Global Courant 2023-05-22 14:02:02
What do Nike, Puma and Adidas have in common other than being the world’s largest athletic shoe brands? There are many not-so-cryptic answers, including that their founders were fueled by a desire to make better shoes for athletes and the fact that they were all male and Western.
Since these pioneers shaped the market, the athletic shoe industry has gone through the roof and penetrated various aspects of modern life. Research by GlobeNewswire valued the athletic footwear industry at $127.31 billion in 2021, and expected it to exceed $196.5 billion by 2030.
Today, African business founders are daring to take on this industry and bring the continent into conversation. But this time, women are on the front lines. One of them is Navalayo Osembo, founder of Enda Athletic Inc and second runner-up of Africa’s Business Heroes Prize Competition 2021.
Enda Athletic is proud to be the first high performance running shoe brand made in Africa. Since its founding in 2015, Enda has gained popularity by creating original running shoes and apparel for men and women. However, Osembo’s brand was not an overnight success.
Osembo grew up in Nairobi, Kenya with fond childhood memories of life in military barracks as her father was in the Air Force. “Among other things, I saw them doing all these stunts with planes in the sky,” Osembo told Ventures Africa. “My environment encouraged me to be curious.”
This curiosity fueled Osembo’s entrepreneurial spirit. “I’ve tried different businesses throughout my life, including importing and selling clothes, farming and running a school,” she said.
The race against poverty
The same curiosity spurred her on a series of impact-driven ventures that led to the birth of Enda. According to Osembo, she was racing against a pattern of rising finances among Kenyan athletes. “I grew up among athletes. And in my community, we often see them make decent money and then go bankrupt. That story kept repeating itself and I wondered why. I thought: Kenya has such a good reputation in athletics, so why haven’t we made money from it?”
So Osembo and Weldon Kennedy, her co-founder, started thinking about solving this problem. “We knew that Kenya could do more than just have a handful of athletes receive awards or use them in marketing campaigns,” she said. Then they realized that running shoes had such a large market with little representation from Africa. “Africa had no property,” she said. “We’ve only been on the market as consumers.” So they founded Enda Athletic in 2015 to explore this possibility.
Navalayo Osembo, co-founder of Enda Athletic
Jump hurdles
Giving birth to the idea was the easy part. Osembo’s race to success involved jumping several hurdles, the greatest of which was scarcity of capital. “Finding capital has been the biggest challenge,” she said. “There really isn’t much capital for startups. It’s a real problem in Africa. Even when startups get money, they’ll give you $10,000 to $15,000, which isn’t bad. But you can only start very small, unlike in the West where you can start an Uber and raise millions in funding.” Osembo’s claim is not wrong. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about 82 percent of Africans have no access to formal credit, of which 60 percent are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Meanwhile, 51% of small businesses need more money than they can get, according to IFC.
Oddly enough, Enda’s next challenge was the size of his dream. The brand wants to enter the world stage and must therefore quickly learn to catch up. “We are well trained and skilled, but the challenge comes when you try to translate local talent into a global operation,” said Osembo. “To run a global business, you need someone with that kind of experience on your team, and that’s hard to find in Africa. Meanwhile, the alternative is to hire people from outside the continent, which is expensive.”
At the same time, the startup had to navigate a tough regulatory environment. “Regulators support entrepreneurship but are a bit too big on paperwork,” Osembo said. “There are too many licenses you need and too many hoops we have to jump as entrepreneurs.”
Become a business hero
It soon became clear to Osembo that the way out for Enda was to prove his worth on the big stage. So in 2021, Enda Athletic entered Africa’s Business Heroes Prize Competition where she placed second. Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) is a philanthropic program in Africa sponsored by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Philanthropy. It seeks to showcase, support and grow local talent making a positive impact in their communities and beyond and inspire a movement of African entrepreneurship. “It was a fantastic experience, honestly,” said Osembo. “I loved that we were competing against entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries, including Egypt, Botswana, Kenya and Nigeria, among others. Aside from the money, we got a lot of exposure, media mentions and opportunities.
Notably, winning on the big stage didn’t come cheap for Enda. You need to know your business inside out: spend time understanding your market, segmentation and competitive advantage. That only comes with experience. But having these makes it easier for you to paint a picture that investors will understand and appreciate,” she said. “I believe we were unique because we went into sportswear and performance shoes when no one was doing anything with them.”
Running their own race
According to Osembo, one of Enda’s main strategies was to maintain an original identity. “People keep asking us if we are going to compete with Nike and Adidas. But we are neither the next Nike nor the next Adidas. We are Enda. This mindset has helped us to focus on our journey and to explain our story in a logical way. For example, we know that we can’t win these people in the technology race because we don’t have the money to fund it. But we’re proving to our consumers that they don’t need all that technology to succeed as an athlete and we’ve got just what they need. It’s perseverance, domination and showing up every day when you don’t want to and when no one else does that makes a champion and that’s the spirit we try to instill in our brand.
Navalayo Osembo is a lawyer, accountant and alumnus of the London School of Economics. However, her optimism about Enda’s success is fueled by something bigger than her resume: a growing market for niche brands. “Everyone thinks the bigger brands are the best running shoe brands. But the reality is very different. It is niche brands that have emerged in the past 12-15 years that are now taking the lead. So when I look at the market, I see that consumers are willing to try new things or listen to other brands. All we need is a compelling story for them to listen to.”
More about Africa’s Business Heroes 5th edition
ABH has just closed the call for applications for the 5th annual edition on May 17, 2023. The winners will be awarded in November this year. Visit their website to learn more about ABH and to follow the journey of the 2023 edition
Over a ten-year period, the ABH program will recognize 100 African entrepreneurs and provide grants, training programs and broader support for the broad African entrepreneurial ecosystem. Each year, successful applicants gain access to training, mentorship and learning opportunities, as well as a community of like-minded African business leaders. The top 10 finalists will share $1.5 million in grant funding, with the first-place winner taking home $300,000.
In addition, all successful applicants to this year’s ABH Prize Competition will enjoy the bonus offer of free access to the Alibaba Netpreneur E-learning course offered by Alibaba Global Initiatives (AGI). In partnership with AGI, ABH will also facilitate the participation of the top 10 finalists in a sponsored trip to Hangzhou, China to attend an offline digital immersion program.
Each year, ABH spotlights outstanding contestants through traditional media and social media channels, including providing significant exposure to the top 10 finalists through the ABH Show and other content. This year’s edition, which follows the ABH journey of the top 10 finalists of 2022 and digs into their entrepreneurial stories, will come in 4-5 8-minute episodes expected to be released online and across the continent in more than 40 countries. are broadcasted. The first episode of the series was recently released and is now available here.
