About Masello
Hailing from the Free State, 22-year-old South African entrepreneur Masello Mokhoro has a deep passion for nature, community, and socioeconomic change. The rising young leader holds an advanced diploma in agricultural management and has served as a peer mentor and an active member of student organizations.
Transition into Entrepreneurship
A desire to attain long-term financial stability and independence propelled Masello to start her own business. She sought to relieve her family of the pressures of supporting her university journey through allowances. However, this sense of duty caused concern, as her mother and grandmother thought she would drop out of school all together, in pursuit of entrepreneurial endeavors. Determined, Masello assured them that she could run a business while continuing with her studies. Buoyed by her family’s approval, she ventured into the world of agribusiness. Masello leveraged the resources around her, securing broilers and piglets, as well as access to land, to launch her venture.
Business Profile
Formally established in 2019, Starlicious Enterprises is an agribusiness whose primary operation is the rearing of broilers and pigs for sale to local individual buyers. Purchased as day old chicks, the broilers go on sale at six weeks old. While rearing the broilers in her backyard, Masello is raising the pigs on municipal communal land. Preference for more naturally produced meat over pre-packaged store-bought brine meat seems to have grown in the community. Where Masello used to procure 50 chicks per six-week cycle, she now doubles her stock to meet this rising demand.
Masello’s journey illustrates how academic training, passion, and family support can intersect to unlock entrepreneurial success.
