Joseph Manasa Tukana

While on the constant hunt for young entrepreneurs, our team got word of Joseph Manasa Tukana, a budding tech entrepreneur and founder of a brilliant online business – GetHub. Despite running on a tight schedule and as you can imagine, minimal sleep, we’re thankful Manasa made time to catch up with us to share his story. Motivated by his family and chasing his dream of solving a unique problem within his community, we hope you’re inspired by Manasa as much as we are. 

What do you do, and how did you get into it?

At the moment, I build sexy, engaging websites for organisations to improve their online presence, and I charge an affordable price for it (because sometimes people in my field really overcharge).

It’s a fun job but my real passion is building a product online that solves a particular pain point people have. So I started a web platform called GetHub that’s like Gumtree but for university students here in Fiji. During my first year in university I saw how hard it was buying second hand textbooks and thought “why cant someone just build a website to solve that problem?” and that’s what I’ve set out to do.

How I got into this? I’ll give you the short version – I was a party freak and never contributed any value to my family. That was until my Mum was diagnosed with cancer. It made me realise I could lose my parents at any given time.

My perspective changed and I wanted to make my parents proud (especially my Na), and show them that the effort they put in to raising me didn’t go to waste. That’s when I set out to pursue my dream of building something that would add value to peoples lives while allowing me to contribute to and care for my family.

What barriers have you noticed within your industry and are there any particular to Fijians? 









People here can be slow to adopting new technology, which can be one of the biggest barriers. There’s no real support for young tech entrepreneurs here. Also, another issue is not being taken seriously when making a proposal to organisations.

In saying that, any barrier can be broken with a mother of hard work.

What advice would you have for any young person thinking breaking into your industry? 


If you have an idea for a product you want to build – validate it. Don’t take it as validation if your family or friends say it’s a good idea – go out and find out from strangers if the problem you’re trying to solve really is a problem. Its a key step when getting into this because you’ll know if it will be worth investing any time or money in.

Don’t fear failure, embrace it and move forward, because failure will always be there, just think of it as a step towards success.

Find a great team with unique qualities and the same drive, passion and commitment to see it through – great things happen when a team of brilliant people come together. But always remember that the key thing is YOU.

Anything else you’d like to share?

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs.

We’re excited to see what the future holds for Manasa and GetHub, and we wish him all the best. To find out more, you can find Manasa on Facebook, and GetHub online.  

Photo credit: Ridiqiulas Photography