Startup Story
In Africa, hair is big business, from the supply chain of human hair products, to hair suppliers, salon businesses, and associated services. Pretty Kubyane and her husband co-founded Coronet Blockchain, a company looking to create an end-to-end transparent supply chain by harnessing the power of technology.
LoA found out more this month from co-founder Pretty Kubyane.
Tell us about yourself
My consulting focus of the last 7 years ushered me into an industry disruption through the co-founding of Coronet Blockchain - an emerging technology solution geared to shift how hair exchanges hands across Africa's ZAR 100 billion per year sector. A responsibility that sees me reshaping the future of this sector. I also possess a proven Impact investment Advisory track-record harnessed over a decade and a half horizon window with active project experience across stakeholders including Government, FDI and left-behind community segments. Spearheaded the calibration of a ZAR 29 billion social impact investment framework to create a blue-print social benefit system to ensure regulatory mining compliance for mining shareholders, economic transformation as per SDG objectives and socio-economic impact executed through best-practice international benchmarks.
“Our aim is to create an end-to-end transparent supply chain with ethical human hair products, vetted hair suppliers, sustainable salon businesses, verifiable and certified stylists skills and peace of mind for consumers, enabling them to scan the products to download product quality certifications and fair warranties that protect their consumer rights.”
What does your company do?
Coronet Blockchain is a supply chain management solution founded in 2018, and built on blockchain technology. Our aim is to create an end-to-end transparent supply chain with ethical human hair products, vetted hair suppliers, sustainable salon businesses, verifiable and certified stylists skills and peace of mind for consumers, enabling them to scan the products to download product quality certifications and fair warranties that protect their consumer rights.
The embedded provenance module (hair origin, ethical sourcing and quality standards guarantees) ensures that the 100% human hair products exchanging hands within the supply chain delivers the 100% quality it promises. Not only do we provide provenance for products, but also through our platform salons can source and buy hair virtually and run their entire business operation on a platform that provides traceable records with trade financing included. The company employs 14 people.
What inspired you to start your company?
In 2013, we disruptively grew a small scale entity selling human hair extensions from a survival operation into a reputable brand clocking a 7 digits revenue. Now employing 30 staff members, with four branches: we set up two of the branches inside five star hotels in South Africa’s major cities within 36 months.
After this success it was time to scale the brand into a dominant go-to brand for quality human hair products. We conducted due diligence to work through supply chain blind spots. We uncovered at an industry level that 38% of the 100 million human hair units sold to 24 million African women annually are counterfeit. It became clear that our priority problem to solve should be fake-proofing the entire supply chain, to block counterfeit hair from entering the supply chain, for all hair suppliers and consumers.
During the second phase of our due diligence, we were approached by a number of mainstream big fashion and beauty retailers requesting that we provide human hair extensions at scale, through setting up mini salons inside their stores. Key elements we had to address during their supplier on-boarding process included questions that emerged around: when you say it’s Peruvian/Indian hair, its 100% human hair, its Grade 12A quality, therefore it must cost this amount and when installed correctly using these kind of technologies or systems it must last the consumer this long - can you provide Provenance? Meaning: provide historical, tamper-proof records that prove traceability and verification of its origin, attributes and ownership, and due to the rise of consumer awareness around ethical fashion and food safety we must also prove ethical sourcing.
In pursuit of ticking the big retailers suppler on-boarding requirements, we compared notes with quality standard bodies such as ISO, SGS and Bureau Veritas to establish if they have the framework to not only provide supplier identification through a KYC, but the product identification and certification of these assets, specifically human hair pieces. This information was also a requirement to insure our inventory as real human hair assets worth ABC.
Our deep due diligence scope revealed suppliers listed on Alibaba and Amazon who provide quality human hair at scale only ticked the supplier identification box and not the products identification (and verification box).
This gap creates an industry wide distrust towards suppliers - as a result, a typical African salon owner would travel in person to source the product (even though 38% of the time they get it wrong) in person. A costly exercise that costs a salon ZAR 600K annually – for that amount, one can build a 5 bedroom house for grandparents or send 4 kids to a good private school system or feed 50 African families across a period of 5 years. Digitizing the supply chain through Coronet blockchain, to enable remote hair purchase, became a must.
Our due diligence combed through localized scenarios across the supply chains. Outcomes & Findings: 100% of all hair manufacturers based in China, Brazil, and India etc, could not provide traceable proof of origin. That’s when our analysis pointed to the reality that our departure point should focus on this aspect, of product verification, authentication and scalable digital certification. Across the hair supply chain: product identification is the star of the show.
After multiple scenarios we came to a conclusion that we needed to invent a “Truth Machine” to be a single source of information that is verifiable, tamper-proof and unchangeable, concerning: the who, what, how, where and under what conditions human hair extension products were made or supplied across the value chain. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) underway the truth machine we build has to be built on a next-generation technology or system.
That “Truth Machine” system ought to be able to keep immutable records as the hair hits the floor from point the of donation (temples), capture the Manufacturing process, logistics and customs, to track and trace hair at every touch point on the supply chain. Until that hair piece reaches the consumer, so that we can prove who in the supply chain is the source of blind spots/counterfeiting.
We compared notes with friends and colleagues deployed across various ecosystems such as Deloitte Digital, Accenture, Siemens, Microsoft, Dimension Data, IBM, IQ Business, GIBS University, Wits University and others. It became clear that all roads pointed to Blockchain as the ultimate “Truth Machine” verification solution. That we must build our truth machine on blockchain as it provides an immutable ledger that is temper proof.
“Not only do we provide provenance for products, but also through our platform salons can source and buy hair virtually and run their entire business operation on a platform that provides traceable records with trade financing included.”
What makes your business, service or product special?
Amidst various pain points being addressed across the hair supply chain is how Coronet Blockchain’s focus secures the livelihoods of those reliant on the supply chain. Especially the 500 000 African based Salons (SMEs), with north of 2 million stylists (skills), and the 24 million end-user consumer base. Protecting industry jobs, stylists, whilst ensuring that end-user consumers who spend significantly do not end up with counterfeit hair.
Coronet Blockchain solution avails the digital infrastructure necessary to bring about equitable transactions where Africa SMEs and global corporates intersect within this global trade environment: leveling the play-field, to ensure industry transformation and Africa’s emerging market benefits.
Tell us a little about your team
Coronet Blockchain is led by a Husband and Wife team: and from the IBM end: Project Managers, Design Thinkers, Blockchain architect/experts, Coders/Designers, Customer/user experience
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And, do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
I grew up in the rural town of Flagstaff in the Eastern Cape, where every 2nd or 3rd business was family owned. So following my entrepreneurial and industrious dad to the office from the age of 6 was not something uncommon or foreign. That is when I suppose the passion for solving real problems faced by real people came about. As one becomes embedded across the community this became something I began being passionate about. Being relevant and helpful.
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?:
Seeing at least half of Africa's salons (250K) run on our platform will be a key milestone: because that would mean we are doing something tangible about:
- Ensuring half of the continent's salons run sustainable businesses that are financially included, not excluded.
- Ensuring that local salons have traceable track-records, and become resilient and bankable. During this current financial crisis that was localized to salons, given they ran informally, meant they could not get Covid-relief, but we will future proof them against such setbacks.
“We came to a conclusion that we needed to invent a “Truth Machine” to be a single source of information that is verifiable, tamper-proof and unchangeable, concerning: the who, what, how, where and under what conditions human hair extension products were made or supplied across the value chain.”
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
The privilege to create real solutions that yield real measurable impact whilst changing people's lives positively. The excellence and passionate hard work, blood, sweat and tears that result in a village born girl like myself to hold her ground, among her peers, and compete on global platforms, as a result of creating what people want and need.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
Take pride in taking ownership of the problems in your life, in your household, in your neighborhood, your country and continent - the world is your oyster. Never wait for someone to come from somewhere to solve your problems, take charge. And the time is now. Own your success.
Contact or follow Coronet Blockchain
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | EMAIL hello@coronetblockchain.com
Why LoA loves it….
Many successful businesses have been forged as a result of identifying a problem that is affecting a huge number of consumers or industry participants, and then creating a solution that can have massive impact. For Pretty Kubyane and her co-founder, they saw a huge challenge around the supply chain and provenance of ethical human hair products in Africa, a big industry sector on the continent, and found a way through technology to fix it. In a world where blockchain is providing innovative solutions and new ways of thinking, Pretty and her team are ensuring they are at the forefront of a new wave of entrepreneurs finding solutions for African challenges. — Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo of Lionesses of Africa