1 month ago
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If perseverance and grit are the hallmarks of entrepreneurship then businessman, Wade Muller, is the embodiment.
Based in the Western Cape, Muller is the proud owner of a shoe manufacturing company, Happi Shoes, that has enjoyed relative success peppered with ups and downs.
About ten years ago Muller began his long-drawn-out journey of entrepreneurship when he founded a shoe supplier in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.
At the time, Muller was reselling the shoes that he sourced from his supplier.
“Our supplier sent us about 250 pairs of shoes, this is how the business started. It was nice in the beginning, everything was selling well and we were growing.”
In 2020, Happi Shoes took a knock due to the pandemic.
While the pandemic was wreaking havoc on the business, Muller said he was confronted with another hurdle to overcome.
“The second punch was extortion. We were heavily extorted because we were making so much money and we were in the wrong area.
“I grew up in Bishop Lavis and we built ourselves up so nicely that we made a profit and I could provide a good life. They [criminals] decided that we had too much of a good time and wanted a piece of the pie.”
“We had to deal with extortion for about two years. They even shot at our property and it was a total mess. We had to sell everything and close the business down,” he said.
At the time, Happi Shoes had 35 employees from surrounding townships where the shoe factory was based.
Fast-forward to 2023, Muller’s love for business was reignited when he came across an advert about the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa).
“We heard about Sefa on the radio and we applied for funding. We went through an entire process with Sefa. Fourteen months later, we were approved. That was the turnaround in my life. We got the Sefa deal and set up the whole business.”
Sefa provides financial products and services to qualifying small, micro and medium enterprises and co-operatives.
Sefa bought shoe manufacturing machines for Happi Shoes and the business relocated to the Parow Industrial area in Cape Town.
“Since the beginning, I have always said that my end goal is not to supply big companies and retailers. My intention was always to supply the man on the street who comes to me and buys maybe five to ten pairs and also makes a profit from reselling.
“My dream is to supply [ordinary people] and open up my little Chinatown one day,” Muller said. – This story was first published in GCIS's Vuk'uzenzele
