Startup Picnic Venture Studio, in partnership with Bula Buka Publishers and iZwily, has announced a funded opportunity to co-found and build a book printing company in South Africa.
This opportunity is aimed at an experienced and motivated Print Operator / Production Lead who will take a founding role in establishing and running a new printing operation from the ground up.
The venture forms part of a broader ecosystem powered by iZwily.com, a unified ordering and ERP platform designed to connect authors, publishers, and bookstores through streamlined production and fulfilment workflows. Through this system, books are produced based on real purchase orders and distributed into major South African retail channels, including Exclusive Books, Bargain Books, Van Schaik, and Takealot.
This printing company and iZwily form part of a broader initiative called BookVentures, a portfolio of ventures focused on building the infrastructure for African publishing, distribution, and intellectual property scaling.
Importantly, the printing operation is designed not only as a traditional production facility, but as the foundation of a technology-enabled printing and fulfilment business, evolving toward a fully integrated print-on-demand and digital production system.
The selected candidate will co-found and lead the establishment of the printing operation, taking full responsibility for building it from the ground up. Responsibilities include designing and implementing end-to-end production workflows from pre-press to fulfilment, selecting and managing printing equipment (digital and/or offset), establishing production teams, implementing print-on-demand capability including single-copy production, integrating operations with iZwily’s ordering and ERP platform, and ensuring scalable, efficient, high-quality output.
This is a funded founding opportunity with equity participation and long-term upside aligned to the growth of the business.
A venture studio is an organisation that builds startups internally rather than only investing in them, by identifying opportunities, developing business models, assembling founding teams, and providing shared capital, strategy, and operational support to accelerate the creation and scaling of new companies. Startup Picnic Venture Studio applies this model by building and co-founding ventures across publishing, technology, and African intellectual property infrastructure, turning identified opportunities into structured, scalable businesses with integrated execution support from inception to growth.
iZwily is the first startup to emerge from Startup Picnic Venture Studio, which evolved from Startup Picnic, a Johannesburg-based entrepreneur network founded by Tiisetso Maloma, who is also the founder of Bula Buka Publishers. “Startup Picnic was about connecting entrepreneurs,” says Maloma. “Now it’s about building with them. We’re turning Africa’s creative energy into structured, scalable, and investable ventures.”
This initiative also forms part of a broader Enterprise Development and Enterprise Supplier Development (ESD) programme aimed at strengthening local SME participation in the publishing and printing value chain. The programme supports the development of new SMEs in the printing sector, strengthens local supply chain capability, builds operational and technical skills, and enables long-term supplier integration within the book industry.
Bula Buka Publishers is a South African publishing and distribution company focused on developing and bringing African stories to market. Through its distribution arm, it works with major retail outlets across the country.
Interested candidates are invited to apply or refer suitable individuals. Applications close on 30 June 2026, with shortlisting taking place on a rolling basis. Apply here and visit https://startuppicnic.co.za for more information.