Civil Engineering October 2021 | Vol 29 No 9

Civil Engineering October 2021 35 Entrepreneursh i p Tell us about how you established Experts on the Go and your experiences growing your business. MM  I come from an entrepreneurial background and knew from a very young age that I wanted to be my own boss. My dad, who is an entrepreneur, set a good example and I pursued entrepreneur- ship early, running a tuckshop in high school. This sparked my love for money growing and set me on the path towards starting my own business. After graduating in 2010 and joining the corporate world, I quickly realised that, as an innovative person who wants to break boundaries, my long-term goal was not to remain in this space. I was working at Arup as a junior engineer when I became vocal to my boss about wanting to pursue my dream of starting my own business. When I resigned in 2017 my boss told me that she would only accept my resignation if I was leaving to start my own business. I told her I was, and that she was going to help me. At the time I was managing a project for Arup, and the company contracted me to continue working on this project. Thus, Experts on the Go was born, and Arup made it a targeted enterprise under its supplier development programme. This meant that I was given a workstation, as well as access to resources and Arup expertise where needed. I relied on Arup a lot for work during my first year of opera- tions. I then went on to tender for two big SANRAL projects and was awarded both. One was through a joint venture and the other was as Experts on the Go alone. These contracts really fuelled the business’ growth and my staff compliment increased to 10 employees. I also opened an office in the Northern Cape to run one of the projects which was based in the region, while the other project in Mpumalanga was managed from our Gauteng office. These contracts ran for three years, both ending this year. We have also just been appointed on three new projects for SANRAL, which is very encouraging and requires us to increase our staff compliment even further with additional engineers. Two of the awarded contracts are through a targeted enterprise partnership with ROMH as a requirement from SANRAL which aims to advance the broad participation of black-owned enter- prises through their transformation policy. These contracts will allow us to tackle more technical work as our previous contracts were more project management focused. We have also been awarded contracts with the Eastern Cape Department of Transport, which includes developing their Provincial Land Transport Framework. Arup was not able to renew our contract last year, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it really pushed us out of our comfort zone and forced us to grow. We have since managed to purchase our own office space, which is a major achievement. The company has grown tremendously since 2017 and we now provide consulting engineering services across South Africa in the fields of traffic engineering, transport engineering and planning, structural engineering and project management, and we are now also exploring project development in the renewable energy space. What were some of your biggest challenges and successes as an entrepreneur? MM  The biggest challenge early on was cashflow. When I was subcontracting to Arup, the client would pay them within 30 days, and I would get paid thereafter. I experienced a lot of financial strain during that time and at times found myself for- going my salary in order to pay staff. Now, as an SME working directly for SANRAL, they pay us within 7 to 14 days. However, this does not guarantee that they will pay on time. I once went three months without being paid on time and I wanted to throw in the towel, but I decided to visit Lessons from an entrepreneur on the go This article is the latest in a series of interviews with young entrepreneurs working in the civil engineering space. Civil Engineering spoke to Mmanake Mokitimi, a professional engineer, wife, mother, MBA candidate, and director of Experts on the Go, about her experiences as an entrepreneur. Mmanake Mokitimi, director of Experts on the Go