Made in Mzansi: The wild, defiant story of Herman Mashaba's Black Like Me

In the mid-1980s, during apartheid South Africa, black entrepreneurs faced numerous challenges, including pass laws, restricted land ownership, and a system designed to prevent them from building lasting enterprises. One such entrepreneur was Herman Mashaba, a salesman who saw an opportunity in the lack of hair products tailored for black hair.

In 1985, Mashaba founded Black Like Me, the first major Black-owned hair-care manufacturer in South Africa. The company's first products were made with a R30,000 loan, a chemist's formula, and mixed in a 200-litre drum. Despite the odds, Black Like Me became a household name. Mashaba was born in Ga-Ramotse, north of Pretoria, to a mother who worked as a domestic worker in Johannesburg.

After his father died when he was two, his mother raised him and his siblings in poverty. Rejecting the traditional path, Mashaba showed early hustle as a teenager by running dice games. In 1982, he married Connie and began selling various household items, eventually becoming the top salesman for a SuperKurl hair product company.

In 1984, Mashaba approached Johan Kriel, a white Afrikaner production manager and pharmacist, to become a business partner. Kriel agreed, and together they brought in Joseph Molwantwa as a fellow salesman. To raise capital, Mashaba turned to Walter Dube, whose wife owned a salon and was already a customer. Dube lent Mashaba R30,000 at a high interest rate of prime plus 10%, which was repaid in seven months.

The company's production started small in rented units in Ga-Rankuwa, and Mashaba used his Toyota Corolla to build a distribution network across townships. Connie left her job to manage the accounts, and the company grew rapidly. By the early 1990s, Black Like Me had a 6,000-square-metre factory in Mabopane township, employed 180 people, and became a well-known brand.

Mashaba even sponsored a hair-and-grooming series on SABC television. However, success was not without challenges. In 1993, an arsonist burned the Mabopane factory, but the company quickly resumed production. In 1997, Mashaba sold a 75% stake to Colgate-Palmolive, only to buy it back at a lower price two years later. In 2002, Black Like Me launched in the UK, making Mashaba the first Black-owned South African company to sell its products internationally.

Connie Mashaba became the managing director, and the brand expanded into more products and markets. Today, Black Like Me remains a successful company, with the next generation of the family involved. Herman Mashaba's story is one of determination and innovation, a testament to the power of entrepreneurship in the face of adversity.