New breed entrepreneurs see big opportunity in shoe industry
Young entrepreneurs in Nigeria are moving into shoe-making in droves to exploit quality, quantity and size gaps in the industry.
The shoe sub-sector is dominated by the Aba cluster, which is made up of over 70,000 players, who are majorly small-scale in size.
The shoe-making industry in Aba is worth N96 billion, according to calculations done by this writer, but the size is still small compared with the number of players involved.
Owing to this, many young entrepreneurs are increasingly exploiting opportunities in the industry, bringing in new innovations to reshape its production and marketing landscapes.
Babajide Ipaye
Jide Ipaye is the founder of Keexs Footwear, an African- inspired range of casual shoes, which include sneakers and smart shoes. Jide’s Keexs is the first innovative and social footwear brand in Nigeria and the African continent.
Jide is focused on building a world-class footwear brand with manufacturing plant in Nigeria, with the objective of creating economic empowerment opportunities for thousands of Africans, especially Nigerians.
A microbiology graduate of the University of Lagos, Jide was inspired to set-up Keexs by a personal challenge. Jide hardly found his size of shoes in the market and he rarely got the designs he loved.
As a result, he thought of making his own shoes to address this challenge and help others facing a similar problem. He saw it as an opportunity to make a change rather than a perennial problem without a solution.
“Keexs started out as a personal challenge for me. Being a size 48, I hardly got my size and when I eventually did, they were not exactly the style I liked. I have been dealing with this problem for years. So I said to myself, why don’t I start making my own shoes and also help others,” Jide told Start-Up Digest.
“I took the first step in conducting a research and went to a school in the Netherlands to learn how to design and manufacture sneakers. I did not want to focus on regular shoes,” he added.
After Jide’s study in the Netherlands, he came back to Nigeria and established Keexs in December 2015. Finance was a major challenge for Jide, but he was able to successfully jump the hurdle when he found a website called Kick Starter, an online-based US funding platform for creative projects.
Jide put up a video with a write-up that told a story of his challenges, looking at the Nigerian context, saying what the challenges were and how the problem of unemployment in the economy could be solved by looking internally and creating value through manufacturing.
In forty days, Jide was able to raise $20,000 from the website to start his business. “Over a period of 40 days from November 2015 to December, we raised $20,000. The money was paid to the manufacturer to produce the first batch of the sneakers,” he said.
When asked what the biggest challenge of Nigerian entrepreneurs is, Jide stated that funding still remained the greatest.
Currently, Keexs has been signed up for a World Bank grant to raise funds to set up the manufacturing arm of the business. The company had, in the last one year, been trying to build channels to market. “When we set up our factory to produce 25,000 pairs of shoes a month, we need to sustain the factory and make sure it is regularly producing. For us to be churning that out consistently, we need to have a steady market,” he said.
Jide is an award-winning entrepreneur. In 2016, he won the Tony Elumelu Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.
On advice to start-ups, Jide said: “Have the ability to do anything you want to do. You are not restricted by education, and we are only restricted by our might.”
Olubukola Asafa
Olubukola is the founder and CEO of Oba Couture, which produces shoes, handbags, sandals and other leather products.
She was motivated to start shoe manufacturing owing to her desire to have a brand she could call her own.
She told a website known as Lioness of Africa that after obtaining her MBA degree, she started buying and selling shoes and handbags of different brands. But she needed to stand out from the crowd, which forced her to begin to think of how to make her shoes in the country.
Olubukola was discouraged to find out that nobody could give her the design she wanted, so she resorted to China, which was able to provide what was wanted.
“They looked great and everyone loved them. People were excited. I was excited too but not for long because it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want my products made in China; I wanted them made here in Nigeria. I had become passionate about having my products made in Nigeria, and I felt that I had to make my own brand of leather goods and change this inferior perception of ‘Made in Nigeria’ products. I wanted to be able to boast about wearing a ‘Made in Nigeria’ shoe or carry a handbag made in Nigeria. It could never have happened before, but now I wear and carry them every day. And I am glad I never gave up. Now I am fulfilling my dream and living my passion,” she told the website.
Olubukola was among the 1,200 Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) winners supported by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2012. The grant helped her business to grow rapidly.
She took a trip to Florence, Italy, in 2013, where she learnt more on the art of shoe-making from one of the finest cobblers in that country.
Niyi Omodara
Niyi Omodara is the founder and CEO of Extra Valuable Apparel (EVA), a footwear company based in Akure, Ondo State of Nigeria. Niyi is a member of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) Network, which is a signature effort by the US to invest in the next generation of African leaders.
Information from the US Department of State described Niyi as a self-taught craftsman who started making slippers for his family in the early 1990s.
But he started EVA in 2011 with just $105 from savings.
He produces 35 to 50 pairs of customised shoes monthly and sells mostly in retail.
He sources his raw materials, such as leather, locally and sells directly to buyers.
Given the quality of his shoes, he expects retail stores scattered across Nigeria to begin to look at locally made products like his.
According to him, one of his major challenge is absence of reliable energy supply.
“I generate my own power to run the factory half of the time. That required an initial investment of almost $1,000, and about $100 per month to maintain gasoline and service,” he told US Department of State in an interview.
He also complains of poor access to funding, caused by double-digit borrowing rates across the banks.
Ogonna Okonkwo
Ogonna is the CEO of Ojo, Lagos-based Global Smart Fit, which manufacturers various forms of footwear. Ogonna’s firm has supplied shoes to schools–nursery, primary, and secondary–, oil and gas firms, military/ paramilitary and to fashion firms.
The firm, last year, signed an agreement with Labora Shoes Limited of South Africa to establish shoe factories in different parts of the country.
Ogonna’s products have been praised on the back of their quality, and they have been showcased in trade fairs and exhibitions across the country.
He has succeeded, to some extent, in bringing back the uniformity in school dressing code, winning merit awards such as the Nigeria’s Best Children Shoes Manufacturer and the West Africa Best Leather Footwear Manufacturer.
ODINAKA ANUDU