In 1998 I registered for the B. Comm Management course with Unisa in my pursuit of a private business enterprise. I resigned my 8 – 5 job as a Medical Technologist and moved to Natal. There I was offered the opportunity to work for nothing in a supermarket. The experience I gained in the supermarket, would be my reward. I was free to investigate any business opportunity that came along, and come and go on a flexi time schedule.

While I was working in the supermarket, I needed a big drywipe marker in order to change daily pricing on price cards. The other staff told me they could not find one in the shops. I set out to find one and to my amazement also found none. I then started to search and phone around for it at every possible stationer or manufacturer. Nobody could tell me of a similar marker or even supply or refer me to a supplier. I eventually phoned a company in Cape Town who manufactured pens for wholesale purposes. They did not have such a product and I left my contact details for future reference. That turned out to be the next day when they faxed me with an offer of exclusivity for such a product if I ordered a few thousand. I said YES to this challenge! Nine months later I had my first stock of WYPAMAKA.

WYPAMAKA is a drywipe white board marker with a broad nib of 10 mm enabling one to write much more visible than the ordinary white board markers. It hides easily in your top shirt pocket and is refillable.

Six months after launching the product, I am writing this article. One thing has been proven. It is not easy for a small entrepreneur in this big wide world of corporate businesses. Big companies buy from big companies, not from the small guys. They buy on contract. Then again, if you keep knocking, sometimes the door does open, even if it takes five months of knocking! I have sold from door-to-door, pavement-to-pavement and store-to-store averaging +/- 300 markers per month.

I am pressing on to find those consumers that for years have been waiting for this unique and versatile marker. I have become a white board PI. Everywhere I go, I privately investigate peoples’ white boards and their writing on it. I try and persuade them to buy the one marker with which they can write broad and fine, and present their writing in a professional way. People are so used to scratching up and down in order to get a nice fat letter " A or B " instead of using a thick nib marker like WYPAMAKA. Slowly I am creating a demand through supply.

I would like to see this marker established on the market, hanging next to the big permanent markers with the same nib size. Usually one would find two brands of big nib 10 mm permanent markers on the stationery shelves and it only would make sense to find a white board marker hanging next to it offering the same nib size. If there is a market for the one, there should be a market for the other.

I have approached most of the role players in the stationery business in South Africa and introduced the product personally. The next step would be to find a business partner to promote and advertise the use of this product and to market it on the internet and abroad.

WYPAMAKA fills the gap that people have been scratching for and it will also one day fill its gap in the economy.