It is in this industry that, Zimbabwean born, Taurai Jack found his big financial break after bouncing from industry to industry in search for the financial freedom of his dream. All this was as a means to set himself and his family free, socio economically.
“ I was a foster child. Not because both of my parents passed away unexpectedly and I got‘ plugged into the system’ but because my parents abandoned me by their choices. My biological mother left me in a soccer stadium when I was only around two months old.
“ Like many children in South Africa, I didn’ t have a mom and dad I could fall back onto when things became financially challenging. When life wasn’ t working out the way I had dreamed or hoped for. I had to decide, on my own, how I would respond. These challenges built the tenacity in me to succeed and the drive to work three times harder than my counterparts so I could create a legacy of substance,” Jack says.
First Exposure to Business Growing up, Jack’ s business minded grandmother, street vendor with a vegetable market in Harare, Zimbabwe inspired the zeal in Jack’ s passion in business. During the school holidays he would join his old lady and work for some pocket money, which assisted in providing food for his family.
“ I learned a lot from Gogo and I am grateful for those times. Deciding to work in that veggie market was one of the many reactions to challenging situations that moulded me into thinking creatively about income generation,” he says.
Like any other young child from a disadvantaged background, after finishing his schooling, Jack looked for employment and got employed with the banking sector. He says upon learning that there were possible retrenchments at his job he decided to be proactive and look for other streams of making money.
“ I began looking for alternative streams of income before retrenchment became a reality for me. I thought,‘ How do I keep ahead of inflation? How can I build and sustain the lifestyle I envision for myself?”
So, I started a car rental business in the days before Uber. We eventually sold the cars for a profit and ploughed the money into new businesses.
Car Rental- His first business ventures as an entrepreneur was a car rental business which didn’ t last long before selling the cars to start another one.
SA Real Estate Investor Magazine JULY 2021 23