Young Mokoena wants to clean your shoes
It’s something many of us are just too lazy to do. But, a Johannesburg youngster is making money from cleaning people’s dirty shoes!
At just 25, Lethabo Mokoena has gone from operating a shoe cleaning business from his backyard in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg, to winning a top entrepreneurship award.
In a month that South Africa celebrates its young people, Mokoena relays how he started his business of washing shoes in his township of Daveyton and saw it growing to several townships in Gauteng.
Mokoena started his shoe cleaning business, Walk Fresh, after he saw a gap in the market.
He says the idea came to him when he saw a young man from his township clean his mother’s sneakers.
“I thought to myself, I don’t like cleaning my own shoes and wouldn’t mind paying someone to wash my very own sneakers.”
That’s when Mokoena approached the guy and asked him how much he charged clients to wash their shoes.
He says the young man he spoke to said he washed people’s shoes for free. He didn’t see what he did as a business opportunity.
“And that’s why I started Walk Fresh,” says Mokoena.
The idea is the reason Mokoena won the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) South African Youth Award for the Entrepreneurship category in 2024.
Walk Fresh is a sneaker-cleaning and shoe-care company that polishes, repairs and refurbishes all types of shoes.
The company also offers services that include leather shoe care and polishing, as well as cleaning nubuck and suede shoes. Walk Fresh also sells inner soles, shoe laces and “anything to do with shoes,” Mokoena says.
Walk Fresh has since created four full-time jobs and one part-time job for previously unemployed people.
The company has seven drop-off stations in Johannesburg, Randburg, Benoni and Soweto. Walk Fresh handles an average of 250-300 pairs of footwear a month.
To start his business, Mokoena used all of his salary to buy cleaning supplies. The business initially operated from his friend’s backyard because they knew rent was too expensive for start-up companies, he says.
Mokoena says it was in 2024, a year after his company was in full operation that he decided to apply for funding from the NYDA.
The NYDA was established in 2009 to address challenges primarily faced by the youth such as unemployment, inequality and poverty.
NYDA’s grant programme provides young entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 – 35 with the opportunity to access financial and non-financial business support.
The programme focuses on youth entrepreneurs who are already in business and have shown signs of future success but are not yet fully developed.
Mokoena received a R50 000 grant from the NYDA.
He had to prove to the youth agency that Walk Fresh was a viable business.
He had to show how this grant would be beneficial to the business and the community.
“It took me a year to apply for anything from government. I wanted to see what I could do with my business and if I failed it would be on my head. I could not waste this opportunity,” he says.
By the time he approached the NYDA, Mokoena already had his annual turnover and future projections done.
He knew what returns he would have and how many people he would need to employ. He also knew the exact grant amount he needed to expand his business.
“This makes it easier for them to buy into you. You don’t give them a choice. You put them in a corner and say I’ve been doing this for a while and now, I need to expand,” he says.
He has also received a sponsorship from J&B Hive.
The Hive is a community of entrepreneurs and creatives in Johannesburg.
June is celebrated as Youth Month in South Africa, with a specific focus on 16 June, which is also known as Youth Day. This year marks the 41st anniversary of the Soweto uprisings. Government has been encouraging departments to focus on youth entrepreneurship as the central theme during the Youth Month. –SAnews.gov.za