From River Water to Retail Revolution: The Man Who Engineered Sixty60

Long before a grocery order could land on your doorstep in 60 minutes, the boy who would make it possible was fetching water from a river. Vutlharhi “Donald” Valoyi, the founder behind the tech engine that powers Checkers Sixty60, grew up in Ntshuxi village, Limpopo, in a home without electricity or running water.

His journey from that village to building South Africa’s most popular on-demand delivery service is a story of relentless ambition, self-taught discipline, and a belief that world-class technology can be built anywhere.

The Ambition That Outpaced a Classroom

In a village where mining was the predominant career path, Valoyi dreamed of becoming an engineer. But his ambition hit a wall in high school when he discovered that no one in his grade was taking higher-grade mathematics. The reason was simple: there was no teacher to teach it.

Unwilling to accept this limit, Valoyi took his education into his own hands. He spent his December holiday poring over textbooks and past exam papers, mastering the entire syllabus before school even reopened in January. That self-driven grit would become a hallmark of his career.

He pursued a BSc in Mathematics at Wits University, a path that led him into the world of software engineering. For years, he honed his skills at companies like FNB, climbing the ranks to technical team lead. But in 2013, he stepped away to build something of his own.

The Zulzi Idea: An Hour or Less

That something was Zulzi. It began as an e-commerce platform for students, promising delivery of books and electronics in an hour or less. That core conceptradical speed and conveniencewould later become the blueprint for a grocery revolution.

The startup’s sophisticated technology caught the eye of retail giant Checkers. At a time when the retailer had no legacy systems holding it back, it saw a unique opportunity in Valoyi’s agile startup. Zulzi was tasked with building everything: the customer-facing app, the complex order-allocation engine, the store-facing tools, and a real-time product replacement system.

The result was Sixty60, which launched just before the Covid-19 pandemic and quickly became a household name. “Sixty60 has been a huge success and an example of what we can do when we work together,” Valoyi reflected, emphasising the need for big corporations to be flexible and partner with innovative startups.

Beyond Groceries: Delivering Cows in 15 Minutes

Today, Valoyi’s company, Zulzi, still maintains the Sixty60 platform with a team of over 34 engineers. But he hasn’t stopped innovating. His own revamped Zulzi app now processes over 5,000 daily orders from its dark stores, boasting an average delivery time of just 17 minutes.

His vision continues to push boundaries in unexpected ways. What started as a jokeon-demand cattle deliverybecame a reality. “It started as a joke,” Valoyi said, “and now we have sold 15 cows within 15 minutes at Zulzi.”

From a village in Limpopo to the forefront of South African retail tech, Donald Valoyi’s story is a powerful testament to how a single driven individual, armed with a great idea and relentless determination, can change the way an entire nation shops.

{Source: MyBroadband}

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