Zandile’s story: painting a brighter community

Zandile Manyisa is the Founder of UJU Quality Paints, a home paint brand with branches in Eastern Cape and Johannesburg, South Africa. With support from our award-winning HerVenture app, Zandile improved her bookkeeping, expanded her product line, and embraced digital business tools. As a result, she’s increased her revenue and profit, and hired more people in her community. 

“I came from a disadvantaged background and had limited resources growing up, so I had to earn money to cover my school fees and groceries. I was always selling things; clothes, soap, washing powder, you name it. I was a girl entrepreneur before I was a woman entrepreneur!  

After graduating from school, I continued selling soap and washing powder to support myself. Someone gave me the idea to manufacture my own soap, which I realised was a good idea, as I’d have more control over my pricing and quality of what I’m selling. 

I started researching different products to manufacture, considering the associated costs, market demand, and my own personal interest. House paint seemed to be the perfect product for me. I love beautiful things, as do most people, but quality paint is expensive. I wanted to make beautiful, long-lasting paint and sell it at an affordable price, so that everyone could create their dream home. So, that’s what I did!  

I learned everything I could about manufacturing paint, taking classes and learning from people who were already in the paint industry. Once I knew what I was doing, I invested in the supplies I needed and created my first line of interior paints. These became very popular and soon people were asking for exterior paints too. I’d look around my community and see so many homes that had been painted with my products. It made me feel proud.

Still, growing my business was a challenge. The paint industry is very male-dominated, as is the hardware store industry, which we rely on to distribute our products. I’d find that hardware store owners wouldn’t take me seriously, so it was hard to convince them to stock my products. They’d ask a lot of questions that suggested they didn’t think I was competent. When I confidently answered those questions, they’d often say “Are you sure?”. As if I wasn’t an expert on my business.  

I ended up asking my husband to come on board, so that there was a male figure attached to the brand. It worked wonders. Hardware stores were finally willing to sell my products. They assumed my husband was in charge of everything, and since he is a man, he must know what he’s doing.  They had no idea that I was still the one running the company.  

More challenges came last year, when I opened a branch in Johannesburg, which is a very different market to Eastern Cape. Johannesburg is much bigger, and business is more competitive. Being in the city meant having a larger population to serve with completely different home design preferences to adapt to. It also meant going up against massive global paint brands who had way more resources. If I wanted to succeed in the city, I needed to navigate these challenges. That’s where the HerVenture app came in. 

Unlike a lot of other apps, HerVenture felt like a proper business course. It had quality information that was presented in a structured and easy to understand way. I liked that I could study at my own pace and even use the app offline. In South Africa, we have to deal with load shedding, which impacts our internet access. With HerVenture, I could continue doing lessons even when the power was out.  

I learned how to improve my bookkeeping, which has been super valuable, as I am not able to hire an accountant yet. I also learned about expanding my product line to offer complimentary products. For example, when you buy paint, you’re going to need paint brushes and rollers, so I’ve started selling those as well.  

The E-commerce and digital marketing modules were especially valuable for me, because everything is done online these days. I’m not a technology person, but HerVenture’s lessons supported me to improve my understanding of digital tools and feel confident using them.  

After using HerVenture, I realised that social media could be a useful tool for marketing my business, especially in Johannesburg where my brand wasn’t as well known. I didn’t have much of a following, so I started approaching people who did to see if we could collaborate. I found an artist who did beautiful murals in the community. He has a lot of followers and is popular in the area, so I asked if he would use my paint for some community projects and post some content about it, tagging my business. We worked together to paint local schools, daycares, and other buildings. Every time he posted, our social media following increased and our client base grew. Slowly but surely, we became well known. 

Applying the knowledge I gained from HerVenture has helped me double my client base, increase our revenue by 50%, and increase our profit by 75%. I’ve been able to create more jobs and change people’s lives. We’ve got five employees in the Eastern Cape and two in Johannesburg. Each of those employees is then changing their family’s circumstances and impacting other people’s lives as well. I’m proud to have started that chain reaction.”