The woman who helped launch Bidorbuy and traded one matchstick for office space

Over 18 years ago, Telana Simpson launched the One Matchstick project — an experiment to trade from a single matchstick up to office space for a startup.

She had been inspired by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian who was trying to trade up from one paperclip to a house. He had been inspired by a childhood game and icebreaker exercise.

MacDonald completed his project in under a year, in large part thanks to the huge global publicity he had attracted.

The amount of attention even puzzled him, with MacDonald telling the BBC: “A lot of people have been asking how I’ve stirred up so much publicity around the project, and my simple answer is: ‘I have no idea.’”

When Simpson launched her project on 11 June 2006, it wasn’t clear that MacDonald would succeed, although, in hindsight, he was just one trade away.

However, while her One Matchstick journey began nearly twenty years ago, Simpson’s fascination with entrepreneurship began much earlier than that.

In August 1999, she helped Bidorbuy founder Andy Higgins launch what would become one of South Africa’s major e-commerce players from the floor of her study in Durban.

“I was Andy’s first employee in Bidorbuy’s startup phase, which I think sparked my interest in startup entrepreneurship,” Simpson said.

She sent out the first marketing emails to help grow the site and recalled that there were very few items for sale on the platform.

To spark interest, Higgins put his own laptop up for auction.

Simpson said they just hoped no one would bid high enough as Bidorbuy was running through that laptop, and they desperately needed it.

They also launched R10,000 giveaways to boost site registrations. To promote these competitions, they printed fake R10,000 notes and handed them out all over Johannesburg.

Nearly 25 years later, Higgins would be part of Simpson’s final trade to secure office space and support for an entrepreneur for six months.

Andy Higgins and Telana Simpson

Her first few trades were fast and furious, trading for a green pen, Rodrigus the stuffed toy frog, three business books, two cases of wine, and two weekends in the foothills of the Magaliesberg.

Five trades in four months.

Here, Simpson hits her first snag, which she solves a year later by splitting the holiday into two weekends and selling them for R3,000 cash.

Roughly a year later, Simpson exchanged the cash for a balloon safari with champagne breakfast for two near Hartebeespoort.

Six months after that, in March 2009, she traded the balloon safari to DJ “Al Your Pal” for a gig for up to 150 people.

In August 2009, she traded the gig for 375 T-shirts, which would be sold through Springleap.com.

As part of the deal, Simpson agreed to wear Springleap T-shirts every day for as long as it took to trade away all her stock.

She sold the last one more than two years later, on 21 September 2011.

After taking a break, Simpson announced on 31 January 2012 that her next trade was a private house party for up to 200 people with rock band Wonderboom.

More than two years later, she traded the concert for three boxes of tech, including headsets, a solar charger for mobile devices, cases, bags, and a heart rate monitor.

Telana Simpson with Wonderboom to secure the “Rock the House” trade

Here, the project stalled. Between 2014 and 2022, she could not secure a trade from the boxes of tech to whatever the next step might be.

Then, in August 2022, she had a breakthrough.

Rather than trying to trade blindly forward, Simpson had found the person who would be her future landlord — Allon Raiz.

Raiz provided a list of items he wanted in exchange for six months’ rent, and Simpson set about working backwards from that.

In a multi-part trade that was finalised in February 2024, she exchanged the box of tech as well as her own expertise as a podcast host, trainer, and coach for:

• A Raizcorp-branded lectern
• Blinds for the training room windows
• 2× big plasma TV screens for presentations
• Projector

With the office space secured began the next challenge — finding an entrepreneur to share it with.

Telana Simpson

After months of searching, Simpson announced that Maurice Kande was the winner.

He also received an IT Support package from Cognosys to take his consulting business to the next level.

Kande is a business consultant, ghostwriter, and editor. His consulting firm offers sworn translation services in all of South Africa’s official languages, among other things.

“It is so great to be the recipient of the final gift built through a trade mechanism that took years. I will honour your gift by maximising it,” Kande promised Simpson.

“Your story proves that courage, belief and determination can lead a person very far. When I think that you started it with One Matchstick, I realise that anything can be possible!”