Selina Dapaah - A Ghanaian entrepreneur to watch
Selina’s manufacturing firm is a little verandah of 16 feet square space in front of a chamber of about three times the size of the little factory.
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That chamber is her bedroom, storeroom, showroom and whenever she finishes pounding cassava and plantain into the local dish called fufu, she sets herself up in the same chamber to enjoy it. But she may be happier than the relationship manager in an average bank!
Desire to own a business
Selina, a product of the local high school, graduated from Mpasatia Senior High in 2012 and received a certificate in business. After graduating from this local high school, Selina sought and found employment with the Toase Medical Centre.
Even though a decent employment, Selina told me that there was something in her that always felt unsatisfied. And that craving, that longing for something she should call her own became so overwhelming that she stepped into town, seeking help from people she thought could be of some assistance.
Mentors & trainers
When Selina found Adwoa Doku, a traditional soap maker in her community, she prayed this woman to teach her the art. Adwoa directed her to the institution from which she had received her training.
It was here that Selina met people she later confided in me were not just bosses of public training institutions but mentors whose pieces of advice, support and encouragement spurred her on and finally birthed her business.
She is particularly grateful to the head of the Nkawie Business Advisory Centre, Miss Priscilla Opoku-Mensah.
Selina secured her community based training in soap making under the Rural Enterprise Programme (REP) at the Agriculture Show site in the Atwima Nwabiagya District of Business Advisory Centre. She received two sets of training from the BAC office: community based training in soap making (lasting a week) and the second from KITA under Rural Enterprise Programme’s youth in agribusiness (also lasting for two weeks). These three-week training in soap making helped unleash the micro entrepreneur beast in Selina.
Products
Selly manufactures Aloe Vera-rich shower gel that is in high demand, especially among young women and men for whom skin care starts from the shower.
She commissions the extraction of the skin enriching substance from Aloe Vera plants in the neighbourhood, affording these agents some stable employment. She then sets out to manufacture the shower gel.
Apart from this brand, Selly makes another shower gel with moringa extracts. This is targeted at her clients with some skin irritations and disorders.
The medicinal base in the moringa plant enriches the gel and produces a final shower gel with the power to rid skins of common, as well as uncommon skin irritations.
Going for the niche
Selly makes liquid detergents principally for household kitchens, restaurants and for chop bars.
Incidentally, however, the treated water in her community is hard and so lathers less when regular washing powder and soaps are used. Selly has taken advantage of this situation to produce a liquid soap with the power to lather even in such hard waters.
Her business is slowly, sturdily and fiercely crowding out other brands of regular soaps in these markets.
Gearing up
Selly’s market may be small today but prospects for growth and expansion are high. Her current output for all the brands her business manufactures may not be estimated in tons but the business is confident of doing well in the years ahead.
At the time of this interview, she was in the process of relocating to a new community some 10 kilometres from where she was born. Her new factory, now about four times the size of the old one, promises to be a game changer.
When Selly is able to do well in the new market, having fully secured the earlier one, her sales figures are expected to double, even triple.
She is currently preparing an antiseptic substance she hopes hospitals and little clinics may scramble for. When she achieves that, she will need a lot more hands to help her deliver such output levels.
Challenge of capital
While capital challenge besets most start ups, Selly took her time to start slow, little by little, thereby avoiding the kind of growth paths that often require the injection of colossal sums of money.
Starting from a modest savings of GH¢400, she has succeeded in limiting the high risks by using only a small capital to test the market.
Today, even with a modest capital outlay, Selly’s enterprise is doing well on account of the fact that she took a lot of time to understand the real needs of her clientele before embarking on production.
Selly’s enterprise also manufactures bleach for individuals and bodies such as hospitals. Her current outputs are modest but she is eyeing health centres around the district and beyond and hopes to be the next lead supplier in the months ahead.
Selly continues to keep her full time job with the Toase Medical Centre. When I asked why, she let out a shy grin that suggested to me that that employment is but a strategic means to an end.
From the position of hospital staff, her access to the health care market is more guaranteed than when seeking to colonise same from outside.
After all, the new hands she hopes to employ and add to her team may act in her stead when she is working in the clinic.
She is the daughter of a peasant father who departed the year she was due for the senior high school, so Selina’s mother had to support her singlehandedly through the rest of her education.
She is 25, single, athletic and full of enthusiasm. She strikes me as one of the few the district may celebrate some years to come.