Startup Story

Zettuu, a marketplace providing business support services for Africa’s crafters and fashion brands that have unique products but do not have the operational capacity to grow their brands. Zettuu was co-founded in 2020 by Portia Nondo and Mbali Ndandani, two South African entrepreneurs whose vision is to create a thriving ecosystem of support for African unique crafts, bringing them from the continent to the world’s customers. Portia is a seasoned entrepreneur and franchisee at McDonald's, and Mbali has worked in marketing, digital, technology and artificial intelligence at Unilever and Lelapa AI.

LoA spoke to the enterprising founding duo, Mbali Ndandani and Portia Nondo, to find out more about their entrepreneurial journey to date and their vision for the future of the business.

What does your company do?

We provide ecosystem support for African crafters and fashion brands that have unique products but do not have the operational capacity to grow their brands. Zettuu provides a marketplace for local and global access for entrepreneurs, as well as providing business support services for crafters and fashion brands.

“Zettuu provides a marketplace for local and global access for entrepreneurs, as well as providing business support services for crafters and fashion brands.”

What inspired you to start your company?

Africa has beautiful crafts and designs, but many of these never make it beyond their areas of origin. We started Zettuu to answer the question: “What if we could create an ecosystem of support to crafters and market access, allowing them to focus on their craft, which is all they want to do.” We looked around and saw talented crafters, without a viable mechanism to scale their businesses to the highest levels. If Africa is to prosper, work needs to be done to support entrepreneurs, including the many formal and informal crafters throughout the continent.

What makes your business, service or product special?

Beyond being a marketplace, we are an ecosystem support organisation for crafters and fashion brands. While ecosystem support is easy to encounter in the technology startup space, there are very few incubators and accelerator labs for crafters and fashion businesses. Zettuu is one of those few, globally.

Tell us a little about your team

We currently have the two of us as co-founders and have a vacancy for an operations lead.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And, do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

Portia is a seasoned entrepreneur, having started her journey with McDonald's in 2007, Mbali has started other businesses, but Zettuu is the most significant in terms of improving the economic climate on the continent.

“If Africa is to prosper, work needs to be done to support entrepreneurs, including the many formal and informal crafters throughout the continent.”

“We aim to support 100 000 crafters and fashion businesses in Africa over the next 5 years to scale their businesses.”

What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

We aim to support 100 000 crafters and fashion businesses in Africa over the next 5 years to scale their businesses. As an incubator, we will be creating manufacturing and fashion hubs in cities across the continent, to enable the growth of the African textile and fashion industry, scaling the crafter support ecosystem and allowing crafters to collaborate across country borders. Most importantly, we will be working with co-operatives of crafters in peri-urban and rural communities to enable skills development for women crafters and allow them to make products for the craft and fashion industry in Africa

What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?

The ability to choose a path, chart it, and see the fruits of your labour and your purpose, in truly tangible ways, and being able to see precisely the lives impacted by one’s endeavors.

What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?

Talk to people, find other doers. Start small so you can experiment - build, measure, learn, and iterate on that cycle quickly and consistently.

Find out more

Email: info@zettuu.com

Website: http://www.zettuu.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Zettuuofficial/100075720023838/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zettuuofficial/

Why LoA loves it…

Africa has many challenges to overcome when it comes to getting access to markets for entrepreneurs, particularly those in the creative industries. That’s why there is a need to create dedicated marketplaces that connect the continent’s highly creative crafters and fashion brand builders with global customers. Portia Nondo and Mbali Ndandani, co-founders of Zettuu, are two entrepreneurs whose vision is to create a thriving ecosystem of support for African unique crafts, bringing them from the continent to the world’s customers. This is a business with a big vision, meeting an equally big need - one to watch as it grows and makes real change happen for Africa’s crafters and fashion creatives. — Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa