- Itumeleng Lekomamyane grew his sandwich business in Johannesburg to a R20,000 a month business in six months.
- He used the R800 he owed for his daughter’s maintenance to start his business, and grew to four locations in January.
- He sleeps every day between 13:00 - 20:00 to start making sandwiches in time to sell them by 04:00 in the morning.
- For more stories go to www.BusinessInsider.co.za.
Within six months, twenty-seven-year-old Itumeleng Lekomamyane grew his sandwich business into a R20,000 a month enterprise with four locations across Johannesburg’s central business district (CBD).
Lekomamyane started Sandwich Nton Ntons in August 2019 when his clothing and embroidery business was struggling.
“I had a choice to either pay my three-year-old’s daughter’s maintenance, or use the R800 to start my business. I chose to rather risk it,” Lekomamyane told Business Insider South Africa.
“Everything I do, I do for my daughter. I want to give her the things that were never afforded to me.”
I started a new business today,it's called "sandwich nton ntons by ITU ??" based here in the CBD R18 each,to place your orders hit me up on WhatsApp on 0784273500 or call 0659372131 pic.twitter.com/0DkCiu9ThA
— Itumeleng (@sandwich_keeng) August 13, 2019
Lekomamyane started selling first at the MTN taxi rank in the CBD, before opening-up other locations at the Bree taxi rank, Standard Bank corner and most recently at the SABC studios in Auckland Park.
He usually tries to spend between three and four weeks at a location, building relationships with clients, before he hires someone to man the location when he moves on to start the next one.
“After a few weeks, the customers know me and know my offering; they trust what I am selling so I don’t have to be around anymore,” Lekomamyane says.
The people's breakfast will be back on the streets tomorrow morning at our various stations at 05:30 as #SandwichNtonNtons resumes for work in 2020@sammy_afrika at MTN @AneleBuma1 Standard bank Simmonds Total garage
— Itumeleng (@sandwich_keeng) January 5, 2020
Meshack at cnr Bree
May we all have a beautiful start pic.twitter.com/ci5PodFpEk
He and his business partner sleep everyday between 13:00 - 20:00, to start making sandwiches at 20:00 to 03:00, and start selling the sandwiches by 04:00 until 10:00 when he heads to the shops to go buy supplies for the next day.
Lekomamyane drops all his sellers in his small car every morning before 04:00, and twice a week he goes to the bank to deposit the money he made.
All of the sandwiches are handmade in the kitchen of his Newtown house and Lekomamyane calculated that he makes between 80 to 100% profit on all the sandwiches sold.
Lekomamyane says he specifically chose to sell sandwiches because it wasn’t available on the streets, and only sold in upmarket cafe’s. “The market was under served,” he says.
He has been sharing his business journey on Twitter where he has received a lot of praise, but says most of his clients do not find him through Twitter as they likely do not have social media.
This is Anele recently joined the #SandwichNtonNtons team he will be taking over from me at Total garage by Standard bank going forward,I'm now based at First National House, 26 Trump street to get a new market ????
— Itumeleng (@sandwich_keeng) November 27, 2019
Call or WhatsApp me on 0659372131 to place order and collect. pic.twitter.com/V7VyoFYbve
Lekomamyane, who grew up in Johannesburg and was unable to study further after matric, says he has experienced a lot of difficulties starting his business.
“When we started, the private security confiscated our sandwiches and we had to pay R700 to start renting a location at the taxi rank.”
“The metro police is also giving us a lot of trouble, asking us to move locations frequently.”
Lekomamyane says his big dream is to start a chain of shops across South Africa, and food trucks that can be positioned at events where people can buy his food.
“Maybe over a 100 coffee shop locations. When I get tired in, especially in the late morning, I think to myself that I am not where I want to be yet, and I keep pushing forward.”
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