Utlwanang Mmeti relentless effort has paid out as a 17-year-old South African has ventured into the entrepreneurial world after he started producing local footwear. He branded the footwear as Dapper Shooz.
Utlwanang Mmeti produces sneakers with beautiful designs and they come in different colors and sizes. The South African National launched his company for the past two years and has been the trending design in the fashion world. Early this month, he released designs of his footwear to the public. According to him, everything was done in his mother’s garage.
“I began off in a village within the North West province in my mom’s storage, you gotta begin someplace. The place are you ranging from?” Utlwanang Mmeti noted in a post on Twitter.
According to him, the sneaker is for the average man and woman who are chasing their dream, those who unleash their potential. He even brands his sneakers as one for “the underdogs, the dreamers, and the doers.”
In a bid to raise fund for his business, Mmeti raised capital from close family and extended family members. “It was not easy of course,” he noted. “I mean who would loan a 16-year-old kid from a mining village in the North West Province, now 17 years, start-up capital to start a sneaker business in these tough economic conditions?, he noted in a post on Facebook.
Utlwanang Mmeti pinpoints the success of his business to his persistence, enthusiasm, and belief in his ambition to kickstart ‘Dapper’, which simply means someone who is stylish, fashionable, and neat in appearance.
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“I went for this name because it’s easy to remember, rolls off the tongue nicely, and will allow me to expand into other fashion items like apparel. At 17 years I’m in my final year(Grade 12) of high school and I’m about to embark on a new exciting journey of starting a successful multi-million rand sneaker business,” he said.
Utlwanang Mmeti is from a small mining town in Rustenburg, South Africa. According to him, he wants his brand to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs to start young.
