Entri AdminEntrihub chats to Tanaka (General) Mutakwa, Founder of #NoDaysOff. Tanaka talks about creating your own brand.
Question 1: Who is Tanaka?
Tanaka: My name is Tanaka Mutakwa. I'm the founder of No Days Off Lifestyle brand. The brand's mission is to inspire and motivate people to push towards their goals and ambitions.
Question 2: How did the #nodaysoff brand start?
Tanaka: In the case of no days off, it actually started as amongst a group of friends of mine. We used to send out motivational tweets to each other about four years ago. It would sort of being like when you're doing a bit of work, or reading, studying for an exam and then you tweet about to get on the grind hashtag no days off. Over time that sort of grew more and more people started doing it amongst friends and we started calling it a movement. The no days of movement always like driving and pushing and motivating each other. At that time I wasn't even thinking about like starting a brand or actually starting a business with it. What eventually happened was one of my friends who were part of the group we were treating each other had a birthday coming up. My brother and I sort of had like a good idea like hey we were talking about no days off so why don't we make a t-shirt for our friend and we'll surprise him with no days of the t-shirt. Then when his birthday came through we sent the t-shirt to Pretoria where he was studying and he got his t-shirt on his birthday. When he got it, he took a photo and put it on Twitter and it's like so happy that Tanaka and his brother sent me a t-shirt and hashtag no days off. Again still not really thinking of what way is this going as a brand or anything. After he tweeted that people in Pretoria still ask him other friends where did you get that t-shirt and stuff and he kept referring people to Tanaka, to myself and my brother and eventually I ended up making more t-shirts for these people were requesting them. Obviously, that led to a bigger cycle because now more people have them and more people asking for them. At that point, that's when I realized there's something in this, why a lot of people interested in getting t-shirts and stuff, and what's the purpose. That's when I decided to get the business registered to get no days off Private Limited registered and actually start a brand and start thinking about what does know days of me and why people are interested in it.
Question 3: What steps do I need to take to start my own brand?
Tanaka: I think the key thing when you're starting your own brand is firstly to just figure out what your brand's purposes and what you're trying to achieve with the brand. Once you have that, you want to see how you can reach out to the particular audience that should fit that brand's purpose. One of the other key things is to try to get your brand's audience to become your brand ambassadors. They should love your brand so much that they will talk about it and spread the most message without you having to push out a lot of marketing material for it. As long as you have a purpose for it I'm sure you can identify the people who would fit into that purpose and it's just more about reaching out and getting across to them.
Question 4: What techniques can I use to get that brand awareness out?
Tanaka: I think there are various techniques to use to get brand awareness out. It really depends on the nature of the brand how you go about tackling things. I think social media the moment is a very big tool because the act of tagging someone on Facebook or on Instagram can actually bring across a lot more of their followers to know about what your message is and that your brand exists. I think as I mentioned obviously, word-of-mouth is a technique itself if people really love your brand people are going to talk about it. Then you can also go to media outlets and get them to also share the brand you can partner with people who sort of find similar in a similar world as your brand or that share similar vision and work together with them. In the case of no days off one of the biggest things has been social media so everyone who buys the brand in particular early on and when the brand was formed I got a photo with everyone who gets a part of no days off merchandise. I tagged them in the post and I post something inspirational about what they've actually done in their life or just a code to motivate them to go forward. It always results in like three or four of their friends asking immediately where do I get that and yeah the cycle just continues and grows from there.
Question 5: How easy is it to partner with media outlets when my brand is completely new?
Tanaka: When your brand is in its early stages partnering up with like media outlets or people doing something similar that could help you out. To be honest, can be very difficult, but what the easier route to go is to partner up with people who were also starting out because they need you you need them. Of course, it doesn't mean hold back on going for the big outlets and everything. It's easy for as a clothing brand that's starting out or anything it's partner up with a marketing agency that's starting out because then you're working together in the early stages and you're sort of having a partnership early on. They'll be more receptive to an early-stage client who can also help their name grow. I'll suggest like find other people in the early stages. Go across like a new city or town and like meet up with fellow entrepreneurs or in the early stages and see where you can give them value and they can give you a value.
Question 6: What is the value of research?
Tanaka: Another piece of advice I'd give is just got there and research and read as much material as you can on like the business you're trying to start and different business techniques. Learn as much as you can. Just always be on a constant path of learning and try to apply and experiment with the techniques you learn in the actual business. Throw away the stuff that doesn't work but there always be stuff that you learned that works and that's like whether you go reading books, videos on the internet, podcasts that you can listen to whichever material find easiest to consume. Go out there, just learn and learn, experiment, and just keep growing.