Clothed most likely in an old house attire at home in September 2017, Tutuwaa Ahwoi prepared and packaged about 80 small calabashes of ‘Alata Samina’ mostly known as African black soap for sale for the first time.
When the first 5 products were sold, she was very happy. Little did she know that the adventure would metamorphose into a top skin care brand adored by many in Ghana, Botswana and beyond.
Tutuwaa Ahwoi, 28 and Thato Tau, 26 are co-founders of an authentically African and organic skin care brand called ‘Nokware’ meaning Truth in Twi, a local Ghanaian language.
Tutuwaa & Thato
‘’We wanted something that was true to earth because our slogan is ‘From Earth To You…something with no artificial additives and a friend suggested “Nokware,” Tutuwaa said in an interview from a modest store on the ground floor of a story building that serves as a packaging house for their products.
Their story is quite a deviation from the usual as their start-up began growing from the get-go.
Their business had a good head start as it has received an appreciable customer base and won an award in the US even before it turns a year in September, 2018.
They won the Sundial Brands Prize at the New Venture Competition, held as part of Harvard Business School’s Africa Business Conference in Boston, MA, United States.
The competition aims at helping young, inventive and African-oriented businesses.
The Tutu-Thato friendship story
The business partners met in France while both were pursuing Master’s Degree in 2014 and as the only black students in their class, they clicked immediately.
Soon they began sharing everything together, even bathing soaps!
“I used shea butter and black soap a lot so she (Thato) started using it too and when we moved back to our respective countries after school, she (Thato) would always ask me to send her some black soap in Botswana,” Tutuwaa beamed while reminiscing.
“Because we actually don’t have shea butter and African black soap (Alata samina) in Southern Africa, I heard about it for the first time in France through Tutuwaa and it definitely changed my skin care life for sure,” Thato added almost immediately.
She was hit by shortage of supply when she got back to Botswana and Tutuwaa was in Ghana.
It took a different turn when friends in Botswana, Thato’s home country who had tested the soap started asking for more.
‘So I called her one day and I was like you know what, why don’t we sell this? The idea at first was just to sell in Botswana,” Tutuwaa told Business World Ghana in the interview.
And quickly, work began for the T-girls.
While Tutuwaa worked on the production of the soap, Thato was deeply involved with branding and marketing of the products.
Currently Nokware Skin care has moved from selling 5 calabashes of soap to selling about 500 products a month.
The brand, which includes four variants of soaps, four variants of shea butters, and sponges is currently stocked in about 6 retail shops across Ghana.
Apart from Ghana and Botswana, Nokware has presence in Canada, UK, US and South Africa.
However, this is not to paint a picture of a smooth entrepreneurial ride.
The duo had their fair share of challenges while starting up.
‘It was a bit difficult because we were in two different countries with time differences. So we had to readjust our sleeping and day to day schedules in general just so we could communicate more effectively,’ Thato said.
Internet was also an issue, since they mostly communicated over the internet and Botswana where Thato lives, has an unstable internet connection.
“Finding constant raw materials supply, calabashes, cocoa sacks, raffia for packaging was also a challenge, Tutuwaa noted.
However, funding which has stagnated most start-ups didn’t deter the girls but rather, they chose to start off lean, depending solely on personal savings and cutting down unnecessary start up costs.
For Thato who is currently in Ghana for a month’s visit to help with the production, the plunge into entrepreneurship hasn’t thrown her off her career trajectory; her Master’s in Fashion Design and Luxury Management coupled with the vision of owning a beauty company falls perfectly inline with the Nokware brand.
She brings to the table her experience from working with Chanel- a global fashion brand.
Same cannot be said of her Ghanaian counterpart.
Tutuwa harboured wild dreams of working with her Master’s in International Business certificate as an investment banker or with the World Bank, “but she was asking me for soap and now I make soaps,” she said bursting out heartily.
The A game packaging
The packaging and branding in general is their USP (Unique Selling Point) as most people get attracted to their products by first falling in love with the packaging.
It is not only the products that is organic, the packaging is also organic as the they make use of calabash, natural jute fibres, raffia and bamboo.
This on a whole is a good move as pollution and heaps of filth have taken a better part of the environment.
Nambeo index, a website that tracks several countries with respect to pollution, health, crime, in 2016 named Accra, Ghana’s capital as the city with the highest form of pollution around the world.
And if most businesses adopt eco-friendly packaging like Nokware, it will help partly in ridding the environment off filth.
Women empowerment is the deal
The duo lay serious emphasis on empowering and transforming the lives of the women they source their ingredients from by practicing fair trade with them.
They pride themselves in having an all-female staff as a way to close the gender employment gap and wage differences that women face.
Having put the female children of some of their employees in school, they are officially initiating a scholarship fund in December 2018, to cover more children.
The goal is much bigger than you think
For Nokware, the long term goal goes beyond just having more sales outlets.
The catch is to own a complete lifestyle brand which encompasses hair care, baby care, men’s line and who knows, a healthy food brand soon at a location near you.
Nuggets for Africa’s youth
Thato- “Funding has always been the biggest challenge for young entrepreneurs in Africa, some will not be fortunate to have savings to fall on. You just need to believe in yourself enough to say I’m going to start this with whatever I have an take it from there.”
Tutuwaa –“In the beginning it’s always scary but the thing is you just have to make that decision to start and plan in a way that attracts people to gravitate towards your products.”
Photo credit- Nokwareskincare.com
By Pamela Ofori- Boateng/ Business World Ghana ©