Vusani Ravele taught himself to craft home decor with an unlikely tool.



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Two men quietly sit in the corner of a warehouse, covered in
sawdust, as they deftly carve a rendition of the Johannesburg skyline on a block
of wood, oblivious to the creative mayhem around them.



They are focused on ensuring that the plywood is
silky-smooth and ready to adorn a stranger’s living space.



At this warehouse in Wynberg in Johannesburg that we are
visiting, we are confronted by the constant din of drilling and the high-pitch
buzz of machinery that is in fact etching shapes on a sheet of birch plywood.
In no time, we are covered in pulp and wood shavings. 



A few minutes later, the brainchild of Native Décor, 32-year-old Vusani Ravele, arrives, ready to tell us how he turned a cordless drill that was a Valentine’s Day gift from 2015 into a lucrative online business with a R2.2 million ($154,522) turnover. 



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“She was probably trying to hint that I should make more
things for her — not that I was lazy,” jests Ravele.



This millennial is anything but disinclined to work. He used
the gift as a medium to explore creative ideas at home, most times, this was
after putting in long hours of work by day as an industrial engineer. 



“I just started drilling holes into everything and I
realized that this was a lot of fun,” recounts Ravele.



Originally from Tzaneen in the Limpopo Province of South
Africa, he moved to Johannesburg in 2005 to pursue a career in industrial
engineering, not knowing he was destined to become a business mogul in the home
decor industry.



It all began when he posted some of his work on Facebook and
it led to more ‘likes’ than he had anticipated. 



As he continued to attract a new market, he invested
R100,000 ($7,028) into his enterprise making nifty home accessories and
corporate gifts. 



His creativity grew as did his entrepreneurial edge — something he believes he inherited from his mother, who had an exemplary work ethic and was resourceful. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“At some point, my mother would sell some fruit and vegetables from the back of her car. It was very exciting for me,” Ravele says. </blockquote>



Following in her footsteps, he opened a tuck shop at his
high school which eventually outdid the main school tuckshop. 



“Clearly, I had an affinity for running a business,” he
says. 



A year after establishing Native Décor, he made waves on M-Net’s Shark Tank South Africa, a show on budding entrepreneurs who pitch their business concepts to moguls with the hope of securing an investment. 



Gil Oved, now the COO of investment company LLH Capital, was
impressed.



“I remember saying to my girlfriend if there is anyone that
I need to go home with, it is Oved. I just knew a lot about what he had
achieved. He is a go-getter, he is well-connected and I thought he would be the
perfect entrepreneur to take me to where I need to go,” Ravele says. 



Ravele believed in Oved’s ability to grow his business that
he offered him a 40% stake of Native Décor.&nbsp;




He did not make use of all the funds — an attribute he
wishes other startups would also grasp. 



“Sometimes, when you receive funding so early, it can
confuse everything. You feel like you are successful but you are really not,”
he says.



The mentorship from Oved honed his business acumen.



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“He is one of those guys that you have to go to and know
what you are talking about. So don’t go to him and ask him a question that you
have not researched before… He will give you the feedback that you are looking
for and more,” he says. 



Ravele says that being open-minded has helped him approach
his work artistically. 



“Creativity is everywhere… Look around and just see
different shapes and how they work together and you get ideas. Then you
experiment, and see how things work. When one thing doesn’t work out, you can
try something else with the same concept and it sort of flows.”



He believes that the home accessories market is currently
thriving in South Africa.



“If you are, perhaps, moving into a new house, you need to
buy furniture. The furniture can’t be by itself, you need decor to put on your
walls and those sort of things,” he says. 



Native Décor&nbsp; is an
online retail store, which is also available on other platforms such as eBucks
and takealot.



“In this day and age, we are moving into the online space
rapidly. More people are shopping from their cell phones; forget your
computers. If people are there, that is where you want to be as well,” Ravele
says.



According to eShopWorld, in South Africa, there are
currently 18.43 million eCommerce users, with an expected additional 6.36
million of users by 2021. The online shoppers are expected to be spending
approximately $189.47 each on average. 



Online trading has also proved to be more beneficial for Ravele’s bottom line. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“The overheads are low so it doesn’t cost a lot to sell online. The beautiful thing about selling online is that you do not have to have stock on hand,” he says. </blockquote>



“Our model is that we make to order everything that we
dispatch. It can be a surprising thing, because people believe that we have
this warehouse full of stock… and the online space is great for that.”



Ravele might appear to understand the decor business to the
core, but that was not always the case. 



“It all has been, amazingly, YouTube; it has been my friend.
I feel like anybody can learn anything from there apart from professional
things like being a doctor. It is a great resource and anybody can make use of
it,” Ravele says. 



That is why he believes that providing guidance to others is
a necessity for entrepreneurs and that “information should be free”.



“I don’t have all the answers, sometimes people come to me
that are in business and they ask me for advice. It is nice to get that sort of
attention but it is also quite nice for me to develop that sort of rapport with
other people to network.”&nbsp; 



He is still learning as much as he can, but looking after
his money is the greatest lesson that he has learned in his journey as an
entrepreneur.&nbsp; 



“In business, you can make money quickly and lose it at twice the speed. It is a space where you have to be awake all the time and be ready for change. Change drives you to be constantly re-evaluating everything. 



“I decided that I was never going to be in that situation
again. Now we are able to think on our feet and react much better.” 



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The exposure to Shark Tank South Africa enhanced his Valentine’s Day gift, and for that, Ravele will be forever grateful. 



Martin Monareng, a craftsman at Native Décor, attests to his
success.&nbsp; 



“The workload has increased because we are getting a lot of
business as compared to when we were working from his [Ravele] house. Things
were tough for us at that time, we were not even really sure if the business
would grow,” he says.



Despite the din all around him in the warehouse, Ravele is
calm.



“I am no longer working from my living room, so that is a
relief,” says the man turning wood into workmanship.&nbsp;

Tag: Shark Tank South Africa

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A Valentine’s Gift That Unwrapped A Craft