Dreams on wheels take flight, help create jobs

Sungula Nkabinde

Lynne Scullard, founder of Scully Scooters, hopes to make a dent in South Africa’s unemployment problem by teaching people how to ride scooters.

She bought a scooter a few years ago to cut costs and, after paying R50 to fill up her tank, she realised there was an opportunity in the scooter business. Now she runs training for McDonald’s delivery people, and is behind all the Sheshatuk TukTuk drivers in the Sandton area.

“I call it pavement entrepre- neurship,” says Scullard. “We take people who have no job and no hope of finding one and put them through a training programme where they learn to ride a scooter safely, with the intention of getting them a job. Or, through our enterprise development programme, we give them further skills on how to run a business and help them to get their mobile small business started.”

Scully Scooters trains riders and covers their learners’ license fees. It makes money through partnerships with other businesses, such as fast-food restaurants and other companies that have delivery as a value-add service. They pay them for their recruitment services.

Operating in Cape Town and Johannesburg, the company has trained close to 800 people, creating almost 300 jobs. Now, with the backing of investment holding company Talent10, which recently bought a 51% stake in the business, Scully Scooters is about to embark on an accelerated growth path.

Talent10 founder Joe Bester says the plan is to see SA emulate many of the eastern economies, where scooters are one of the main modes of transport.