University student sells ice cream for cash

Joweria Ssebaduka

What you need to know:

Joweria Ssebaduka goes for lectures during morning hours, spends the entire afternoon selling ice cream and makes time for discussions in the evening.

Do you remember all the cash donations you used to receive while at university? I am talking about the money you used to get from your parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. What did you use it for? Did you spend all of it? How about the pocket money you used to get in high school? What did use it for?

For Joweria Ssebaduka, 21, a third year Business Computing student at Makerere University Business School, her entrepreneurial journey started as soon as she joined high school.

Humble beginnings

 As much as she wanted to excel in academics, she had a business idea that she wanted to see to fruition and she was smart enough to identify a business opportunity in her secondary school.

“There was no ice cream machine in my secondary school. But students loved ice cream. I knew if I bought the machine that makes ice cream, I would be a rich girl,” Ssebaduka says.

While many people shelve their ideas in anticipation of big sums of money to kickstart their businesses, Ssebaduka started saving her pocket money towards her dream. She requested the school bursar to save her pocket money.

When she joined A-Level, she found an ice cream machine at the school. Although she was disappointed, this did not thwart her determination.  “When I joined university, we did not have an ice cream point around Akamwesi hostel. My friends and I would walk up to Ideal Platinum Hostel to get ice cream. This rekindled my business idea,” she recounts. 

After identifying a strategic place near a restaurant, Ssebaduka needed to talk to the real estate manager at the hostel to secure space for her ice cream business.

In September 2019, during her second year at the university, Ssebaduka opened Jojo’s Ice Cream in Akamwesi Hostel in Nakawa, in Kampala.

Capital 

Ssebaduka had saved Shs2m. The machine was worth Shs5.5 million. She needed Shs300,000 to payrent, Shs700,000 to buy storage boxes, jerricans, coolers, basins, whiskers among other items.

For cones, milk and sugar, Ssebaduka would have to buy daily or monthly. To raise more money to get her business up and running, she asked her father for a contribution.

She also borrowed some money from her relatives and she spent the first months paying debts.  On the first day, she gave out free ice cream to her friends as a strategy hook clients. The following day, she started selling. 

Although she was the only one selling ice cream in that location, she did not become complacent. “I kept researching onlineto make my ice cream better and creamier. With time, the turn up was good andI was able to pay my rent,” says Ssebaduka.

Diversifying

Beyond her stall at the hostel, she also takes her ice-cream to events such as birthdays, school parties during weekends. She offers two different flavours each day. Asked how much she makes from her business, Ssebaduka says: “I can comfortably make a profit of Shs30,000 per day.  On some good days, I can make Shs50,000 from eight litres,” she says. 

Juggling school and business

Ssebaduka goes for lectures during morning hours and she gets time to tend to her business in the afternoon. She also has one employee who operates the business when she is busy with assignments, tests and examinations.

Future plans

Ssebaduka plans to expand her business and open an ice cream parlor with pastries.