Not content with the prospect of a comfortable job as a paint specialist at a multinational automotive company, Rodney Maduwa set himself an ambitious goal of manufacturing his own paint when he graduated from university.
Having set the target while pursuing a BSc degree in chemistry from Unisa, Maduwa started to work towards the goal in 2012 when he enrolled for a graduate programme with Nissan in Rosslyn, Pretoria.
“When I started to work, I told myself that once I started working full-time I would start my own company to create a legacy. The employment was just for me to gain experience,” he told Vuk’uzenzele during a recent interview.
His determination to pursue a paint manufacturing business was driven by the need to exploit a gap in the market he had identified.
“I noticed that there was an issue in the general [household] paint application. A lot of people, especially in townships, bought expensive paint but they don’t have the correct people to apply the paint correctly, there was no proper preparation before the actual painting,” he said.
He not only wanted to manufacture the coat but also train budding painters on the correct painting techniques and methods.
It was in 2014 that Maduwa Paint World was born. However, it was not until 2019 that he mustered the courage to quit his day job and work on Maduwa Paints on a full-time basis.
While the company manufactures paint and gamazine (decorative plaster), it also offers specialist defect detection and paint application services to commercial, industrial and household clients.
“At the time the business was making about R80,000 on a good month. I wanted to try and maybe double or triple this,” he said.
Accelerating growth saw the business, which at the time had eight employees, relocate from a 5m² shack in Soshanguve to a 130m² workshop in Rosslyn.
Maduwa Paints today has a 42-staff complement at its workshop, and stores in Limpopo and Mpumalanga. It also has sales representatives in the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal.
However, Maduwa said, the picture was not always rosy, with the enterprise sustaining significant existential threats.
“Expanding has been very difficult. During Covid-19, there was a time when I couldn’t even repay the bond or car instalment. That ended up ruining my credit record. Until last year, I had to buy everything using cash,” he said.
In 2023, the business received a significant shot in the arm when it received R980,000 funding from the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller, an entity of the Gauteng department of economic development. Of this amount, 50% is a loan and the remainder is a grant.
“This money came in really handy because we had a lot of projects at the time. We were immediately able to purchase a machine that is able to produce 1,000 litres of paint in two hours,” he said. – This article was first published in Vuk’uzenzele
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.