Staritude Solutions Builds Business Support Platform for Entrepreneurs

Staritude Solutions started in January 2024, when Boitumelo and Naledi Moroke, sisters and both single mothers, sat down at a kitchen table in Johannesburg with no savings and no jobs.

“We had a laptop, a Wi-Fi connection, and each other,” they say.

When the kitchen table was no longer enough, they moved their work to the local library. “That was our office. That was our grind.” The sisters had noticed a common problem among small businesses around them. The work that keeps a business running is often the work owners struggle to find time for, from answering emails and scheduling appointments to following up with clients.

They decided to build a business around taking those tasks off entrepreneurs' hands.

Turning skills and persistence into a business

Both sisters hold advanced degrees, but their qualifications had not translated into employment. South Africa's unemployment rate also remains higher among women, with female graduates facing an unemployment rate of 15.0%, compared with 8.9% for male graduates.

Instead of waiting for another opportunity, the sisters continued developing their skills through additional courses. They were focused on building capabilities that could help them create a sustainable business.

With no clients at the beginning, they volunteered their services to build a portfolio.

“One client became two, and two became four,” they say.

Today, Staritude Solutions works with businesses in sectors including travel, non-profit organisations, construction and delivery. The sisters' previous volunteering experience in solar, construction and other industries has also helped them understand the different needs of their clients.

Both have since developed their skills through ALX and formally registered Staritude Solutions as a business.

Building recurring support for growing businesses

The company works with a range of clients, from solopreneurs looking for basic administrative support to growing teams requiring more extensive assistance. Where standard packages do not fit, the sisters develop arrangements around the specific needs of each business.

“We're the sisters who turned ‘I'll do it later’ into ‘It's already done,’” says Boitumelo.

That captures the service Staritude Solutions provides: recurring support that gives entrepreneurs more time to focus on revenue-generating activities and growing their businesses.

For the sisters, every client they help creates more room for that business to expand. The growth of Staritude Solutions also demonstrates how an idea developed with limited resources can become a sustainable small enterprise.

Turning experience into a new business

For Boitumelo Moeca, co-founder of Covo, the route into entrepreneurship also began with identifying a gap in the market.

“I didn't follow a straight path, but each step shaped where I am today,” she says.

Her career began with a digital marketing and creative agency, where she helped small brands manage influencer campaigns, social media and content creation.

That experience exposed her to a recurring problem in the relationship between brands and influencers.

“Over time, I saw the gaps in connecting brands and influencers, which led me to create Covo,” she says.

Covo grew out of that experience, with the business focused on creating a more effective connection between brands looking for exposure and influencers looking for commercial opportunities.

The stories of Staritude Solutions and Covo reflect a common route into entrepreneurship: identifying a practical problem through work or personal experience, developing the skills to address it and gradually turning that solution into a business. For the founders, the starting point was not significant capital or an established corporate network. It was recognising an opportunity and building from what they had.