In her own words
Where did your idea for Chewi come from? The idea was born from the digital move the world had taken as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the relocation of healthcare services from traditional to digital platforms. Originally, we had planned for Chewi to provide virtual medical consultations between people and their doctor, but realised that many healthcare professionals were all moving in that direction and that that market would soon be oversaturated. No one in South Africa had been focusing on pets and moving their services to a virtual platform. We thought of combining the virtual veterinary consultations with all the other needs that a pet has, such as grooming, nutrition and petsitting, and knew that bringing all of that onto one platform would make pet-parenting much easier.
What are the biggest lessons you have learnt about starting a business?
Q&A with Vuthlarhi Shirindza
88 | YO U R CA R E E R G U I D E 2022
I have learnt that it’s absolutely crucial to do your research: about your product or service, your target market, social marketing strategies, your competition, etc. The beauty of it all is that all this information is freely available, mostly on the internet, you just have to look. One of the tragedies that most businesses fall into is not researching enough on a particular topic, and resultantly investing a lot of time, energy and money trying to reinvent the wheel instead of applying tried and tested strategies. Although your product or service should be innovative, there is a set formula for success which involves taking the time to learn. If one does not spend adequate time learning and researching but instead rushes into the ‘doing’ part, one might sell themselves short and not yield the desired results.
