Nywele Creative founder talks business of hair

From as early as she can remember, Georgina Kirungo paid particular attention to her hair, and loved trying out different hairstyles. When she reached adulthood and got the freedom to experiment with her hair, she had a difficult time finding the right hair extensions.

“I loved experimenting with hair extensions in terms of length and colour. I was not really satisfied with the quality in the market, and I knew I was not alone,” she says.

In 2012, Georgina, 31, set up Nywele Creative, a company that sells hair extensions such as weaves and wigs made out of human hair. 

She says that she has curved out a niche in the market, cashing in on increasing demand for virgin hair extensions, a factor that is behind the success of the business, which clocked 10 years.

Starting 
The entrepreneur started off with a set of hair extension worth Shs252,000, and would later get Shs1,080,000 funding from an aunt, money she used to expand her business. She employs six full time employees, bringing in an annual turnover of over Shs500m.

The cost of Nywele Creative hair ranges from Shs360,000 to Shs800,000. Having started off as an online business, they now have five physical locations - at Green House on Ngong Road, Garden City Mall on Thika Highway, Westlands, Two Rivers Mall and The Hub in Karen. 

Market 
The company also caters for markets outside Kenya such as Uganda, Rwanda, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Sweden and the US.

Georgina employs the services of a manufacturing company based in the UK to turn her hair into different styles and cuts. The hair is then shipped to Kenya where it is distributed across the world. 

Although she still sells her products online, tapping into Kenya’s growing e-commerce business, she appreciates the opportunity physical shops provide to showcase the advantages of real hair extensions over synthetic varieties – hers assures durability, reusability and versatility.

For customers who are not familiar with her products or those who have a hard time ordering them online, the shops offer an opportunity to see the extensions on mannequins, touch them and learn how to use them.

Quality 
She observes that Kenya differs from other markets in that women here prioritise quality over trends.
“The quality standards of hair extensions that Kenyans demand are very high, even more than in markets such as London. Kenyans want to invest in something that is going to last for a long time,” she says. 

Builds a dream 
Georgina begun looking for hair that she felt suited her personality while studying in the UK. A chance encounter with a virgin hair supplier led to a light-bulb moment that saw her open her own hair studio. From that point, she began carrying out research, learning more about virgin human hair and hair extensions sourced from countries of origin. 

“I spoke to experts in London who had been sourcing for virgin hair for decades and created networks. I saw a gap in the Kenyan and African market as a whole, and created the right business relationships with different sources across the globe.”

Through her sources, she was able to order for some virgin human hair extensions and introduced the product to the market. The response was amazing.

“Many women loved the product, and through referrals, I got more orders. We created the ‘all under-one-roof’ concept when it came to hair extensions. Clients can purchase and have their hair extensions installed in the same place,” she adds. She cites consumer awareness as her biggest challenge.

“The Industry is unregulated, therefore, anyone can put a sticker on their product reading ‘100 percent Virgin Hair Extensions’ when what they are offering is high fibre synthetic hair extensions that mimic the characteristics of virgin hair without the effort of sourcing true high quality hair, which requires expertise and skill and is an extremely costly process,” she says.

She adds that some vendors go as far as confusing consumers by naming their extensions semi-human at a lowered or “more affordable” price.

What’s next for her?
“I see myself expanding my events and wellbeing businesses to the scale of Nywele Creative and elevating my business to the next level, potentially offering the ability to franchise my brand across the country and possibly the rest of the East African region.”

She adds that she wants women to have convenient and reliable access to the highest quality hair extensions available globally here in Kenya and to give them the opportunity to enhance their hair with length, volume and colour using the best quality.

The business offers free training to promising individuals at their stores, after which they offer the chance of full time employment. Luxury brand training skills are available to both sales associates and creatives.
Georgina has opened three other successful businesses over the last 10 years, including Home Spa KE, an organic wellbeing range of natural products, as well as Kenya and Niche Experiences, an events business.

In 2018, Nywele Creative was selected amongst the top 100 mid-sized companies by KPMG, she is also a winner of the Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 Women as well as the paper’s Youngest Entrepreneur of the Year 2018.

Tips for starting  hair business

Human hair is highly sought after. It is a coveted commodity, learning how to start a business selling human hair for weaving can be a profitable business. Research your product highly sought after for making extensions, braids, custom wigs and hair pieces. Because human hair is a coveted commodity with widespread usage. Learning how to start a business selling human hair for weaving can be a profitable business.

This type of hair is preferable to synthetic hair blends. Successful people are the ones who always have careful preparations for any work they do. Plans and complete preparations are keys to success. Therefore, if you want to start your hair business, then you should follow these things. 

Pick a venue
You can open a brick-and-mortar retail store or e-commerce shop or become a flea-market vendor. If you do not plan to open a physical store, you will need to also secure storage space that is free of dirt, dust and pets.
A warehouse or commercial storage facility are options, but you can also use inexpensive, air-tight storage containers in a spare garage or closet. Human hair can either be hung up or laid flat. As long as it is not bent or twisted, you will not ruin it.

Profound interest
You just can do the best in the field you like. This slogan is also true to start your hair business. If you have a profound and intense interest in hair business, then I sure you can show off all your talent ability in this field.

Budget
You cannot start your hair business if you do not have money right. Money is not all, but it is necessary to start any kind of business. So if you have an intention of getting into hair business next year, you should save money up from this year to spend a budget of capital. Then, when you have enough money, you also have to consider how to use that money to import hair from reliable suppliers.

Time to start 
Period of time to start your hair business plays an important role. It decides up to 70 percent of your success.
If you start your hair business in suitable time such as: golden year of business, business grows well, festival time, president election time, holiday time, then the demand of customers are very high. They buy hair a lot. It is best time for you to start your hair business with potential hope.
In contrast, if you start your hair business in a difficult time such as world pandemic (Covid-19), drought seasons, outbreaks, unrests, then the demand of customers is very small. They just stay at home for safety, can’t go anywhere to show off their beauty. Therefore, it will be not proper time for you to start a hair business.

Promos 
You can follow the trend in the hair market or in the world and run a super sale season for your hair business to get customers’ attractions. 

Everyone loves sale deal right? Start your hair business with a super sale promotion can bring about many potential customers, and these customers maybe will be your loyal customers in the future. 
Selling at cheap price first to get customers’ feedbacks and then increase the price to a rate which brings about benefits to you.

Social media 
Now is 4.0 social media age, the internet explodes strongly. Potentials customers gather in social media. Let us take advantage of social media platforms to advertise your hair business. The speed of spreading is very strong. Be available in Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Alibaba, and Pinterest, to approach all potential customers and create your own brand name.

Never give up 
You really have to love what you are doing, so you do not give up. Business must have ups and downs. Today you can receive bad feedbacks from customers or many difficulties in your hair business but don’t give up, just try the best of your attempt. You have gone in a long way, have gone through many barriers, and so let us think to reason why you started before you give up. 

Vendor 
Finding a reliable factory vendor is really important. A good factory can accompany with your hair business to the pinnacle of success while other bad factory vendors can ruin your hair business. Therefore, choosing a reliable hair vendor is really necessary. Remember to spend a lot of time in searching and joining many hair groups on Facebook to gain information. Set up wholesale accounts with manufacturers and brands of human hair.

Plan
Build up your plans in detail. You can use a notebook to write down all your plans for hair business. Create milestones for targets and try to complete them. Remember to apply deadlines for each milestone to make pressure on yourself to motivate you. For example, you want to start hair business next year, in 2021. Then you should list up your details plan from this year to prepare.

Target 
Determining your target hair business is very important. You must know what is your plan and what you want to do. Do you want to start from online business or opening a hair store? Only when you know what your target is then you can have a step by step plans for your hair business. Each type of business will have a different way to approach it.

—Source: oberlo