Gamparo abandoned chalk for cool furniture

At the showroom, one can only marvel at the furniture crafted with creativity. 
 “I have interacted  a lot with people who do furniture and interior designing which has helped me gain knowledge and the art of interior designing,” he shares how he came up with some of  his beds, sofas, dining tables as well as kitchen cabinets.

Before joining the furniture-making business, Gamparo was a teacher;  subsequently becoming the headteacher at Newcastle High School in Kansanga, Kampala.

However, Gamparo strived for more   and joined Airwaves Media, a media advertising company.
He later furthered his education at Uganda Management Institute (UMI), pursuing a course in Business Administration. 
While there, a statement by one of his lecturers, “there is money at the bottom of the pyramid”, gave him reason to think of the furniture business  that is mostly occupied by unqualified people. 

More to that, while looking for furniture for his house, Gamparo realised that most of the sofas on the Ugandan market were of low quality and stuffed with rubbish while the better furniture from high end stores was very expensive. 
“With that, I found a business savvy to make quality furniture which I sold at reasonable prices,” Gamparo discloses.

Set off
Gamparo, who had no carpentry skills got in touch with a colleague and an agreement was made that he stocks and sells his partner’s furniture. 

However, Gamparo could not afford Kampala’s rent then, deciding to try his luck in Mbarara, his hometown. He opened up a showroom, the very first of its kind, and monopolised the market.

“Most people sold locally made furniture. Another man commonly known as Dubai, dealt in imported and expensive furniture. However, when I came in with high-quality furniture at a relatively affordable price, clients flooded our showroom,” he recalls.

Unfortunately, Gamparo’s partner could only produce two to three sofas a week; an unmatched number in comparison to the selling rate. With this, he carried out research about the production of quality furniture in order to retain the Mbarara market. He set up a production centre in Nabweru which supplied the showroom with furniture.
Three years later, the business would collapse.

“My tight academic schedule could not allow me to travel to Mbarara as often as I would have wanted to. One day, I found the showroom with no stock, zero profit and pending rent fees. I had no option but to close the showroom,” he notes.
 Initially, Gamparo’s capital was Shs12m. He bought six sets of sofas for Shs9m and spent Shs3m on rent.

On average, he paid Shs250,000 whenever he transported the furniture to Mbarara.  
However, despite the losses he did not lose hope. With some accumulated savings, he topped up with a small loan and set up a showroom in Kampala at the end of 2014, where he still operates to date.

“It was a dilapidated building but its state was immaterial compared to its strategic location. We spent about Shs45m in renovation and also paid Shs18m for a year’s rent to secure the new place,” he says.
 In December 2017, Gamparo started producing his own furniture and reinvested every coin made into the business every end of month.

He has since expanded his production to include dining sets, beds, sideboards, centre tables, office furniture besides sofas. He also does repairs, which has increased his clientele who also contract him to furnish homes. 

“We have accumulated knowledge and experience through research, without which, you cannot get it right. That’s why many think my furniture is imported,” he says, adding that sharing knowledge with his team has also greatly contributed to the unique production. 

Material
Research has also afforded him knowledge on the ideal material to use. 
“I am in direct contact with people who import quality fabric from Turkey and China, including those that deal in good timber,” he reveals.

Gamparo also contracted a company with finesse in making sofa frames with the designs he provides, a decision which saved him the burden of looking for timber, car breakdowns, and related challenges. These designs are sometimes his creation while in other instances, the customer provides.

“At Cool Furniture Interiors, we assemble, insulate, treat timber, sponge, tailor, and dress sofa sets before displaying them,” he shares.

Production level
Production is demand-driven as the showroom can only accommodate about 26 sofa sets while others are kept in the store awaiting display. According to him, business peak season is from September to December as many people are doing house renovations, changing furniture, making repairs while others are moving into new houses and need new furniture.

These seasonal sales at times act as a buffer for the months of January to August where sales and subsequently profits are low.

He also attributes the recent drastic drop in sales to the pandemic.  

“The lockdown has greatly affected the sales, people have not had the purchasing power given the fact that they have not been earning,” he notes.  

Gamparo employs 25 workers (permanent and casual) and these receive a monthly salary and wages earned per item produced.

The workers include; carpenters, tailors, machine operators, sales and marketers, and those responsible for the finishing.

Marketing strategy
While some people had varying mindsets regarding Facebook back then, Gamparo saw it as a chance to market his products at minimal charge thus opening a Facebook page - Cool Furniture & Interiors and paid $100 per month for adverts.

Although marketing online has its challenges like paying more money for more views, he has maintained it to date and has grown his client base.

Given the competitive market, Gamparo invested (Shs350m) in heavy duty machinery so as to improve the production rate as well as the quality of the finished products. This has also helped to reduce on the time of production.
 “I purchased different machines from Germany, Belgium, Japan and within. The sliding cross-cutting machine gives the proper right angles, does the squaring of the timber and clear cuts, the thicknesser gives proper gauges (size) of the timber, the band saw is used for curving the wood,” he says, adding, “We have a spindle moulder which is used for designing the wood but we basically use it for kitchen designs and all kinds of doors, the molding machine is used for molded legs of the chairs and the beds. Other machines include; a sassing plainer, sanding machine and tools like miter saw.”

Achievements
Sustaining the business, growing the clientele base, being able to deliver high-quality products and on time are among the big Gamparo’s achievements.
“I have seen many people on different platforms talking about carpenters who have duped clients but I am happy to say that every person who has come to Cool Furniture has got the best, in terms of quality, and time delivery,” he happily notes.
 His capital has also grown from Shs18m to more than Shs300m over the years. Additionally, he has acquired the land where he expects to construct a permanent structure to accommodate a showroom and workshop.

Other achievements include; accumulated stock, maintaining his workers who are able to sustain themselves along with their families, being able to acquire machinery and construction of his home.

Through Gamparo’s hard work, Cool Furniture Interiors has birthed Trip Care Adventures, a tour and travel company into inbound and outside tours.  Another strong pillar for his business is valuing customer feedback and using it to improve the areas of concern such as being able to differentiate poor from good quality material. This earned him credit amongst his clients.

Challenges
That said, it has not been a smooth road and one of the hurdles is mystery buyers whose intention was to lookout for new designs, duplicate and sell them cheaply. 

“This brought a lot of confusion to some clients since it is very hard to differentiate them at first sight,” he says. 
The unstable power supply also affected the innovative interior designer thus incurring an extra cost to fuel the generator to keep machines such as the compressor, among others running.

Future of the business
Gamparo is eyeing classic welding (fabricating stainless steel and aluminium) for he envisages producing furniture with a combination of wood and metal. He has already acquired the welding equipment on top of securing a place to house the welding factory. He hopes to have a big furniture company in the next four to five years.

The price of sofas ranges from Shs2m to Shs5m depending on size while dining tables will go for Shs1m to Shs2m. Centre tables cost Shs400,000 to Shs800,000 while kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, and sideboards are priced at Shs450,000 per square metre. 

Gamparo’s  business tips

Passion
Operate a business that you are passionate about. When you are passionate about something, you will not mind whether it’s bringing you money or not because it’s a game you are enjoying. You will always aspire to make it better by the day and you will eventually make the money.

Research
 Do not do a business just because someone is doing it. If you have interest, develop the products or services by yourself then you need to spend not less than three years researching about the business in terms of source of materials, location, market and all other legal structures that are necessary for you to operate the business. 
People who have done business for a long time usually have a bigger market, have made serious contacts and accumulated expertise over time are not easy to compete with.

Start small and keep growing
It’s not wise to invest all your savings at the same time. If you have saved to start up a business, it’s important to keep some amount so that you keep adding when the business picks up. Start small and the business will keep on growing.

Product quality
The quality of the product(s) is very important if a business is to survive. When you start a business with low-quality products, customers will shun them after a short while, for, they will have lost trust in the products. Start but keep improving on the products since the new trends in technology to keep and grow the clients’ base.

Customer care
 A client who walks into your business has many options of where to buy from, so customer care, listening to the client’s feedback is very important. 

Responding to clients’ complaints about the products or services is very paramount. A customer may not be satisfied with the product but can be satisfied with the attention given to him or her.

Conversely, this means the entity will not be forced to halt operations and liquidate its assets in the near term at what may be very low fire-sale prices. Customers can ditch a business and have the capacity to spread the harmful word of mouth that can be detrimental to the business.

Consistency
 It’s very bad to become a business nomad, if you don’t give business time to accumulate a good number of clients who will refer other clients to you, you become a failure. 

Business needs time to start making money but sometimes people become impatient when the business is not doing well and they end up closing. Remember that any mistake made in the business becomes a learning opportunity. 

Every business is profitable as long as you give it time to grow big, be consistent with the business contacts. People who usually change business contacts lose out on business, especially from repeat clients. 
It is even worse when you change contact and location.

Human resource management; includes recruitment, retention, and exit of workers out of the business. You have to be very careful who you employ, companies usually want to employ workers who are experienced because they want these people for efficiency. 

As a business owner, you will spend less time and money on training an experienced worker. 
How you manage the workers is also important, your employees need continuous motivation. Team building is important for the smooth running of the business because it reduces business politics, the collision of workers and enhances efficiency.

Marketing
When you start a business, it’s the friends and family that you rely on for support. Small businesses survive on word of mouth for the next step. 

This is usually the case with the bar business where friends always link up at a friend’s joint for a catch-up. Friends will inform their friends and the network will grow. 

The use of social media these days has improved businesses in the whole world especially the paid-for adverts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites, here posts are liked, shared, or even displayed to different platforms. 

This will widen the market base. Social media is by far a cheap way of advertising people should embrace.

Supplier identification
It’s important to have a reliable supplier whose product is tested and tried. 
The reliability of a supplier is crucial in having a stable business. Quality assurance is also important so that your customers can always have good products.

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