After eight high-stakes episodes, a whopping 2.3 million views and an impressive R800 000 in prize money, Engen The Making Of (TMO) has crowned Mongezi Masombuka, a 31-year-old IT entrepreneur from Johannesburg, its inaugural winner.
A unique platform for entrepreneurs
Designed to challenge entrepreneurs and showcase the realities of creating market-ready products under pressure, TMO is not just a competition – it’s an experiential learning platform. The show aims to inspire entrepreneurs – and the viewers at home who learn alongside them – by providing a behind-the-scenes look at the strategic thinking, creativity, and resilience required to conceptualise a product or service that not only stands out in a competitive market but is also practical, novel and profitable.
Each episode pushed the contestants to develop a game-changing product or service that solves an industry-specific problem – in under four hours. From brief to product design, marketing strategies and investor pitches, the contestants had to consider every crucial step. Their prize? The members of the winning team split each episode’s R100 000 prize money equally between them.
A journey to redemption and victory
Mongezi’s journey in TMO was anything but straightforward. Despite being voted out in episode four, in an unexpected boomerang elimination his fellow contestants voted him back in, giving him a second chance to innovate and claim his share of the R800 000 prize money.
But it wasn’t just about the money for Mongezi, who has credited TMO with helping him grow as an entrepreneur: “The competition pushed me to realise that business problems and solutions can be solved very quickly. I’m even considering implementing a similar approach in my organisations, where a business problem has to be solved within four hours. It is possible.”
Reflecting on Mongezi’s victory, Sim Manqina, Engen’s Manager for Transformation & Stakeholder Engagement, remarked, “He was a very focused contestant – he had the X-factor and a winning mentality.”
Engen’s continued commitment to entrepreneurship
As the title sponsor of TMO, Engen reaffirmed its dedication to nurturing entrepreneurship in South Africa. Manqina further emphasised the program’s far-reaching impact, extending beyond the contestants themselves, saying, “TMO provides viewers with valuable insight into the world of business and the day-to-day pressures that entrepreneurs face when making critical decisions that impact the business.”
An impactful conclusion
With its innovative format, real-world challenges and high-stakes competition element, Engen The Making Of has cemented itself as a trailblazing programme in the entrepreneurial space.
All eight episodes of Engen The Making Of are available to watch on Facebook, YouTube and the TMO website.
About Engen The Making Of
The inaugural season of The Making Of is sponsored by Engen and powered by Raizcorp. It sees ten starting contestants navigate through a series of challenges designed to test their ability to conceptualise a game-changing product that is not only innovative, but also practical, marketable and profitable. To find out more, visit themaking-of.com
DID YOU KNOW?
Raizcorp is, according to The Economist, the only genuine incubator in Africa, which provides full-service enterprise and supplier development programmes that guide entrepreneurs to profitability. Raizcorp has created “Prosperation™” – its own unique, world-renowned model of business incubation. Founded in 2000, Raizcorp has become Africa’s premier business incubator model. For more information, visit raizcorp.com.
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