Black Like You

by Mashaba, Herman;

  The appetising aroma of meat sizzling on the braai and the sound of beer bottles clinking added a sense of camaraderie to the festivities, and I approached Johan. He was an amenable man and engaged readily in conversation.

  After some pleasantries, I said to Johan, “Joseph and I have got a plan. We’re thinking of leaving SuperKurl and going on our own.”

  Johan listened without saying anything, and yet I recognised a fellow entrepreneur and I could see that his mind was racing ahead with the possibilities that my vision presented. Eager to capitalise on his interest, I said, “All of us – Joseph, you and I – would be equal partners with equal shareholding in the company.”

  At that stage, I had absolutely no idea about how much funding we would require for the new company, or even where we would get funding from, but I knew that the essential ingredient was getting Johan on board: we needed someone who had the chemical expertise to develop a product range.

  Johan fetched another drink from the bar and called me aside.

  “Herman, I’m flattered by your offer and I would like to join you,” he said. “But I am in a difficult position – my family is related to Leon and I have to be cautious. I don’t want to be seen to be betraying family. I hope you understand.”

  I understood his dilemma, and Joseph and I left the Christmas party somewhat deflated.

  However, Johan’s sense of allegiance soon dissolved when Leon returned from holiday. He thanked Johan for his commitment to the company during the holiday period, and then handed him a rather meagre annual bonus. This inevitably worked in our favour, as Johan was insulted that his loyalty to SuperKurl was rewarded in such an offhand manner. But it was not only the insignificant bonus that upset Johan; it was also Leon’s failure to deliver on his word to make him a partner in the business.

  Feeling doubly insulted, Johan phoned me and said, “Do you still want to start that company?”

  I could barely conceal the elation I felt. He went on to tell me that he would join us in forming a new company – but he had one condition. “Herman, I must tell Leon that I have been offered a partnership; I don’t want him hearing it from anyone else.”

  This put Joseph and me in a predicament, but Johan promised not to disclose who he was going into partnership with. He duly informed Leon of his dissatisfaction with his employment conditions at SuperKurl, handed in his resignation, and asked Leon if he expected him to work out his notice or to leave the company immediately. Leon was upset by these developments, and immediately set about trying to dissuade Johan. He also tried to find out who Johan was going into business with.

  At the time, Johan and his wife were living at his mother’s home in Boksburg. There was a rather odd incident one morning when Johan was leaving for work. He noticed a car speeding up the road towards him, and as it came to a brief stop, the occupant stuck his head out of the window and stared at the house. Johan thought the man was lost, perhaps trying to locate an address in the area, but before he could approach the stranger to offer assistance, the man sped off. Johan didn’t think anything more of it, and drove off to work.

  The SuperKurl factory was a busy enterprise, and it was customary for employees to step out for a short break during the day to break the monotony of the noise and the bustle. It was part of Johan’s routine to take a mid-morning break and walk down to the café, where he would buy a pack of cigarettes. As he stepped out onto the sidewalk outside the SuperKurl factory, he noticed that the same car that had stopped outside his mother’s house that morning was parked across the road; the driver was skulking behind a newspaper, apparently trying to conceal his presence. Johan realised that he was being followed. He was furious, and suspected that Leon might be behind this invasion of his privacy, but he was too angry to confront Leon. So he stormed back to the factory, fetched his car keys, and left SuperKurl. Johan was outraged that he had openly informed Leon of his intention to leave SuperKurl and yet Leon was having him followed. He drove home, fuming at the realisation that he could no longer trust Leon.

  When Johan had started working for SuperKurl, Leon had promised to make him a partner and to include him in other business enterprises that he was involved in. But now it was clear to Johan that every time he had asked Leon to formalise their partnership or to give him the promised shares in the company, Leon had provided him with a weak, evasive excuse. By employing a private investigator to follow Johan, Leon had ruined the relationship. And so Johan phoned me and said he’d be willing to join Joseph and me in our new business venture. But nothing was signed and sealed yet.

  Johan’s wife, Christine, was to play a major role in persuading him to join us. For despite what had happened between him and Leon, Johan still felt torn between family loyalties and the chance of owning his own company; during the moments when he vacillated, Joseph and I felt quite desperate. We knew that he was key to the potential success of our new venture, and the idea of his remaining with Leon was too much of a risk. So we took the decision to visit Johan’s home in his absence.

  Christine Kriel welcomed us and listened to our persuasive pleas, and she proved to be instrumental in encouraging Johan to be firm with Leon and to join Joseph and me. It would be a lie to say that either Johan, Joseph or I left SuperKurl with the blessings of the company. Indeed, Leon was outraged at our departure.

  When Leon initially heard of our plan, he called me to his office for a frank discussion about his suspicions concerning Johan.

  “I know you’re going into partnership with Kriel, but I think you should rethink your alliance – how can you trust him? If he’s so willing to leave the employ of his family, how loyal do you think he will be to you and Joseph?” Leon said. “Johan will go where he gets the best offer. You will always have to look over your shoulder – if he is offered a better deal, he’ll leave you and Joseph on your own. And the two of you will never manage without him.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence as I weighed up what he said. I could offer no response.

  “I can tell you now that you and Joseph will never make it on your own,” Leon went on. “You boys are dreaming; you know nothing about business.”

  Leon’s strategy was to discourage me from associating with Johan. He insinuated that Johan was unreliable, untrustworthy and lazy. But I recognised Leon’s badmouthing for what it was – a desperate attempt to keep us all under his control. When Leon realised that his strategy wasn’t working, he turned on Joseph and me. After a brutal discussion, Leon knew that I would not be deterred from my path, and that I was prepared to accept the consequences of my decisions. As far as I was concerned, I had nothing to lose by pursuing this venture, and I was more determined than ever not to reverse my decision to make a go of things on my own.

  I had the key people necessary to start the business, but the spark I needed was funding. I immediately thought of Joseph’s friend, Walter Dube; he owned a distribution company called African Agencies, which imported black haircare products from Atlanta in the USA. But a local competitor, a financially strong white-owned company, had approached Walter’s American principals in the mid-1980s with a view to being the local distributor of their products, and Walter lost his licence to import the products. As a result, there was a big gap in the industry just waiting to be filled.

  Being privy to this information was useful, and I felt that Walter’s predicament might propel him into considering funding our new business. In addition to Walter’s financial capability, I also knew that he had insight into and expert knowledge of the industry.

  Walter Dube is an entrepreneur. As a young man he had trained as a car mechanic, and the first R6 he earned by fixing someone’s car he immediately used to kick-start his entrepreneurial career. By the time I met him, he already owned a petrol garage and a shopping centre in Mabopane. Joseph and I had the first of many meetings with him in his small office at the petrol garage. The garage serviced the taxis in the area, and the forecou
rt was spattered with diesel and oil, which had bonded with the sand that blew off the untarred roads in the area.

  Walter was a gracious host and listened as Joseph and I described the business we had in mind. Because of his experience in the black haircare industry, Walter listened attentively to our ideas. But he soon got down to the nitty-gritty. “Where’s your business plan?” he asked. Joseph and I looked at each other rather sheepishly.

  We returned a day or two later with a business plan, supported by a comprehensive record of sales at SuperKurl. Every time we visited Walter, he would ask us business-related questions that helped to tweak our business plan until he was finally satisfied with our feasibility studies.

  “How much will you need to get the business up and running?” he eventually asked.

  Johan had worked out exactly the amount we needed for the start-up.

  “Thirty thousand,” I said.

  “I’ll lend you the money on the following conditions. I must be a 25% shareholder in the company; you must pay interest at prime plus 10% on the loan; and all three of you must also each provide R3 000 cash as security.” Walter looked hard at us as he said this, but he also had the hint of a smile.

  The loan conditions were generous, and I could barely contain my excitement. But there was a problem: although Joseph and I had the cash, Johan didn’t have any savings at all. Even so, Walter accepted the R6 000 and granted the loan. The relief I felt at securing that start-up loan was immense; step by step, I was creating the reality that I had envisaged for myself. That small boy in Hammanskraal with holes in his shoes would finally get to stand on his own two feet and walk the path he had always dreamed of walking.

  With the funding in place, I knew that we could start the business. But we still had to have many meetings with Walter – we had to introduce Johan to Walter, to work out where we would operate from, and what we would call this new company. During one such meeting, we decided to meet the following day to discuss possible names for the company. We duly arrived the next day with a couple of names written down. Walter is a well-travelled man and an avid reader, and he recalled having read the book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. The book tells the story of a young white American man in the Deep South in the 1950s; he was acutely aware of racial tension at the time, and wondered what it would be like if he were black. Griffin bought skin-blackening chemicals from a pharmacy, and when his skin darkened he embarked upon a trip around the southern states of America as a black man, experiencing the oppression and racism he had seen black people endure.

  “I think ‘Black Like Me’ would be a great name for our business,” Walter said, and we were unanimous in our decision to adopt the name.

  What appealed most to me about the name was that it suggested black pride, a consciousness of what our new company aimed to promote, and what it would offer to consumers. Johan initially felt that Black Like Me was a rather in-your-face name for a black company operating in a white-dominated society, but he eventually supported it when we convinced him that we were appealing exclusively to the black market. With consensus about the name reached, Johan set about looking for premises for the business.

  I was tasked with developing an image for our new company. TCB Academy in Johannesburg was the top hairdressing training academy at the time. I had become friends with two of their employees, Lilly Plaatjies and Ella Matlejwane. These women used their knowledge of American marketing concepts and strategies to help me conceptualise and develop a brand identity for Black Like Me.

  At the time, it was still illegal for blacks to own or operate businesses in white areas, so Johan was tasked with securing premises for us in Ga-Rankuwa – the area where my paternal grandfather had once worked as a security “boy”. The advantage of having Johan as our business partner was enormous – he could go places where no black man could; he was the white face that our company needed in order to be established.

  While Joseph and I visited salons, spreading the word about our new product range, Johan, with assistance from Walter, secured a 200m2 factory in Ga-Rankuwa, a low-roofed space in the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC) business park. When I visited that mini-factory for the first time, my mind exploded with the vision of a busy company pumping out products for Joseph and me to sell. It was immensely rewarding to know that after all the years when I had been forced to hustle to get by, I would finally be the co-owner of a legitimate business that would allow me to provide for my family as a responsible citizen. Black Like Me was officially born on Valentine’s Day, 1985.

  Apartheid sought to separate races, and in doing so it entrenched suspicion between them. Trust between black and white was not a natural state, and although each of the partners had doubts about the other’s loyalty, we just had to forge ahead, put our trust in each other and hope for the best. Johan was the only white partner, and he was understandably somewhat insecure about his position in the company. So, before formally agreeing to join us, he requested a partners’ meeting.

  “Chaps, I’ll formulate the best possible products for Black Like Me; but I am adamant that these formulas should not be ‘stolen’ from SuperKurl. If you expect me to walk into Black Like Me with the recipes from SuperKurl, then I’m not your man. But if you want an equal, or even a better, product, then I’m the right person. I just want you to realise that I won’t compromise my integrity,” he said.

  On our side, Joseph and I were a little sceptical about Johan’s ability to create a product equal in quality to those manufactured by SuperKurl, but he nevertheless assured us that he could develop quality products from scratch. We spent many meetings discussing which products would be best to launch our range, and where we could maximise profit.

  We eventually decided that it was necessary to produce a complete product range if we wanted to make a real impact in the market. At the time, the perm system was the most popular product among consumers. It consisted of a pre-softening gel (Step 1), a perm lotion (Step 2) and a neutraliser (Step 3). To complement it, we required a normal shampoo, a hair conditioner, a spray, and a curl activator: these would be our main launch products. We decided to produce the product range in different sizes. Johan devoted all his energy and time to mixing and testing until he was satisfied that he had superior products that we could confidently promote to the salons.

  The perm lotion used by SuperKurl contained monoethanolamine, a chemical compound that reacted with thioglycolic acid to form a relatively weak perm lotion with a pH of about 8.5; it was a product that hairdressers generally favoured. But monoethanolamine is a very expensive ingredient. Johan’s experience in the beauty and haircare industry was extensive, and he had discovered that monoethanolamine could be substituted with ammonia; it was about one-tenth of the price of monoethanolamine, and equally effective.

  Joseph and I had reservations about Johan’s plan to substitute monoethanolamine with ammonia, but he assured us that the product would work. To prove his point, he mixed 5-litre containers of Step 1, Step 2 and Step 3, and suggested that we decant the samples and take them to the stylists.

  “I’m going home now,” he said. “If you and the salons are happy with the products, call me – otherwise, don’t.” Then he packed up and went fishing with his father.

  I was nervous – what if the product was not on par with those of our competitors? But my fears proved to be entirely unfounded: the response from the salons was so enthusiastic and positive that my reservations dissolved and I phoned Johan, barely able to contain my excitement.

  “We’ve got a winner!” I said.

  We felt affirmed and emboldened, and so we pushed on. SuperKurl had a near-monopoly on the black haircare industry at the time. Revlon was also active, but their expensive products were tailored to serve the top end of the market. Our new product was so well received by salon owners and hairdressers that we felt reassured that Black Like Me would succeed in the highly competitive haircare market.<
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  The product range that we manufactured was restricted by the affordability of the equipment we needed to buy. But Johan was as creative in his use of the equipment as he was with the formulas he devised for the products. With the R30 000 capital at our disposal, we bought chemicals and bottles and the most rudimentary equipment – a small platform scale, a single bottle filler, a 200-litre drum. In those early days we did not even have deionised water, so we improvised and used tap water. We manufactured the products in the 200-litre drum, which gave us enough to fill 800 bottles.

  The tight control of our budget meant that we could not afford to hire extra staff, but we did employ one young handyman, Joseph Mogole; he was physically very strong, which made him suitable for the job of mixing the product. He also helped with bottle-filling. Joseph, Johan and I applied ourselves with energy and enthusiasm in the manufacturing process so that we could get the products out on time. Connie also helped wherever she was needed – though we had appointed her full-time to take charge of office administration.

  On the day we took delivery of our first consignment of bottles, we made a batch of shampoo and decanted it. By 10am, Joseph and I had loaded our cars with the product and Johan waved us off.

  “If Joseph and Herman come back before the end of the day, we’ll be okay. And if they don’t, we know we still have a lot work to do,” he said to Connie.

  Joseph headed off to his usual area while I drove to my salons. At about 3pm, we returned to the factory; we had both sold our entire consignment – for cash. We were so motivated that we loaded up our cars again; what a rewarding moment that was!

  Every transaction that took place was meticulously written up by Connie. We were all rather fearful of Connie – she was disciplined and efficient, and her wrath was something to avoid. From the outset, Connie had been supportive, but her commitment to the company was personal: she knew that anything that went wrong would have an impact on my dream – our dream.