So as you all know I love to support local and started a segment where we could share, learn and inspire! It is so important to support local and share your findings with others.
During lock down, we are going to do a whole lot of these to highlight these businesses – many of which are taking HUGE strain during this time – and shed some awareness and love to all.
I discovered the most divine local business kids fashion brand, Lesedi, and I just knew I had to share with you all! They sell lovely colourful hand made clothing and accessories for kids and they all look so comfy and so beautifully made. And I am a huge fan of Shweshwe material so these clothes just make me so happy – the colours and the prints are so uniquely African and so divine. The clothing is made here in South Africa with lots of love and passion, so please support local!
Please follow them on Facebook and Instagram, they would appreciate the love! And check out their website to shop online – you will find dresses, jumpsuits, shirts, trousers, head bands, belts – check them out to see which you love best! You will find it hard to just pick one..!
We chatted to the lovely Founder and Managing Director of Lesedi, Harsha Prag and she had this to say!
How does it feel to be a business owner that loves what they do?
It’s been a privilege to have the time, funds and space to bring my dream to life. There have been moments on this journey that have been really challenging and unexpected, but they’ve made me grow as a person and become better as an entrepreneur. It’s been quite the adventure and even on the days that are tough, I’m so grateful that I get to live my dream.
What are the top 3 learnings you have had to find out the hard way since starting your own business?
a. Everything takes much longer than you think it’s going to take. So factor unforeseen delays into your timeline and more importantly into your working capital so that you don’t run out of funds.
b. It’s important to have a contract to hold both parties accountable.
I naively entered into agreements on a handshake and it didn’t go the way I had envisioned.
c. 80% of my journey thus far has been making mistakes and then learning from them. As a perfectionist, its been hard to be a beginner again, but once I embraced that, the mistakes become less stressful and more of an interesting adventure.
Where do you see your business in 5 years?
In 5 years I would love for the brand to be seen as one that brings a uniquely South African aesthetic to the global kids clothing market. In line with this vision, we will keep pushing ourselves to be creative and to design clothing that is fun to wear, celebrates African textiles and culture- and is of a high quality. Once the world open up again, our plan is to expand into Europe and North America and locally to expand into retail stores.
What is your advice to individuals out there wanting to start their own businesses but are too scared?
From a business point of view do your research thoroughly, make sure that there’s a market for the product you want to sell and that you can sell it at a good price point.
From a personal point of view, you need to assess if you are really ready to be an entrepreneur. Let me explain. Being an entrepreneur is all about forging ahead into unknown territory. If that sounds like fun to you, then take the leap of faith!
Tell us 2 things that are the BEST part about owning your own business and make it all worthwhile?
Seeing my customers’ excitement when they see what we’ve created for their kids, that’s the absolute best feeling!
Their excitement fuels me to do better.
Second, the entrepreneurial journey itself.
Every day I’m learning something new and that’s really exciting, I feel like I’m on the biggest adventure!
How has lock down affected you?
Everyone’s focus right now is on staying healthy, rightly so. Launching a kids clothing brand during this time, when people’s attention is on more critical health issues has been challenging. We haven’t seen the market uptake that we anticipated, however, we also know that our time will come. And so to every South African family out there, stay safe and see you on our website and social media pages soon! We look forward to delighting you with our range! And a special thank you The Edit for opening up your platform to support local South African businesses!
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