A Brief Dive into EESA with Merideth Baker

For as long as she can remember, Merideth Baker has always wanted to go to Cape Town. She doesn’t know why, nobody around her knows why, but the burning desire has always been prevalent.

“For some reason, I’ve always wanted to go to Cape Town. I don’t know what stemmed it. Nobody knows. My parents have told me I’ve talked about it since I was in middle school.”

Originally from Frederick, Maryland, and a transfer from Belmont University, Baker was drawn to CU through its beautiful campus and good environment. Leeds also made the decision easier for her, where she currently studies strategy and entrepreneurship. 

When she came across a summer program headed to South Africa, the timing made sense. She already planned to spend a full semester in Europe this upcoming spring, and a summer trip meant she could still check Cape Town off her list.

So initially, the program and curriculum itself was more of an afterthought.

"Honestly, I didn't know anything about [EESA]. I just knew that it was going to Cape Town, and that's what initially sparked my interest."

But the more she learned, the more it clicked. EESA (Entrepreneurship and Empowerment in South Africa) was built around working with real entrepreneurs, the same thing she had been studying in class. By the end of the summer, the trip she signed up for on a hunch had turned into what she calls a life-changing experience.

The Road to Cape Town

Long before Cape Town, Baker was already exercising an entrepreneurial mindset, through a simple business of her own.

At 12, she started a dog walking business in her neighborhood. It grew from there, and she kept walking and sitting dogs for neighbors the whole time she lived at home. She still has clients who book her when she’s back in Maryland.

Entrepreneurship runs in the family. Her mom owns a business, and Baker credits her parents' support as part of what drew her to the major. She hasn't settled on what she wants to build yet. One path she's considering is joining a startup, learning from the inside, and maybe starting her own venture down the road.

Her other training ground was the soccer field. Baker grew up playing and served as team captain for a year, though leading her peers didn't come naturally at first.

"Initially, I didn't really know how to lead people, especially my peers. I thought that was really hard. Over time, I kind of took more of an advocating, leading role and just learned how to lead people, but also listen to them as you're doing it."

Soccer taught her how to lead. Entrepreneurship taught her to adjust when plans change. These lessons followed her to Cape Town.

A Program With a Purpose

EESA pairs university students with entrepreneurs in Cape Town's townships, the city's more impoverished areas. Many of those business owners are running their companies without the systems they need to stay afloat.

Students work in small teams to change that. Baker's team had four American students, two from CU and two from Notre Dame, plus three students from UWC, the campus where the cohort stayed. Each team is assigned two entrepreneurs and spends the program building better systems for them, with the hope that the businesses can eventually grow.

For Baker’s team, the highlight was a mobile car wash and detailing business, very early on in the business’ life cycle. The owner was mostly detailing cars and sometimes accepting whatever customers pay.

While the program mainly revolved around the curriculum, they took advantage of whatever free time they had, where they rented an Airbnb in Camps Bay. Baker and a group from the cohort woke up early to go shark cage diving in freezing water, something she had no interest in doing until it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip.

But back at work, it was time to dig deep into the car wash business. 

It Has to Work

The team spent the first two weeks learning his business from the inside. They met with him to go through his financials, then built a SEE (Supporting Emerging Enterprises) model mapping out his business and the car wash market around it.

"You fall in love with your entrepreneur while you're there… He was so fun because we got to go into every single part of his business."

What they found was a business losing money on every car wash. Because he was driving around himself, gas became a huge expense, along with all his materials. Keeping track of any of it was nearly impossible. He had two part-time employees he paid in cash whenever money came in, and his only records were in a small notebook he sometimes wrote in. 

The second half of the program was about putting changes in place. The team set him up with a financial system that tracked his spending and kept his business money separate. They also designed flyers and business cards so he had something to hand out.

Sales took more work. Most of his customers lived in the townships and couldn't pay a price that covered his costs. So the team walked him through making sales calls to larger businesses, where he could wash several vehicles in one trip, and to customers willing to pay more than he had been charging.

Each team member took the lead on one piece. Baker took pricing, building a structure that would keep him from losing money on each job, with an added travel fee for longer drives.

It was a different kind of pressure than a class project.

"Within school, you can justify why something works, but there, it has to work because somebody will actually be paying that price and it has to cover his costs. So it was definitely a little more intense."

And it paid off. His happiness and gratitude brought the team to tears. He wanted the help, and he was eager to learn from every piece of it.

The Road Ahead

The work didn't end when the program did. 

Baker’s team still has a group chat with the owner. In a recent message, he shared that he had signed a six-month contract with a business to wash two of its vans every week, at a rate even higher than the price Baker’s team set.

That contract alone brings in more than he was ever making before, and that’s before he takes on any other clients. 

"It was really exciting to hear that it's working out for him and he has something at least somewhat stable to keep him going for now."

This is what EESA is for. It’s an opportunity for students to visit a beautiful, oftentimes unfamiliar place, while learning about its culture and helping the community. In this case, it helps communities through spreading entrepreneurial knowledge.

She signed up for EESA knowing almost nothing about it besides where it was going. Now she hopes other students give it a look.

"Honestly, everybody should at least look into [EESA]. I didn't even know what I was getting into before. Now I look back at my pictures and it makes me so happy I got to have that experience, and make an impact on other people's lives"