Time is money for self-taught watchmaker Masha

One Monday morning in 2019, unemployed Kholofelo Masha packed his bags, left his Mpumalanga home and headed to Johannesburg for greener pastures.

He found a backroom in Braamfischerville, Soweto, and from it, his watch-manufacturing business was born.

The 31-year-old from Lydenburg  named his company Xesha – his middle name. 

Xesha is based in Midrand and has seven employees – two junior watch makers, social media managers, photographers and an administrator. Xesha moved to Midrand in April.  

“As somebody who has loved watches all his life, I woke up one morning and I told myself I want to make my own watch. I went online and looked around at how other companies make their watches. At that time the drive for me was about bringing my own product to life,” said Masha.

Masha designed and produced his first watch in 2019 and it was called the Xesha Sapphire. It was bought by a client from Denmark for R1,000.

Masha started Xesha alone in April 2019 from the backroom he was renting in Soweto. He started the business with R6,000 from the money he saved from his previous job. He worked as a lab supervisor for a company in Pretoria before being retrenched in 2014.

Other designs of the watch include: Xesha Dzuneka, Xesha Desiree Skeleton, Xesha Busa, Xesha Military Blue and Grand Ambition Express.

Since 2019, Xesha has sold over 2,000 watches in SA and as far as Belgium, Hong Kong and the US, among other places. 

Masha, who has an analytical chemistry diploma from Tshwane University of Technology, said his short-term goal was to open a physical store at a busy mall before the end of 2022. 

He is now smiling all the way to the bank after receiving a R50,000 cash injection from the Shoprite retail group.

Masha is one of 20 small business owners who received a R50,000 cash prize, a laptop, digital and social media support, and access to a start-up circles ignition programme from Shoprite after entering the 2021 Shoprite Hustle Competition.

Masha said he was excited about the much-needed financial assistance his business received.

“We were very happy. We entered the competition because of the start-up circle ignition programme. I was actually at a stage where I felt like for the past few years that I have been running my business I have been more technical about the business. Meaning I cared so much about what was happening in the workshop.

“I was at a stage where I needed to transform myself as a business person. When I looked at the start-up circle programme, I realised that this is a place where you could learn how to conduct yourself as a businessperson and run your business much better than before,” said Masha.

He said he was looking forward to buying a new laptop so that he can run Xesha’s online store. 

“The R50,000 came in very handy because we were at a stage where we were looking for new machinery for our workshop so that we could continue doing our work very well and increase our production capacity. It shows that we are on the right track,” said Masha.