I began with nothing.
With little academic endowment, Mr Maurer
worked for many years in hotels. He saw himself
doing menial duties such as cleaning and
bartending. As the years passed, he rose through
the ranks until he became a manager, thanks to
his hard work, commitment and attention to
detail.
During this time, his wife was running a pet
business. She operated a tuck shop selling small
things like cigarettes, biscuits and candy. This
enterprise exhibited potential, only if it operated
on a larger scale. Even though his formal job put
food on the table, Maurer knew his destiny: to
operate his own business. And he was more than
ready to begin carving a path towards it. Armed
with managerial experience from the hospitality
industry, he downed tools and set foot on an unchartered territory—retail.
I went through excruciating ordeals,
but I was resolute.
Realising this idea was not a walk in the
park. There was one seemingly
insurmountable stumbling block before
him. Acquiring seed capital was a
headache. He knocked on many doors and
all slammed on him; hard hitting
rejections. The locus of this challenge
that menaced the very existence of his
company was that banks and other
lending institutions were reluctant to facilitate an unsecured loan in his favour.
He had no tangible assets to put forth as
collateral for the loan. The land he lived
on was in his parents’ name. This is a major stumbling block for a majority of start
-ups and they usually fail to get off the
ground. At that end, he was utterly convinced that he had reached a cul-de-sac.