Hi Emmanuel, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Thank you for having me here at VoyageATL.
I’m Emmanuel Etti, Founder of TheRightz, a registered bespoke shoe and bag making enterprise in Lagos, Nigeria.
At TheRightz,we make comfortable, elegant and durable shoes, bags and souvenirs for both men and women.
Our story is quite interesting cos It’s a proof of how opportunities can be found during hard times. We were birthed out of Covid, during the lockdown in 2020.
So, I was working from home and my task wasn’t too demanding. I’ll finish on time and still have lots of extra hours left. I felt lazy and didn’t like it, So I enrolled in a bag making class with a neighbor who makes bags.
Few months later, I graduated and went online to take an advanced course where I learned about quality finishing and how to create other designs.
When I returned to work after Covid, my coworkers were complaining about how difficult it was to get dependable, reasonably priced school bags for their children as well as how tough it was to find a high-quality laptop bag. I viewed this as an opportunity. Since their issues were resolved, they are now my clients.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Understanding your business is already a challenge on its own.
Every entrepreneurial Journey has its own challenge. Sometimes general, sometimes unique.
The journey hasn’t been smooth and the challenges have been helpful as they’ve been great lessons.
Creating a business model, market segmentation and access to finance has been challenging as I fund my business through loans and personal savings but it’s a phase an entrepreneur should experience for a successful future. I simply attend training and seminars to learn the techniques on how to overcome these challenges and it’s been helping me so far.
I got here by God’s Grace, hard work and dedication. I registered my business in 2021 after attending the TNY program by Mastercard foundation and Enterprise Development Center. I’ve attended lots of training since then including the Entrepreneurship Development Program at Lagos Business School, Nigeria.
I later registered for a shoemaking class. After few months,I bought some Machines, got a location and employed some artisans to assist in running of the daily activity of the business.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about TheRightz?
Yeah, you will never know what you can do until you start. I started without understanding my industry. I kept learning through experience and mentorship.
I had to be doing night classes after work for my shoe making classes. I’d faced so many challenges. Never understood what’s involved in running a business until I started mine. Just finished my entrepreneurial program With Lagos Business School Nigeria where I learnt the antidote to business ailments.
Today, We run a B2B and B2C business model. Despite the economic challenges and other PEST factors, we’re still pushing successfully by God’s grace.
As an impact driven business, we offer free training to students on how to make school bags as part of our empowerment initiative. This will help them recycle their old school bags as we really want to reduce the rate of land pollution caused by the nylon bags which are being used as school bags by most of the students from low income homes. It means a child can use one school bag all through their stay in school. These bags can be recycled with old fabrics, denim and african print like the picture below.
This is our contribution to SDG 1, 4 and 14 as this will help increase the quality of education, reduce the rate of poverty and reduce the rate of environmental pollution caused by the use of polythene and sack bags by our students.
Our mission is to put a smile on peoples faces through our products.
And our vision is to become a world-class bespoke brand through Integrity and Teamwork.
Our core values include integrity, quality, durability, and comfort.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Just know that building a successful business requires sacrifice, It must be valuable and impactful.
Hard Work, dedication, mutual respect, prayers and commitment are my personal core values and this has helped me over the years as I see people not as tools but assets.First build strong value systems which will drive you to achieve your goals as an individual because you must first be successful as an individual before your business becomes successful. Building a brand isn’t a joke. It’s not easy. It can be depressing cos it’s a lonely Journey but with God and good value systems, all things are possible.
Business should be all about impact if you want it to be sustainable. Serve people. Be solution driven not profit-driven. Entrepreneurship is all about innovation. Don’t just invest In ideas. Make sure it’s an opportunity and can be commercialized. Mistakes are allowed as it is part of your entrepreneurial experience but keep pushing, invest in improving your skills, Don’t stop, you too can succeed.
Contact Info:
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- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therightz.ng/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067119121604
- LinkedIn: The Rightz
Image Credits
Lagos Business School EICNIGERIA
