While many entrepreneurs are happy to simply keep their doors open at the end of the month, some are reaching for the stars. Capetonians Binky Newman and Heather Moore fall into the latter category thanks to the support of the Netherland Government’s CBI scheme which helps prepare small South African entrepreneurs for the global market. Binky, whose Design Africa represents 350 basket weavers; and Heather’s Skinny laMinx were among the group displaying their wares at the world’s largest homewares art and design exhibition, the 2016 Maison & Objet in Paris. Biznews.com’s Alec Hogg caught up with them to hear their story and some of their ideas about how a small business can grow into the export market.
Alec is with Binky and Heather; they are two exhibitors from South Africa at the Maison & Objet Exhibition in Paris. Binky, are you a regular visitor to Paris?
No, I was here 22 years ago, but this is my first time as an exhibitor.
What brings you here?
I’m part of a programme funded by CBI, which is a ministry within the Dutch government. It’s a fantastic programme that works in developing countries to assist producers to export to the European market. I work with basket weavers all over Africa, so I’m here to sell my baskets and to get orders so we can export.
Where are the basket weavers from?
They’re from all over Africa, in South Africa and most of them are rural, very rural, most of them are women. I have one man, who weaves, and from Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
How many?
I reckon about 360 weavers altogether.
If you crack it and you get orders here, 360 people will get more business.
Absolutely they will, they receive a cash income from me. Most of them lead subsistence lives, their basket weaving is their only form of cash income, and it will revolutionise their lives.
What got you into it?
I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I was living in the Okavango in Botswana on an island running a tourist camp and there were basket weavers on an island nearby. They used to come and sell them to me for the camp and when I finally left the delta, I wanted to carry on working with these weavers. So I took their baskets to South Africa and started marketing them and then I realised that there were these weavers all over Africa who needed, A: some product development and B: a market.
Whom are you selling through at the moment?
I do most of the exporting myself. The CBI Programme is bringing us closer to the international market. I’ve been to a trade fair in New York where we received some orders, but we’ve already been exporting for a couple of years. We’ve just this year exported to Japan for the first time, but Europe and Australia and the States are our three main markets.
Heather Moore is also with us. Heather, tell us a bit about your story, its’ an interesting name for your company.
My business is called Skinny laMinx, which is really just a nickname for my Siamese cat, very skinny little minx.
What do you do?
I design textiles that I have screen-printed on fabric and then I have a shop in Bree Street in Cape Town and above the shop, we have a workshop and a studio where we make everything up into cushions and homeware. We’ve been exporting to the States for quite a few years and now with the CBI Programme, we’re hoping to grow our European sales.
How did you get into the US market in the first place?
A funny story really, I didn’t intend to start a business. I was playing around with screen-printing in my studio and blogs were new, so I started a blog for fun and people started reading it and I started an online shop for fun and people started buying things and then they started to ask if they could export my things. My business really started abroad before it even started in South Africa and then within the last five years we opened a shop and the South African sales have grown enormously.
Are the sales to South Africans or tourists?
Oh, both, tourists are very helpful.
You’ve both been in your businesses for a while. What about youngsters coming out of school and university, how would you suggest that they get going in the way that you have?
There are fantastic programmes at technical colleges for fabrics. I think Heather can talk more about that. As far as basket weaving is concerned, it’s a little bit more difficult but anybody can start a business, with or without an education. In South Africa our government is very pro the entrepreneur, so there are many initiatives to help start-ups and where there’s a will there’s a way.
What I think is more interesting from your perspective is that you’re exporting, so you’re the link between people in South Africa who are on subsistence really and rich people in the North. How do you get that going, how do you even start exporting?
Interesting, I think 20 years ago or ten years ago, it would have been almost impossible but now with technology it’s possible. I have a great website. We do a large amount of social media targeting various groups and that’s helped enormously to make people aware of what we’re doing.
Social media, that’s exactly where you started Heather, from a blog, came a business.
That’s absolutely true and I have no design background, I don’t have an education in design, I kind of learned on the job and I think these days with technology we have so much access to skills that help you run a business. There are bookkeeping things that you can get online for free; there are even picture editing applications that you can use for free. There’s so much that you can do at your level, whatever it is and put yourself out there and get people to become interested. There’s such a proliferation of press with online media as well and people are hungry for stories, well-crafted stories, great pictures, and that’s a really good start and it doesn’t cost a huge amount of money.
What do the Americans like about your product?
What do they like? My product’s very fresh and clean, but I think they also like the stories that I tell around it. I give a lot away about how a design is developed, how I came up with the design and I think people respond very well to that. They’re kind of a bit invested in it when they know that, they know why this looks the way it does and what the story is behind it.
I guess, Binky, for you as well, the international community, what do they like about baskets woven specifically in Africa?
They like the story. Africa is of huge interest to the rest of the world at the moment. They’re travelling, they’re coming to Africa, and they’re going on safari. Then there’s the whole organic movement, the green movement and baskets are very much part of that. It’s a natural product and it’s handmade, so they tick all the boxes in terms of the green trend.
This show itself, this Maison & Objet, how has the reaction been so far to your products?
So far very good, we have a lot of competition, there are many baskets, very beautiful baskets from other parts of the world, so there’s lots of competition, but so far, I’ve had a good response to what I’ve brought.
What’s your USP compared with the others and price?
Great design. Our price is not that competitive actually.
So the weak Rand is not really what motivates you?
No, it isn’t really, because we have an expensive product.
How would you judge, Heather, this to have been a success when you leave here after the five days?
I think there are lots of measures that I could judge it on, things like orders that I have, contacts that I’ve made but so far I’ve only been here two days but I think the biggest thing I’ve got out of this is the amazing conversations I’ve had with my fellow South Africans about business in South Africa, running our own businesses, all the things that we know that we’ve been able to share with each other, also production tips and opportunities to collaborate on things. That’s been amazing; it’s really been a fantastic aspect of this that I didn’t expect.
Both being artists, I guess, on the one hand as well as an entrepreneur now, is there a little bit of a conflict between the two? When you have beautiful work, it’s a bit difficult to sell it.
You know it’s something that I’ve really started enjoying about having a business that’s based on my creative impulse, is I’ve started to realise that in order for that to happen, for it to be a business, I have to become really good at business. I need to create something with very strong systems, very good planning in order for my creative impulse to have somewhere to be distributed; otherwise, it’s just a vanity project really. Therefore, yes I think I’m really interested in business and as a means of myself being able to continue to be creative in a way that generates income.
And you, Binky?
CBI’s taught me and made me realise the importance of good systems and being more business-like, more efficient, and more professional. We operated in rather a haphazard way before and I’d like to think that we’re a lot more efficient now. We plan a bit; we never used to do any planning other than what was going to happen tomorrow. We now think a year ahead, which is starting to pay dividends.
It’s a big responsibility if you think about those down the line whose tables you’re putting food on.
Yes, exactly and they all know I’m here and when I get back they’ll be phoning and saying, “How many orders did you get for us?” and it’s a big responsibility.
