The next Elon Musk from Soweto

We saw Koketso Manziwa going viral on social media for his hustle, so we invited him to Debrief Labs to see what was driving it.

He arrived with a backpack and immediately began setting up a makeshift stall on our office table. He unpacked containers of sweets one by one, lined them up neatly, and put on gloves before touching anything. Every move was precise. At one point, he glanced around and joked that, given our location, he might have to raise the price of his sweet bundles. Even in a casual visit, the business mindset was on.

“It is being the next Elon Musk from Soweto,” he said, and you could see he meant it.

Koketso is a third-year business management student at the University of Johannesburg, based at the Soweto campus. Students know him for selling sweets, noodles, and study hampers, especially during exam season. But his entrepreneurial journey started long before university.

“It all started in Grade 9 during the time of COVID-19,” he explained. He walked roughly eight kilometres to school and back each day just to save thirteen rand. That small saving became his first capital. That high school hustle grew with him and carried him into university.

In his backpack, alongside the sweet containers, he carries one notebook. Lectures in the morning, sales in the afternoon. “So me, it’s theory to application, application to theory,” he said. What he learns in class is applied immediately in real life, where pricing, demand, and customer behaviour are lessons in action.

Unemployment in South Africa shaped his thinking early. “I’m selling because of the unemployment rate. I saw that as an opportunity,” he said. He didn’t wait to graduate into uncertainty; he started building while still in school and kept growing as he moved through university.

He draws inspiration from entrepreneurs like Theo Baloyi, DJ Sbu, and Vusi Thembekwayo. Last year, he started Peasant Kids in his township in Soweto, mentoring over twenty young people. He buys containers for them and teaches them to sell sweets while learning practical business lessons.

“We’re doing practical sales of sweets and they’ll be learning varieties of lessons practically,” he said.

By the end of the visit, the sweets were almost secondary. The backpack, the notebook, the gloves, and his vision were what remained.

“It is being the next Elon Musk from Soweto,” he repeated. This time it didn’t sound like ambition. It sounded inevitable.