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Student awash with awards for no-bath lotion
15 February 2012
A novel lotion, DryBath, has won its inventor (and UCT student) Ludwick Marishane top honours in the Global Student Entrepreneurship Award, contested by students from more than 42 countries.
Entrepreneurship comes naturally to Marishane. His long list of achievements on the business front, achieved in a short space of time, speaks for itself.
In fact, the Limpopo-born, third-year commerce student came to UCT through an Allan Gray Orbis Scholarship after his business acumen was identified while still at high school. It was a sign of things to come.
Last year Marishane shared third place in the South African Breweries Foundation's inaugural Innovation Awards, pocketing a whopping R150 000 in prize money.
This was after he scooped no fewer than six local and international accolades, thanks to his lotion, DryBath, described as a "bath-substituting product", invented and marketed by his company, Headboy Industries. DryBath is said to kill germs, moisturise the skin, and leave a sweet scent after it has been applied.
DryBath won Marishane the Audience's Choice award and the Most Promising Young Entrepreneur Award in the Singapore Management University's Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition in August; he was chosen as one of the 12 Brightest Young Minds in Google's Zeitgeist Young Minds Competition in May; he was named a runner-up in the start-up category of the Cape Town Entrepreneurship Competition in March; and he finished third in the UCT leg of the National Innovation Competition.
He has also been selected to represent South Africa at the Global Student Entrepreneurship Award event, for two consecutive years. In December 2012, on his second try, he took top honours at the competition. These triumphs fit in well with Marishane's goals. But it's been a long haul for him and DryBath.
After initial approval for DryBath, Marishane sought funding from 80 local and international investors - all in vain.
"They would tell me I was too young, or the idea wouldn't work, or the product would be too expensive for poor people," he explains.
That did not deter him, though, and he decided to enter a bunch of competitions to see if he could fund the business with prize money.
But more than just winning him cash, the competitions have helped Marishane expand his networks, and that is beginning to pay off.
The Accor Hotel Group piloted DryBath at their hotels in December, to see how consumers respond. That may well land him his first big client.
And if everything goes according to plan, DryBath could go on public sale in 2012.