Book feature: Vuyo's

Vuyo’s

From A Big Big Dreamer to Living The Dream By Miles Kubheka

(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 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