Lunga Momoza: The most expensive intern in South Africa

MOST people in tech start a career as interns and ultimately they become CEOs and if they start a business they also become tech founders. It’s rare for anyone to start as a founder and to later become an intern. This has been the case with Lunga Momoza, which makes him probably one of the most expensive interns in South Africa.

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When I first met Momoza I was deeply impressed by how he had spotted an opportunity in assisting township traders to stock for goods.

His business story partly began in 2019 when Momoza enrolled at Stellenbosch University. Although he did not really know what studies to pursue when he came to the institution, he ended up enrolling for studies in philosophy, politics and economics.

Momoza grew up in a township environment and got exposed to local people who had to become entrepreneurs to survive. One of them was his aunt who was a street vendor. The entrepreneurship bug also got to him as a result while pursuing his studies he had a “side hustle”. He was selling muffins to fellow students in the residences. Unfortunately Covid-19 killed his side hustle and he had to find other ways of pursuing his business interests.

During this period he was struck by how small businesses (including his own) were affected by the pandemic.

To him the fact that street vendors, like his aunt, could not access Covid-19 relief due to the fact that they were not registered was very strange and it did not make sense.