With a budding singing career and duties as a warrant officer to fulfil, Thapelo Molomo has found time in his busy schedule to start a side hustle of selling eggs and atchaar.

Though the Idols South Africa season 18 winner might have walked away with a prize package worth more than R1m, he wants to motivate his fans to create opportunities for themselves.

 

 
“I’m not broke. I’m just trying to impact people’s lives. I invested the cash prize in a home for my family. I needed to get myself involved in a small project. Me selling eggs and atchaar is motivation for the youth and musicians to create employment for themselves instead of waiting for it.

“Creating employment for ourselves does not require you to think too big. With R500 you can buy a box of eggs, get profit and build from that,” he told TshisaLIVE.

Thapelo works as a psychologist at Brits police station in North West, and is working on launching his debut EP soon. This business venture with his friends Sipho Khoza and Tinashe Ndlovu was a project he felt he had to take on.

“I manage all these things by creating a smart time management table. I know midweek I’m at work, then after hours I deliver my atchaar and eggs, then I go to the studio, weekends I do gigs, so I’m hustling.”

Thapelo says he hopes to see his business grow so he can take it to the next level.

“I’m mobile; people order and I drive my old car to deliver, but I’m planning to open a shop.”

Gaining stardom through Idols SA has made Thapelo even more recognisable in his community but he says he has no shame in them seeing him start small.

“My fans are happy to see me motivating the youth; they like that so much.”