After graduation, I thought I was ready. I thought the world owed me. Kruger had taught me patience, Univen had taught me strategy, but the city? The city had a way of humbling you so fast your teeth rattle. I moved to a small flat in Limpopo, walls thin enough to hear my neighbours arguing over nothing and everything. Electricity sometimes went out for days, and water was a miracle that appeared when it felt like it. This was reality — and reality was hungry.
I tried my hand at small ventures. Buying and selling second-hand electronics, fixing old cars, even helping out at a local tuck shop for a cut of the profit. Every day felt like walking on a blade's edge. People tried to cheat me, steal from me, or laugh at me. But I had one advantage: I knew hunger. I knew the sting of having nothing. And that made me relentless.
It was during these struggles that I learned the unspoken rules: trust sparingly, work harder than everyone else, and pay attention to the ones who smile too much. The city is full of faces that promise loyalty but carry knives in their pockets. I made my first few small wins, and they tasted like blood and sugar — bitter and sweet at the same time.
I met Nathi around this time, a sharp-minded guy from Soweto with a knack for numbers and a thirst for opportunity. We teamed up, pooling our meager resources. Our first business was modest — fixing and flipping old rental furniture for students. The profit wasn't much, but it taught me about investment, risk, and patience. More importantly, it taught me about betrayal. One week, Nathi disappeared with a portion of the profits, leaving me to explain to angry clients and landlords why their money was gone. I could have cursed him, hunted him down. But I didn't. I filed it under "lessons learned" and moved on, sharper, colder.
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Chapter 4: The City Calls
By the time I turned twenty-four, I had built a reputation — not one of a man to mess with, but one who was scrappy, resourceful, and unafraid. The multi-rental property deal wasn't yet on the horizon, but the idea of it had started whispering in my ear like a low wind through the acacia back home. I wanted assets, not just profit. I wanted something that couldn't be stolen with a crooked hand.
The city was a different kind of jungle. Cars honked like wild animals, buildings reached skyward like predators, and people's eyes darted constantly — searching, calculating. I learned to blend in, to watch, to wait. Every conversation was a test. Every handshake, a contract. I learned that the hustle didn't stop when the sun went down — it went into the night, into the late-night calls, into deals made in half-lit offices where every word could make or break you.
I landed my first serious mentorship with a property developer, a man named Mr. Khumalo. He saw something in me, maybe desperation, maybe fire, maybe both. He let me shadow him, showing me how property could build wealth, how patience and negotiation could turn a decrepit block into gold. I absorbed it all. I knew the day would come when I'd take these lessons and turn them into my empire.
But before that day came, I had to survive the grind. I faced landlords who didn't pay their taxes, tenants who trashed their apartments, partners who betrayed agreements. I fell asleep on concrete floors more times than I can count, and I learned to eat the bitterness of failure without complaint. Each mistake was a brick in the foundation of my ambition. And slowly, very slowly, the city started to feel like home.