When you start a business, you spend most of your time trying to make something work.
You are trying to find customers, generate sales, improve the product, manage cash flow and simply survive long enough to build something sustainable.But eventually, if you are fortunate enough to find something that works, another challenge appears.
You have to decide what comes next.
This is something I have been thinking about as we introduce SQUAD AVENUE, the latest footwear design from SQUAD.AVENUE is an entirely new silhouette for us. The first release comes in three colourways — Black, Beige and Burgundy — made using soft leather and grained leather, finished with a gum-rubber sole.For customers, it is a new shoe. For me, it represents another lesson in building a business.
You Cannot Build Forever on Yesterday’s Success
One of the ideas behind my book, Nomayini: The Mentality You Need Before Starting Any Business, is that entrepreneurship requires a particular mentality before it requires resources. Starting a business is difficult, but maintaining one introduces completely different challenges. You cannot assume that because customers bought something yesterday, they will continue buying it tomorrow. Markets change. Customers change. Trends change. Competition changes. Your business therefore has to keep evolving. SQUAD already has footwear designs that customers recognise, but we cannot allow the existence of successful products to stop us from experimenting with what comes next.
That is part of what AVENUE represents.
Creating Something New Is Always a Risk
There is a temptation in business to repeat whatever is already working. It feels safer. Creating a completely new product means spending money before knowing exactly how customers will respond. You develop concepts. You make samples. You change materials. You adjust details. You calculate pricing. You manufacture stock. Then eventually you put the product in front of customers and ask the most important question:
Will people actually buy it?
No amount of planning completely removes that uncertainty. That is business. The objective is not to avoid risk altogether. The objective is to become better at taking calculated risks.
The Business Must Grow, but So Must the Entrepreneur
One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that businesses cannot grow beyond the thinking of the people building them. The mentality required to start is not necessarily the same mentality required to grow. As the business develops, you have to learn new things. You have to become comfortable making bigger decisions. You have to understand when to protect what is working and when to challenge it. You also have to accept that not every idea will work. That is where the Nomayini mentality becomes important.
For me, Nomayini — “anything” — represents being willing to do what the journey requires.
Learn anything. Sell anything. Fix anything. Try anything. Become whatever the next stage of the business requires you to become.
AVENUE Is Another Step
SQUAD AVENUE is ultimately a shoe.
But behind that shoe is the bigger story of trying to build a South African footwear business one decision, one product and one customer at a time. We are still learning. We are still experimenting. We are still making mistakes. And, most importantly, we are still creating.
Because building a business is not about arriving at a point where everything is finally figured out. It is about developing the mentality to keep building when the next challenge arrives.
Introducing SQUAD AVENUE.
Available in Black, Beige and Burgundy.
Made in South Africa. Wear Everywhere.
