The Adams Pavilion, a dusty shopping center selling aromatic oils, kitschy cushions and costumes in the noisy Sar Bet area of Addis Ababa, is hardly the setting for a flagship shop selling high-value branded shoes to 16 stores around the world, from Singapore to Switzerland to Silicon Valley.
Yet, that is where it all started – from a single outlet in Ethiopia.
Above the din of traffic outside, the diminutive Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, in jeans, a white T-shirt and blue blazer, her hair coiffed into a careless bun, is retelling the genesis of her hugely successful business, soleRebels, 10 years ago.
To her customers across the world – ranging from techies in San Jose to gym nuts in Taiwan – she has broken every popular perception of Ethiopia. Instead of handouts going into the country, here was handcrafted footwear – with soles made of recycled tires – going out of it to stores across the globe.
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We are sipping espressos – from the local Starbucks-inspired café below her shop – and Alemu mentions that her humble middle class background taught her to be industrious. Her mother helped as a cook in the kitchen of a local hospital, while her father worked hard as an electrician in the same hospital to raise his daughter and two sons.
“Growing up, I saw people trying to make it every day at the hospital. Leprosy patients getting treatment would also work. What I learnt from them is their dedication, how they worked hard and loved life and their culture,” says Alemu.
At home, she had the same rights as her brothers; her parents saw her as no different.
“In college, I wanted to create something authentic at the same time global, supporting the local community. But 10 years ago in Addis Ababa, it was almost impossible to do something like that because of the infrastructure.”
Alemu got married, and at the age of 25, quit her “boring” accountant job in a private company wanting to turn entrepreneur. She had nothing going for her except hope. She wanted to create a brand out of Africa, tapping into the local culture and talent.
“I had to put together a plan and be really brave.” But why shoes?
“I was looking at what people did widely in Ethiopia, and that was scarves, dresses and robes. I wanted to be innovative, and start from scratch.”
Recycled tire didn’t cost anything, and it was not an alien concept. Ethiopia’s rebels had famously fought off the invading forces in ‘barabasso’ sandals made of old tires.
Alemu took this idea and self-financed ($5,000) her dream, starting with five workers in a workshop on her grandmother’s land in the village of Zenabwork.
It took her two years to get it right. Initially, the prototypes weighed six kilos a pair.
“The shoes were really heavy, as I didn’t know how to cut the tire. They looked really funny. I kept trying and trying to develop the perfect product.”
She knew she had to come up with an artisanal product using local fibers she could sell globally moving up the Africa value chain.
“In my factory, in Yeshideble, we don’t have any machinery. You will find a lot of people sewing. It’s like music. We have a unique way of working with communities, where we have a culture of spinning and making our own clothes at home. These women, when they are old, are not so productive, so we give them jobs. We have 120 women who spin for us, they don’t need to go out, we collect [the goods] from them every week…These are mothers, grandmothers…they have their coffee and spin for soleRebels.” They are also paid more than the industry standard.
She is now building a $20-million state-of-the-art factory, to be completed by the end of the year.
“We currently do 200 pairs of shoes a day, when the big factory opens, we will do 2,500 a day.”
Alemu has standalone stores in Barcelona, Vienna, Zurich, Athens, and is set to open her first shop in Canada. She has 12 stores across Taiwan. Her label is certified by the World Fair Trade Organization.
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Her colorful shoes retail from $65 onwards. Earlier this year, Alemu diversified her business to include bespoke leather jackets (available online at about $60), dresses and bags.
Alemu is also launching in September a new coffee brand, Garden Of Coffee, “hand-roasted by traditional Ethiopian coffee artisans”.
Is the mother of three a billionaire yet? There is slight hesitation, and then a smile.
“Let’s see…The company’s growing but we are always looking at investing our monies somewhere.”
And then she says in one breathless sentence: “It doesn’t matter how much I have. What I want is to create a platform for everybody and they can come and work. And it’s something I love to do. I see it, I invented it, it grew up with me, it’s inside me, it’s my baby.”
Ten years ago, nobody talked about entrepreneurs, says Alemu.
“I was not looked at as an entrepreneur, only as a businesswoman.”
Times have changed. Alemu was recently awarded a PhD (Hons) in commerce from Ethiopia’s Jimma University.
“The government believes in entrepreneurs, and I am really happy we get noticed at the end of the day,” she says.
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Her guiding philosophy
“One of the things helping me is not to see myself as a woman. When I see myself as a woman, I always fail. We don’t have the confidence, we always say yes, we don’t say no – that’s going to take you down. Whenever I deal with people in offices, I am a business person. I have a goal and no one can stop me. All I think about is my business and my customers.”
If the last decade was this eventful, where does she see herself in the next 10 years?
“I will probably have 500 stores around the world,” says Alemu, ever the optimist set to ensure that with every step, her country moves forward too.

bethlehem-tilahun-alemu-founder-ceo-soleRebels-footwear-cropped

Heart And Sole

You’ll find Cameroonian-born Fidelis Ebot Tabe in the heart of Cape Town, among colorful hats and caps, bargaining with customers. He’s tall and bursts into a smile whenever he speaks. At first glance he’s just another street trader among many, but this man has got a PhD in it.
“I didn’t invite my family to my graduation, after six years I couldn’t believe it, so I just told them when I got home,” he says.
His first degree in Cameroon was in history. He applied to professional schools to teach, but didn’t get in. Instead, he began trading food – dried prawns, dried fish and palm oil. After a friend told him about the prospects, he raised money and moved to South Africa.
“If I came down here, things would be better,” he says.
His South African story started 15 years ago in Mitchells Plain, a township in Cape Town located in the Cape Flats, selling caps, sunglasses and mobile accessories.
“Mitchells Plain is like a warzone, you must watch out all the time, it’s so rough” he says.
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While trading on the streets, he did his honors and master’s in history through the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
“I was in the town center in Mitchells Plain in 2007, there was a process to upgrade the center. At the end of the process, we had to choose trading bays. The issue came up of people who were there before, what we call historic traders, they gave them the opportunity to choose sides and what size they needed. For people who had been there for seven or eight years, they just gave us small bays. When it came to me doing street trading, I started looking at what policies were there before and how things were done before,” he says.
He registered for his PhD and started an analysis of street trading in Cape Town. His research began in the CBD, a hub of activity with street traders along every street. He interviewed traders who mirrored his experience.
“They had similar histories to myself, there were a lot of foreign traders in the city center. When the question came as to why foreign traders dominate, the response was that South Africans were not interested in street trading at the time. Now, when South Africans come, there isn’t any space for them and they start to complain. The foreigners took the opportunity but they prefer the CBD which is safer than the townships where there are always clashes between locals and foreign nationals,” he says.
South Africa has suffered from violent xenophobic attacks. In May 2008, thousands of foreigners were forced to flee their homes in townships across the country when people attacked them in a wave of xenophobic violence. April saw an upsurge in xenophobic attacks throughout the country as armed gangs once again attacked immigrants. At least five people have died; shops looted and destroyed.
“Home is home. In Cameroon you sleep in peace, you don’t have crime or xenophobia there. You go to our market and you have Malians there and Nigerians there. We don’t envy them. We live happily with them, they are our friends. When they go home, you long for them to come back. But here it’s a completely different story,” he says.
He dreams of being back in Cameroon one day.
“But to go home, you need money. I’ve been here for 15 years and what do I have to show them back home?” he says.
Ebot Tabe wanted to challenge the stereotypes of the street trader.
“There’s this idea that street traders are poor. From my interviews with traders, they were not poor people. People actually left their jobs to become street traders because they believed that they would make more from street trading than from formal employment. And it’s true,” he says.
When it comes to street trading, a lot of people sell the same thing but Ebot Tabe explained that traders are a community that support each other.
“In Trafalgar Place in town, the flower sellers aren’t ideally located. There are just three stands in front of Adderley Street and the rest are at the back. They sell the same thing but you only see the people who stand in front. They began a rotation, so every day they would move one place down so that each person has the opportunity to sell in the front,” he says.
After six years of research, rewrites and clashes with his supervisor, he graduated in March this year.
“I’ve never found street trading frustrating until now. Why should I be sitting here? I hope to become a lecturer one day and not remain a street trader. I want to teach public and urban history so I can bring in my experiences,” he says.
For now, the doctor of street trading is selling in Mitchells Plain.

A PhD From The Streets

Yola and Jimeta are the twin metros that form the state capital of northeastern Nigeria’s Adamawa State. They are tense places of high temperatures, military checkpoints and curfew.
It was late at night on June 4 when shoppers were milling around a small market opposite the Jimeta Modern Market. It was just after 7:30PM, and the walled, open-air market was closing for the day.  Suddenly, a fight broke out. When customers and traders drew nearer to take a look, two bombs went off killing 37 people. The fight was staged by a suicide bomber.
“There were body parts lying all over the stalls, and parts of the street,” says Shareef Al Hasan, a reporter with TV Gotel who arrived minutes after the blast.
For many of the survivors, the unthinkable had happened; Boko Haram had struck at the heart of the Adamawa State capital.
The area has been relatively peaceful for more than a year, and seen thousands of refugees from Mubi, Madagali, Michika swell homes and camps. Some families sheltered up to 100 relatives, friends and strangers in their homes. They were fed by the people of Yola and Jimeta. The total number of displaced in Yola alone is estimated at 15,000.
In 2011 and 2012, attacks by Boko Haram in the town were common with gunmen shooting civilians from the back of motorcycles. The state government has since banned the okada, a two-wheeled transport popular in Nigeria.
Scores of people came to gawk at the scene, others fled. By 8PM, news of the bomb blast spread and panic gripped the city.
By the next morning, the area was cordoned off. I arrived at around 8:30AM to see for myself the destruction of the night before. The bodies were gone and the survivors taken to hospitals where they filled the wards. The dismembered head of the suicide bomber lay on the asphalt in a cardboard box.
The traditional leader, Barkindo Aliyu Mustapha, was among the first on the scene. He looked distressed, telling people to keep praying for peace and to be security conscious. The next to arrive was the commissioner of police in Adamawa State, Gabriel Adaji, with a call for information.
“Even if your suspicions are later proved baseless, we will thoroughly investigate every complaint,” he says.
The newly-elected governor, Jibrilla Bindo, announced a security cluster meeting with state security chiefs.
The incident comes at a time when pressure is mounting on President Muhammadu Buhari to fulfill a campaign promise of ridding Nigeria of insurgency. He announced the relocation of Nigeria’s military command center to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State.
The move to bring troops closerwas applauded by Nigerians. For the residents of Yola and Jimeta, it cannot come soon enough.

The Bloody Market  Of Fear

There is a rowdy crowd at one of Lagos’ busiest commercial centers – the Idumota market on Lagos Island. High pitched hawkers shove their goods at customers, motorists struggle for space on the narrow roads, and hundreds of stalls, with music blaring, lay out their merchandise. Today’s hustle is no different from any other and no one knows this better than Paul Orajiaka, the entrepreneur who has spent years in this hub.
From running a little store out of a dilapidated building in the market, to owning a colossal outlet within its vicinity, Orajiaka is no stranger to the nooks and crannies of his business address.
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Orajiaka’s company, Auldon Limited, manufactures African-themed toys which promote the continent’s cultural heritage to children. The company recently launched the Unity Girl Dolls Project, with multi-cultural dolls in different Nigerian traditional attire. The dolls can be found in countries including Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and some parts of Europe.
Auldon Limited was founded 17 years ago with less than $100. As a determined young man, Orajiaka’s dreams were shattered when he was repeatedly denied an American visa after finishing high school in Benin City. He wanted to study business management in the United States to market his father’s business. Orajiaka’s father was a renowned African carver and staunch entrepreneur in Warri. Orajiaka, and his siblings, helped with the carving work but Orajiaka wanted to take his father’s craft to a more structured market.
“I was about 16 years old. I was denied a visa at my umpteenth attempt primarily because of my age. I had frequented Lagos to follow up with the American embassy at each application stage. I decided to remain in Lagos, where my sister also lived, after my ambitions to go to the States didn’t work out. I didn’t want to be mocked by my friends back in my hometown. I had no idea what my next move was going to be,” says Orajiaka.
He decided to work at the Idumota market.
His brother-in-law was an importer who traded in a large variety of merchandise. Orajiaka helped his in-law and was impressed by the large amount of money the business made.
“I was learning a lot about the business environment and couldn’t believe the volumes of goods we were pushing into the market. The returns were fascinating and I soon began to get excited about my new activity.”
Orajiaka proved a valuable resource to his in-law’s business and was generously rewarded. The money he was earning made up for his previous disappointments, but Orajiaka was soon advised to return to school.
“While working for my in-law, I enrolled as an accounting student at the University of Lagos after which I proceeded to get a Master’s in Business Administration from Lagos Business School. This reinforced my gusto for the business world now that I had my professional qualifications. I decided to start thinking of my business seriously.”
While seeking new markets to supply merchandise to, in highbrow areas of Lagos, he visited a new store. He admired the toy section and was fascinated by the range and variety on the shelves.
On his next visit, he noticed that the section was almost empty and immediately asked the store manager if they needed new supplies. After getting the green light from the manager, Orajiaka scouted the length and breadth of the Idumota market for a toy stockist. The toys he found were a lot cheaper than those in the fancier stores.
“I was going to make huge margins on this product if I succeeded in getting the manager to place an order. I delivered the samples at a 300 percent markup price. The store manager ordered a few dozen immediately. I never expected this. I approached my in-law… to purchase a bigger order from the supplier for the required number of samples. This is where it all started. Today, a humble beginning which started as a small venture is a leading company, importing and supplying a diverse range of educational toys to both retailers and wholesalers in Nigeria,” he says.
“We started out with a capital base of about $30 now have a turnover of well over $7 million as at last year.”
The dolls’ visibility has grown in leaps and bounds over the years. Social responsibility is an area the company has also focused on with the Unity Girl Doll Project.
“I was not happy that most of the toys sold in Nigeria didn’t promote any cultural relevance. I wanted to promote the dark-skinned and African-featured girls and women as beautiful and their culture as diverse and admirable.”
One of the challenges Orajiaka faced was a lack of support from financial institutions in Nigeria. A school renovation program was part of the tasks that accompanied the project.
The Unity Girl Doll Project is a collection of 14-inch dolls that represent Nigeria’s three major tribes – Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba – with the aim of promoting the country’s cultural diversity and relevance to the younger generation. The dolls also have booklets outlining details of the culture, languages and backgrounds of the three main tribes.
With the dolls available in leading retail outlets across Nigeria, Orajiaka has proved that business can be child’s play.

This Business Is Child’s Play

In 1986, Wilson Zulu returned from a long day’s work at the Balalaika Hotel, kissed his wife goodnight and woke up the next morning in a prison cell. During the night, the hotel was raided by the police. Zulu and his wife were arrested for not producing proper documentation and for being found spending the night at the all-white hotel during apartheid. The couple was bailed out by the hotel management. These unexpected raids become common and the hotel staff along with Zulu became accustomed to them.
Nineteen-year-old Zulu, from KwaZulu-Natal, moved to Johannesburg to find work. What he found when they got there was like a scene from an old western movie: dry land, rail roads and one hotel – the 66-year-old Balalaika. He walked in, asked for a job and started immediately as a cleaner. Two months later, he was promoted to a wine steward working in the bar, earning R38 a month. Forty two years later, Zulu is still at the doors of the hotel serving his guests their morning breakfast.
“During that time, there were no interviews; you just came to where you wanted to work. They ask you ‘can you do this?’ If you said yes, you carry on with it,” says Zulu.
For the last 42 years Zulu has lived by himself and sees his family just once a year, a tough and lonely arrangement but one that is very necessary for Zulu and most of the staff at the hotel.
“It’s fine; all they want from me is to buy something to eat and to wear. You can’t do anything without money, so when I leave, they say ‘go well,’” says Zulu.
Being at the same hotel for so long does guarantee a few regular friends.
“I’ve seen PJ Powers here; I’ve seen Johnny Clegg (the so-called ‘White Zulu’ musician) as well. Danny Jordaan, the SAFA President, used to join us for breakfast. Former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, was also here. My favorite regular is Clegg. I remember saying to him once, ‘No you can’t make Zulu dance now; you are too old.’ And he said to me, ‘No I am not’, and he stood up and started dancing. Whenever Clegg comes here, he looks for me,” says Zulu.
In the early eighties, Kaunda stayed at the Balalaika Hotel for almost six months because of unrest in his country. Zulu recalls him as not a very happy man.
“Just this morning I met one of my regulars at breakfast from Barloworld and he said to me, ‘Wilson you are still here?’”
After 10 years of service to the Balalaika, Zulu told himself that he will retire at the hotel because he felt that it would be too difficult to find and learn another job. And with little education he was happy he had a job at all.
Zulu’s best memory of his time at the hotel was between the years of 1970 to 1981, when he was crowned the best Zulu dancer.
“We were visited by the [branch] in Rivonia… every Christmas and we used to perform Zulu dances for the guests. There were judges that used to keep score and I was always number one, I was like Johnny Clegg,” says Zulu.
Despite all the ups and downs, Zulu has made the Balalaika his life and even though every single thing around him changed over the decades, nothing about him has changed much. A working day for Zulu begins exactly the same way it did in 1973, with a cup of tea.

Forty Two Years  Of Black Presidents  And A White Zulu

No nonsense businessman George Prokas was taught from an early age that you need to stand up for yourself. During his dispute with South African network provider Cell C that is exactly what he did, he literally took it to the streets.
“If you’re first in the queue, you’re first in the queue,” says Prokas.
In 2012, Prokas applied for two cellphone contracts for his children. In 2013, one of the phones needed to be repaired. Being a relatively new phone, Prokas handed it in to the network provider in expectation of a new phone. What he got was the run around.
“Eventually we were getting bounced from pillar to post. After about eight months, I kept going back to the store. I went there, my daughter went there, my wife went there. I screamed the whole of Sandton City (shopping mall) down. We were just falling on deaf ears and in the meantime I was paying the account, I didn’t have the phone but was still paying for the account. The last time I went to Cell C, I had an argument with a guy who runs the store after telling him I was going to stop paying. He laughed at me and said ‘you can’t stop paying because you signed a contract’. I said ‘I beg your pardon; I put my surname on a piece of paper to honor an obligation on a service you have not given me, until I get the phone back I am never going to pay,’” he recalls.
Prokas kept his word and stopped paying for the phone he did not have. A few months later, Prokas walked into a dealership to purchase a car for his wife, the bank turned him down, he was furious. The reason for the rejection was emailed to him soon after and he could not believe it. Cell C had listed Prokas with the credit bureau because he stopped paying for the broken cellphone account.
Prokas tried to solve his problem. He called the Cell C call center, he sent emails and he even tried to locate the owner of the store he was dealing with. With no joy he decided to take more radical action.
He placed a banner – that cost him over R60,000 ($5,200) – on a very busy intersection in Johannesburg. It read: Cell C – the most useless service provider in SA.
Prokas warned Cell C about the banner but they did not budge.
“I sent the mock-up of the banner to Cell C via email. I said ‘if you don’t solve my problem this is what’s going up’. I was looking for a solution and somebody to talk to,” says Prokas.
With his lawyer by his side, Prokas did as promised and put up the banner. Soon after, the banner broke out on social media and Cell C went to court. The High Court in Johannesburg dismissed an application for an interdict by the service provider to have his banner removed. Prokas won the case, got his legal fees covered and kept his banner.
“Cell C had acted incorrectly, they never addressed his concerns, not once,” says Raymond Druker, Prokas’ lawyer.
“What George has put up on that banner was not defamatory, it was fair comment.”
According to a study done by global market research agency Ipsos, the banner brought home that most people have become accustomed to inferior service.
“He (Prokas) basically vocalized what I think a lot of people are experiencing but they don’t have the means or the personality to do what he did. He set such a precedent by doing what he did,” says Renita Kramer, Head of Loyalty Research at Ipsos South Africa.
Ipsos adds that it’s become more important than ever for companies to pay attention to their customers and solve their problems.
Sifiso Falala, CEO of Plus 94, a market intelligence company, has recently released the Plus94it app, a mobile app that allows South Africans to share their experiences in the service industry with the people responsible for those experiences. The app receives over 1,000 comments a month.
“The majority of the consumers that come on to the app are frustrated. We get things like they are too big to care about the little guys, once they concluded the sale they are not concerned with the quality of the product or service,” says Falala.
“Mobile telephonic companies and network service providers tend to really irritate people to a large extent.”
“There has always been a principle in law that contracts can’t be against public policy, but the overriding law in South Africa is that people are bound by what they sign. But you can’t require people to pay when you don’t give them the service they’re paying for. But it hasn’t gotten to the point where if you get bad service you are legally entitled to stop paying. There is a lot of development that has to happen along those lines,” says Druker.
Cell C responded to the matter by saying: “Cell C has resolved the matter with Mr Prokas and has nothing further to add over and above what has already been communicated through various media channels. Cell C is continuously improving its customer service across the various touch points of the business, including the franchises.”
Otherwise the banner of indignation could rise again.

Tag: Customers

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Heart And Sole

A PhD From The Streets

The Bloody Market Of Fear

This Business Is Child’s Play

Forty Two Years Of Black Presidents And A White Zulu

Revenge Of The Frustrated Customer