Question
To start the year I received an email from a young lady whose goal is starting her own fashion brand in Kenya. She had two main obstacles, developing the right marketing strategy and raising the start-up capital for the business. Here is my response.Â
Disclaimer: Let me start by saying there is going to be a lot of context I’m missing due me not sharing your experience of starting a business in your country. So I’m going to try and keep these answers as broad as possible.
The right marketing strategy
I’m a huge believer in “content marketing”. This is the idea of creating media/content/editorials around whatever will be relevant and attractive to the audience you hope to sell to. You mentioned that you have an interest in blogging, so I would use this to your advantage.
Consider blogging about the fashion brands which inspire you, and teach people why they inspire you. Consider blogging about other fashion brands in Kenya or Africa as a whole, create something like a “digital fashion hub” for all things African Fashion or things which are influencing the culture. This way you will attract people to you, your brand and your website, the type of people who are most likely to want to buy fashion-related products.
Network
Maybe you can consider going to or hosting meetups for people interested in Fashion and Beauty near you. E.g. Like this event which might be great for you attend which I found on Meetup.com.
Always remember that your network is your net worth. So as of now, focus on making yourself the most known person for fashion in Kenya, then Africa and later the world. If that happens selling to customers probably won’t be an issue for you anymore.
Another thought in terms of building your network: maybe once you have a bit of a bigger network consider hosting something like a fashion show (named after your business or allow it to be sponsored by your business). To get around the money side, make it a fundraiser for a good cause and then give a significant portion or even better all of the profits to a local good cause that you believe in. If you do this, you’ll find it a lot easier to get things for cheaper or even free and you’ll build a reputation that you’re not just all about getting money. Which I hope you’re not because those who are tend to not go very far.
Start-Up Capital
Regarding the money side of things, this is much harder for me to answer as I’m completely outside of your experience. But I can tell you what I did with my first business. I just started with what I had. I know this sounds really simple but it’s really powerful.
A lot of the time we let things like “not having enough money” hold us back from ever starting. The truth is, we will probably never have enough money. In fact, what even counts as enough? When we dig deep, we find that really it’s just another excuse we give ourselves because we are scared of what it would mean if we really do start. Because if we start, it means that we might fail… or even scarier it means that we might actually succeed and then everything we’ve ever known will change.
Start where you are
Look at what you have right now and start with that. No matter how small, no matter how imperfect the final product is, the most important thing is actually just taking that first step in faith and making a start.
To give you a more practical answer, maybe you should focus on the advice I gave in the first section about marketing and building a brand. If you REALLY do need money to make a start on the fashion side of things, then you’ll find it’s a lot easier to get that money when you have a brand which people trust. At that point it might be worth approaching investors, however, I personally would suggest not thinking like this and do what we call “bootstrapping” and try to pay for it all yourself, slowly but steadily.
If the media side of your business gets big enough you can potentially make money through sponsorship, advertising or affiliate marketing. You could also leverage the brand to help get you consultation work for companies looking to enter the Kenyan/African fashion market or to export Kenya/African fashion products. You could also use your brand to host workshops and courses etc. Maybe there might be smaller and cheaper products to create which you can use the profits from to build the rest of the business.
Patience
My last pieces of advice is not to despise small beginnings. Be faithful with what you have right now, give it your all and be diligent. With time, hard work and patience you will be shocked by how far you have come. Patience really is the key word in all of this. I know compared to what you might see things seems so much more glamours in other places around the world like New York, LA. London etc, however, I can tell you that right now more and more of the world’s attention is turning to Africa and Kenya is one of the places with the most attention. If you can become one of the biggest names or at least one of the best-connected people in the fashion industry there, then I believe it will be pay off greatly for you in the years to come.
I hope you found some value in this. I know most of it is simple, but hard to follow through with. I’m finding that is pretty much the pattern of success. If you have any other questions please do get in contact.
