This is the story of Sebabatso Mokone, owner of The Bakez and her journey to becoming what she describes as a “solid” Entrepreneur.
Sebabatso was born and raised in Zamdela, Sasolburg, where she attended Theha Setjhaba Primary School and Cedar Secondary School in Zamdela. Her early childhood memories are of her mother’s sisters raising her and her girl cousins, waking them up for school, preparing their lunch boxes, serving them breakfast and walking the three little ones to school every morning. After school her aunties would come fetch the girls at school and walk them home and after lunch help them with their homework. Sebabatso’s mother was a cook in Lethabo Power Stations’ Staff Canteen and used to come home on Fridays and month end to be with her and to bring home money to buy clothes and food for her.
“My mom was my inspiration. When she came home, she used to cook us the same meals that she prepared at the canteen and I enjoyed her food, it was so delicious”, she shares. She however chose baking as her craft. Sebabatso became a self-taught baker. “I started out scouring the internet for recipes, bought ingredients and experimented. My first recipe I baked was “slapkoek” for the family and it was not so nice” she giggles. “But I tried it again and it turned out so well that I posted a photo of it in on social media. To my surprise I got a response to my post and the person requested me to bake for her. I was so nervous and felt unprepared as I had no packaging or a logo for my business yet, but my first client loved my baking.” That spurred her on to bake and consistently post pictures on social media every day although she sometimes did not get one response for a month she persevered until her confidence grew. She never hesitated to tell every person who came across her path that she was a baker.
Sebabatso gets emotional when she recalls her journey. She remembers “taking my last three hundred rands that I was going to use to buy toiletries to buy the oil, flour and eggs for my first order.” She says although she did not make a profit on the first order she persevered. “It has not been an easy journey for my mother and I, but I had belief in God and in myself, that one day I would see the seeds that I was planting bring in a harvest, that no matter what I was going to make it!”
She weeps as she shares: “I am so grateful for my mother who is at my side, believing in me, supporting me. She cannot help me with the actual baking as she has a dislocated shoulder but keeps me company while I bake until two in the morning. She makes sure that the order is packed correctly and wakes me up in the morning reminding me of what needs to be delivered”.
She continues to share from her heart “I contemplate how Lusa Community Chest also believed and invested in me.” She recalls how her journey with Lusa started in 2018 while she was completing a welding learnership at Swift Skills Academy and attended Transformer Personal Development Programme and “Give yourself a Job” training at Lusa as part of her learnership sponsored by Staro Process Control. I was so equipped and inspired that I wanted to start my business then but I was doing welding and was doing well. Now I realise that everything happens when the time is right.
Sebabatso often remembered her training in 2018 at Lusa Community Chest and the facilitators she wished to visit. She experienced Lusa’s ethos that once you have attended one of Lusa’s impactful and life transformational programmes, you are forever part of the Lusa Family.
During 2024 her sister brought a Facebook advertisement to her attention, Lusa Community Chest was inviting unemployed or self-employed women between the ages of 18 to 40 to participate in The Abigail Enterprise. The purpose of The Abigail Enterprise programme is to empower women in South-Africa from disadvantaged backgrounds to become financially independent. The training includes personal mastery, psychometric testing, leadership, personal image branding, business and product branding, financial management, business management, marketing and mentoring. The aim of this programme is to help young women identify and develop their personal and entrepreneurial skills to run effective and profitable businesses, thus empowering them to be supportive of themselves and their families and to create opportunities to provide employment for other women. The most important learnings from this programme for her personally, Sibongile says, was the Financial Management that taught her to record all her transactions, the Emotional Intelligence and Personal Mastery that empowered her to become “emotionally intelligent, free and fit”. She learned how to communicate effectively with clients and deal with customer complaints, how to deal with disappointment, how to not react emotionally but to stop, think and respond in a calm and professional manner. All her legal company documents are in place and the HR training prepared her to employ other woman in the future.
Sebatso says that the way family, clients and the community see her has changed since she has completed the Abigail Enterprise Programme. She accredits this to how she presents herself as someone who takes her business seriously, has confidence in herself as a business woman and has gained business knowledge and acumen. She does not give discount to family or lend her business money to friends. Every day she tells her mother “Mama, this is business, this is the legacy that I am building.”
Thank you to all the sponsors who have invested in Sebabatso and in her business over the past 6 years.
Her acknowledgement and appreciation to ArcelorMittal South Africa includes a heartfelt plea and desire that this programme should continue to empower and support other young small businesswomen.
Her message to young woman who see their small business as a “side-hustle” is that they need to change their mindsets and to view themselves as an Entrepreneur. As an Entrepreneur one has to be emotionally fit; to take care of oneself and not give up. She thanks Lusa for developing and empowering her and others and giving them hope again.