Vuyo’s
From A Big Big Dreamer to Living The Dream By Miles Kubheka
Image: Mariki Uitenweerde
(Tracey McDonald Publishers, 2016)
It started with the TV commercial for Hansa Pilsener, featuring a character called Vuyo – a “big, big dreamer” who succeeds in business. Miles Kubheka (BCom 2000, MM 2009), who was working in IT at the time, decided to register “Vuyo’s” as a trademark and bring the character to life. From selling boerewors rolls at a mobile vending cart, he went on to open a restaurant, first in Braamfontein and then in Soweto’s famous Vilakazi Street. Now he has produced a book of lessons learned from his business journey. “If there was a recipe out there that guaranteed true success we would all be devouring it,” he says. Conditions change all the time, and people have different tastes. What’s more, he says, we might learn more from people’s failures than from their “recipe for success”.
In an interview on BBC radio, Melrose said that she saw parallels between Johannesburg and the post-war London setting of Mrs Dalloway, both cities holding “untreated grief”. She explained that the book does not pretend to represent all of Johannesburg, though it depicts the city through the eyes of several very different characters. However, it does respond to her observation of a “huge divide between people who are seen and heard and those who are not”. The novel is described as “a love song to a city and a manifesto on love”. WR
Image: Taryn Millar
In his book (Tracey McDonald Publishers) he says one big lesson for him was the importance of reading: profit and loss statements, contracts, business books – everything you can. Kubheka also shares what he learned about legalities, locations, marketing and funding to grow a business. WR
71
