business was producing over 200 eggs a month.



Then came the second instruction he heard.



“My father was extremely rich and my mother was broke so I heard a voice again that said I should pursue my father to get a better education. So, I moved to Accra and started going to secondary school before I went to London to attend Waltham Forest College,” says Bediako.



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As he grew older and succeeded in his ventures, Bediako began to credit that voice to ‘God’. One of those directions led to him selling clothes from the back of his car in college and turning a tidy profit in the process.



“I was selling Versace jeans and YSL shirts which were fake and I was buying them from a guy called John who used to bring them from China. The whole school was buying from me and that’s where I started making my ends meet and bought my first car by the age of 16.”



Another moment of crisis would prove instrumental in creating real wealth for Bediako.



“They clamped my car in college three times. The first and second time I paid £45 and by the third time, I was angry and I thought the security was taking advantage of me. So, I loosened the tire and removed the clamp out of the tire and out of anger, I took the clamp with me and put it in the boot of my car. At that time, I had a white friend called Peter Smith who was a locksmith and he offered me £65 for the clamp.”



That was the Eureka moment for Bediako.



The scrap metal industry remains a vital sector for the UK economy. It is estimated that about 10 million tonnes of scrap metal is recycled in Britain every year. According to a report published by metal recycling specialists, Maxilead Metals, the UK scrap metal industry is worth an estimated £5 billion.



“So, I thought if I could get a clamp, I get £65 but then later on I realized I needed the steel itself, not the clamp. I started buying scrap from scavengers and crushing them and turning them into the steel yard and selling it,” says Bediako.



An idea today is a fortune tomorrow. Bediako dropped out of Westminster because he felt he had nothing more to learn about business. The young blood serial entrepreneur moved swiftly from selling scrap metal into the telecommunications sector with his next business idea, Global Telecommunications and Utilities (GTU). Fortune was soon to follow. The year was 1999 and the internet, which was widely known as the Global Market at the time, was still in its bubble stage.



Bediako created a company that billed people when they went online to carry out transactions. Helped by the dotcom sensation, an Indian investor soon approached him to buy his company for £327,000.



“My lawyer told me to refuse the offer and the investor came back with £410,000 which I took and then just added it to my savings and it shot up. That’s how I made my first million pounds and it inspired me to go ahead. I realized that if you build a company and do it well, you can make a lot of money. Then God told me to come to Africa.”



That final instruction is what has made Bediako the property tycoon he is today. His rapid growth and success is based on one simple principle, maximization.



“From the beginning, when I got my first land, something told me ‘why don’t you build two houses on one plot instead of one house on one plot’? I had four plots of land. So, when I did that, eventually’ I built eight houses on one plot instead of four houses and subsequently sold them and that’s the secret of my business.”



Today’ his company easily builds about 108 apartments on 1,500sqm of land. His passion is to free the mindset of African entrepreneurs from their limiting beliefs in order to strive for excellence. After conquering the property sector in Ghana, Bediako has his eyes firmly set on Hollywood where along with his new moniker, Freedom Jacob Ceasar, he hopes to show America’s A-listers, that Africa is the next bastion of economic development.

Nana Kwame Bediako CV-20192

Nerves Of Steel: This Ambitious Property Tycoon Is On A Mission To Transform Accra’s Skyline

Ntokozo Hadebe had just started his business when South Africa went into lockdown. He is hoping he will be able to recover payments and keep his enterprise alive. 



Ntokozo Hadebe, an occupational health and safety (OHS) entrepreneur from Soweto, Johannesburg, only recently founded his own business, BNH Pty/Ltd, a consulting and training business concerned with the health, safety and welfare of workers. 



Little did Hadebe know that a killer virus would shut down South Africa. He had just opened shop, and the timing could not have been worse.



“Business had to stop all operations due to the lockdown. I had already invoiced clients and processed jobs that I had recently done. Going into lockdown, I had to put jobs on hold that were scheduled and paid for. I also had quotes awaiting approval and they too were put on hold,” he says.



Like many small businesses, the three-week lockdown in South Africa has affected his operations too; and he, like many of counterparts in business, are uncertain if the lockdown will be extended.



At this point, he is unsure of the business recovery plan of his clients, as that would inadvertently affect payments.



“Recovery is also going to depend on my clients’ strategies. After this crisis is over and business operations continue as normal, I am not sure if my clients will have a budget for me because of the financial constraints they may have incurred during this lockdown. This leaves me in a very tight corner for me to continue to provide my services,” he says.



Hadebe is using this period to strategize and find ways to help BNH recover because, “if there is no operation, there is no income for the business, meaning, I can’t grow the business going forward.”



He is currently surviving on previous payments but also mindful of cash-flow issues for running costs once business kicks off again.



“In a nutshell, I have to use a hand-to-mouth system in order to survive. At least I have settled costs incurred with my suppliers and other service providers, like printers. But for now, I have nothing else coming in at all.”



Hadebe had earlier been employed at a company but quit because he felt he wasn’t getting the support he needed and decided starting his own entity would satiate his hunger.



The lockdown is a harsh learning curve and he hopes he will become a tougher entrepreneur as a result.

Blessed Ntokozo Hadebe

‘Hand-To-Mouth To Survive’: A New Entrepreneur Banks On Hope During Lockdown

Johanna Mukoki  grew up in Apartheid South Africa in the 1970s. Her family struggled to make ends meet—her father was a bus driver and her mother a teacher. To help out with their finances Mukoki spent her weekends selling ice cream, boiled eggs and raw meat on the busy streets of Soweto, Johannesburg. It was on these streets that she honed her entrepreneurial skills. It didn’t matter to her that she occasionally had to walk to school barefoot, when the kids would make fun of her, because it all added fuel to the fire, burning inside her, with the desire to prosper in life.
At home, although money was tight, inspiration was plenty. She was motivated by the books her father encouraged her to read, such as How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Convey. From a young age she learnt that the key to success was not just about having a gift but that it required hard work and determination.
“I told my mom that I was going to work very hard to make sure that we never had to struggle again.”
In high school, Mukoki traded in selling for a successful modeling career. Her protective father accompanied her to every TV shoot and beauty pageant and his support kept her going. With the money she made from modeling Mukoki was able to support her family for an entire month. She recalls a song her mother always sang that went, “The little things you do for me they so
please me.”
The promising entrepreneur completed her B.Com degree at Rhodes University, where she became the first black student to tutor accounting. Life was going well for Mukoki until she hit another crossroads.
In her final year of completing her articles at KPMG, formally known as Aiken &amp; Carter, she was approached by many firms, which wanted to hire her. In those days qualified, black, female accountants were in short supply. Each offer made was better than the previous and Mukoki came to a sudden realization.
“If these people really think that there is value in me then I need to work for me, I need to invest in me.”
Uncertain of which direction she would take, all she knew was that she didn’t want to become a grey auditor for the rest of her life. When Mukoki was introduced to Tibor Zsadanyi and Robert Wilke, her partners in the company, it was a match made in heaven. They all had the same dream and vision for the company. Travel With Flair (TWF) started with three members of staff and one green-striped couch; they have since grown into a leading travel management company on the continent with a staff of 550 people. It has branches in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town and KwaZulu-Natal. If you visit their Pretoria offices you will find the original green-striped couch at the front reception.
“It’s a good way to remind one of where one came from. Those humbling experiences take you back and help you find your equilibrium,” she says.
For the past three years, TWF has won the ‘Africa’s Leading Business Travel Agency’ Award at the World Travel Awards. The company is worth an estimated R1.8 billion ($205.7 million) and credits much of its success to their ability to be pioneers in the industry. It was the first travel agency in the country to have SMS confirmation, e-confirmation and email boarding passes to passengers.
“Travel is dynamic and forever changing and if we are going to stay at the top we have to move with it.”
The road to creating one of the top travel companies in South Africa did not come without difficulties. Mukoki faced many problems.
“The first three years were a challenge. I would end up going without a salary because we had to pay employees’ salaries first.”
Being a black woman made acquiring finance from the bank difficult and there was also the challenge of finding regular clients. Their breakthrough came after they landed their first account with the University of Venda and business snowballed from there. Mukoki pushed on through the hard times because she believes that anything worth having needs to be worked for.
Mukoki’s hard work has garnered much recognition. Throughout her career she has won many awards including being named South Africa’s most influential women in business and government for the Tourism Sector by CEO Magazine and Top Woman of the Year in Business 2009/2010 at the Impumelelo Awards. She is also the first African to be appointed on the Global Tourism Board of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), which represents Africa and the Middle East; she is also the youngest person on
the board.
When it comes to managing her team Mukoki tries to lead by example.
“I treat everyone from the cleaners to the senior managers with the same amount of respect. When you do that, people serve with a joyful heart.”
After 16 years of being in the business Mukoki can say that she has achieved what she defines as success.
“Success is something that you are doing daily that makes you [jump out of] bed in the morning and still pays your bills.”
Some of the best fashion advice she received came from author and talk show host, Felicia Mabuza-Suttle.
“Dress for the title you want and not for the job that you are in,”
says Mabuza.
To all aspiring entrepreneurs, Mukoki offers the same advice her father gave to her.
“He always used to say, ‘People are attracted to those that glow.’ That is why I always aim to represent the best version of myself.”

Tag: Entrepreneurial

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Entrepreneur Who is Piecing Africa Together One Puzzle At a Time

Nerves Of Steel: This Ambitious Property Tycoon Is On A Mission To Transform Accra’s Skyline

‘Hand-To-Mouth To Survive’: A New Entrepreneur Banks On Hope During Lockdown

One Who Glows