It is women’s month in South Africa, and it has started off on a great note. Banyana Banyana has made history by qualifying for the FIFA World Cup Round of 16 for the first time ever on Wednesday (2 August 2023). In addition, the Proteas claim historic draw by the barest of margins after a thrilling 48-48 draw with New Zealand at the Cape Town Convention Centre on Wednesday evening.
It is only fitting that we highlight and celebrate a business that is owned and operated by a woman. I had a virtual sit down with this amazing business owner, and this is how she introduced herself:
“My name is Rushdiyah. I’m from Cape Town and I grew up in a house where my parents were very creative… they would make things appear out of nothing. And I grew up watching this like my entire life. So I think that’s part of the reason why I feel like I’m so creative, because it’s an inherent, I think… those are the kinds of things that make me happy; when I can make things… [To] see how it starts from the beginning to the end. And then kind of learn throughout that process…”. Rushdiyah is also currently a masters student at the University of Cape Town, she is an anthropologists with a deep passion for writing and more specifically, on women’s issues.
Wimsy is a business that hand-makes bespoke headpieces. The business started in 2010. It was born out of Rushdiyah’s close relationship and exposure to creativity and community. She grew up in small Muslim communities then where everyone was really close, where “you knew everyone’s business, but it wasn’t sort of like imposing, you just looked out for everybody in the community”. Rushdiyah grew up in a house where people came in and out. She remembers being the tea girl; “so as soon as the doorbell rang, I would put the kettle on. I already knew what was going to happen..”. Her mommy would bead and her daddy was a pattern maker, so people would come to him for wedding dresses. “If someone got married, they would come to our house and talk to my daddy and my mommy about what they needed for the wedding, because my mom also… made food. So it was the catering. There was always some way they were involved in someone’s wedding. And when my daddy made this, I was the oldest, so I would fit the dress on so you could see what it looks like”. Thus, weddings were always a part of Rushdiyah’s life, and now is a big part of her business.
When I asked her what inspired her to business, she said that it is a mixture of things. Firstly, she wanted to be home with her children because when she was working in retail, she did not see her children as often as she wanted and she felt like she was missing out on a lot of things with her kids. Secondly, she would make little bows for her children for Ramadan, and friends and family would ask where she got them and she would make some for them. Thereafter, she started investing time and developing the idea of making headpieces into a business and less of a hobby or thing she did on the side for friends and family.
Wimsy’s client base includes friends & family, and thanks to word of mouth from past clients, this has been very important to growth of her business, because if your service is not good, people won’t recommend you to anyone. Wimsy clients span throughout all 9 provinces.
In terms of advertising and promoting her business, Rushdiyah primarily uses Instagram because “Instagram seems to be my target audience… I have between 18 and 45 year old independent women who know how to use the Internet. And so I also have my website, and my website guy is very good at making sure that… on Google…I come up in searches. I don’t know what that’s called. SEO… when people search for headpieces, Wimsy will come up. And that’s how I get a lot of my clients… I also have some of my products in shops such as Blended Studio in Belgravia and Gadijah Designs which is close to me around the corner from my house and that is where I see my clients for consultations”.
The origin of the name comes from clients comments; her products were often described as whimsical, and she really liked that name. When she went to Google to search for businesses with a similar names, many business came with the name ‘WHIMSY’. So she decide to just spell it differently, to remove the H and make it ‘WIMSY’, because that name doesn’t exist and she could get a domain name and a website that is unique. She also shared a funny stereotypical sentiment that “in coloured communities when people have businesses they use their initials… my mommy had a catering company and the name was her initials catering, so ZN catering, and I had a cousin who drove trucks and his business was AB transport…”. Thus, WIMSY was born, it is 6 letters, it is like a little rhyme and it’s catchy. She wanted a name that was available, easy to remember, and then she could create content around association with that word because no other business had that name.
Her pieces were made to complement the head cover that Muslim women wear when they get married. The bridal headpieces she was making were modern looking. People were getting married but they did not necessarily want to wear traditional headpieces. The appeal to her products were that you could wear modern looking pieces and still cover your head. “There was a gap there to fill because with my headpieces, it was modern looking, it had wires and beads, or it was like beaded, it wasn’t ou tyds, it was all gold and big. So I think I filled that gap, and what’s helped me to grow as well because people were coming to find me, because I was what hey were looking for at the time”.
“Now I would say there is a lot more of us and I am starting to pivot again because I feel like we are are all making the same things and it’s starting to get saturated in the market. So I am trying to find that niche again”.
The benchmark of starting a business is identifying a gap that you can fill so that you can meet the needs of your intended customers. When I asked Rushdiyah what she enjoys most about being a business owner, she said “I like the flexibility of having my own business… because I’m studying, I can sort ofadjust how available I am, how much work I can take on. I like being home or with my kids. Like when my kids come home from school, I’m here and I make sure that I’ve packed everything away, that I’ve been busy with. I like being my own boss, not having to answer to anyone because I can decide on the day what I want to do. I don’t have to run it by anybody. because it’s it’s my thing. You know, I like that independence…”.
What don’t you like about being a business owner? What challenges have you faced? “People don’t read, I end up answering the same questions over and over, which takes up a lot of time If you are like I don’t have someone answering people’s questions on email or social media… I do all that stuff myself. So between communicating with people, making it pieces, creating content, it’s like it’s a lot. .. Even though I have FAQ section on my website, very little people will go and look through that before they message me…Time is the most challenging thing… time to get everything right… Look, because I’ve been doing this for so long nowand I’ve learnt to be comfortable with saying no to things that I can’t manage… So I would rather have five clients that I can devote myself to, like completely 100% of my attention than have 50 that I’m sparsely able to connect with”. Small business owners seem to be driven by passion for what they do, the service and product they have to offer is always endowed with maximum effort.
What motivates you to keep your business going when it when it becomes like challenging, difficult, When life is happening? “I really love what I do. And I always tell my clients like as soon as I stop loving doing this then I I won’t do it anymore because the joy is talking to someone, hearing what it is that they want and then giving it to them and their face going like, ‘Oh my God, this is what I pictured in my head’. You know, there’s nothingthat beats that feeling… So my intention has to be like happiness, joy, it’s for the win, you know, want them to be happy and joyful on their day”. The connections, bonds and unforgettable moments she makes with her clients make it enjoyable for her, and is why she keeps going.
A business needs to be dynamic to survive the ever-changing society we live on today. When I asked Rushdiyah what her short term goals are, she said: “for the next few months, I’m going to concentrate on creating like beaded capes. That’s really something I want to execute so that I can have it really by the end of this year. And that’s going to take a lot of time. And I’m going to start taking part in more bridal fairs because I used to do a lot of local markets. But I think because I’m a niche company, should be at the niche markets that’s specifically catered towards bridal things. So those are my 2 short term goals for the next six months and just to get my name out in different spaces compared to what I have been doing lately”. As for long term goals? “Long term goals is to be able to make enough money to hire people. So this is also part of my reason for making capes, because if I make capes then it becomes successful. I can hire someone to sew, I can hire someone to help me bead… I want to create a company and not just me that’s doing everything and that’s my that’s the long term goal that I’m trying to work towards”.
Do you think that being a business owner or being an entrepreneur is, is important? “Yes, especially after COVID-29 when many people lost their jobs, and many small business that started during lockdown unfortunately closed…
And then I do think that entrepreneurship is something in our country that empowers women especially because some are in states where we are not necessarily financially stable, we don’t earn like a lot of money. The jobs we get are the some low paying jobs…And so entrepreneurship, I think is a cornerstone ofour incomes. At least from what I can see… like when these markets happen, it amazes me how many people there are that are selling something that they make themselves… Not things that they are getting from somewhere, they are making it. And I think that’s like that’s so important because we’re still creating our stuff”.
Do you have any advice for women who are in business currently? Any words of encouragement, Any forewarning? “I would say if you’re scared, do it because the fear holds us back. And I feel like when we grow up in communities where it’s very codependent, we have this fear of I think succeeding… And succeeding sounds like a big word. But just selling one thing to someone is success. You know, it can mean different things to you. It doesn’t have to be. Ohh yeah. Now I have 17 million followers. That’s not what it’s about.Just do it and see what happens and you’ll see that if you just put yourself out there… There is always going to be someone that new or making that thing for and they will find you. It might take some time, but they will find you because we are a community, we work together. This idea that you have has come to you because of a reason. You know it’s not an isolation. You’re thinking about it because of something that is personal to you, that happened to you. And so just do it. Don’t be scared. And then you will find the people also that support you in the way that you need, because that friend that’s telling you now… ‘don’t do it.’ Just ignore them. You’ll find the people that help you in that space that you actually need because you talking yourself out of it the whole time”.
What important lessons have you learned as an entrepreneur which you feel are important to succeed as a business owner? “time management, asking for help… like believing that you can is also another thing. Because impostor syndrome is real, learning to take on projects that you can handle not taking on too much. And also being more outspoken because I used to not say when things would upset me, or just being able to talk in public. Having a business has already changed that for me as well. I’m a lot more outspoken and verbal about things”.
Service delivery and small businesses: why is service delivery especially important for small businesses? “So as someone who also likes to support small businesses because those are the people I hang out with the most. And so the thing I don’t like is when someone posts a thing and they don’t put the price on. Then there’s like 70 million people asking in the community how much is this and no one responds, that is part of service delivery. If you are going to put your thing on social media, you have to beable to tell someone how much it costs. That’s turning clients away. So service delivery like that, um, I think it starts with that how you connect with peopleand then obviously also the product that you give. If you are going to have something that’s not up to standard orsomething like you wouldn’t like to have, why would you give that to someone?”.
Why are small businesses important? “I think they are all part of the economy. They’re helping to help us grow in economy, we keep the money in the lines of our country when we have small businesses because it’s going to people that are on the ground and it’s not corporate going out of the country… So you’re keeping that money within communities thatcan then have financial independence… [by supporting small businesses the owners can afford things they wouldn’t be able to]…all these things cost money. And so if we have small businesses and we support small businesses, we are able to help people get access to all those things that they need”.
In closing, her last were: “entrepreneurship is hard, It’s also lonely because you because you were alone. I think that’s why it’s also important to reach out to other entrepreneurs because they can relate to that feeling. Like I found a lot of times when I’m like ohh don’t list today I don’t feel like anything else. One of my friends will message me like that’s also an entrepreneur. And then we complain to each other. And after that, it feels better because I know I’m not so alone”.
To all the entrepreneurs out there, keep going, we need you. Most especially to women, since it is women’s month, this blog is dedicated to you all, I hope it is inspirational and speaks to you.
You can find Wimsy on their website @ https://wimsy.co.za/
Instagram: @wimsyza