Boikano Sikwane is the co-founder of Chuck Chilli an exciting brand of chilli condiments from Chuck Chilli Foods. After working in the finance departments of a few companies, including a bank and telecommunication companies, she became a stay at home mom for 5 years before the business was launched.
Chuck Chilli is a food condiment that comes in Mild, Original and Hot flavours to appeal to the wide spectrum of chilli lovers. The business uses different types of retailers, both physical stores and online stores, to reach their customers nationwide.
The business was launched due to encouragement from friends and family. The startup business comprises of a team of two people, Boitano Sikwane as the CEO and Tshepiso Manyoha as the COO.
Boikano Sikwane believes that Chuck Chilli is different from other chilli products because of its chunkiness, versatile use, secret spice and it is devoid of artificial preservatives, sugar or salt and also it’s not a sauce, unlike other chilli.
In her entrepreneurial journey, Boikano gains her satisfaction in the production process, seeing the product on any of the retail shelves, and she gets more gratification from the positive feedback that she constantly get from consumers. Her aspirations for the company is to increase the business capacity, so they can increase their footprint nationally and within the continent and beyond.
Boikano Sikwane’s biggest piece of advice to women starting up a business is that “Start with what you have, every step counts. Don’t get dissuaded by slow growth, it is when you are most likely to learn big lessons at a lower cost.”
We hope that you have learnt a few lessons from Boikano Sikwane startup story.
This article was culled from Lioness of Africa.
