Our biggest gamble? Launching brand before planned date

NAIROBI: Imagine being bold enough to introduce a product to the market before its launch date, and trusting it to take the industry by storm.

Hair care is an important part of both women and men’s beauty regimen, and there are thousands of products competing to win the hearts of an increasingly aware consumer base.

Marini Natural Products is among one of the latest entrants in this space. It marked 100 days in the market last month after jumping the gun to launch in 2015, as opposed to a planned launch this year.

The entrepreneur behind the line is upbeat that with the response received so far, her hair care line will earn its space in consumers’ homes.

Michelle Ntalami is the CEO and founder of Marini.

“The very first day we launched almost four months ago, we waited with bated breath to see what the market would have to say about our natural hair care line. After a couple of days, the feedback began to stream in, and we were so happy to be received with lots of positivity, energy and excitement,” she said.

This was a big deal for the first-time entrepreneur, who studied marketing and creative design.

“On the day we did our soft launch, the plan was simply to give the market a taste of our products before preparing for the actual roll out this year.”

Ntalami set up a tent at her company’s headquarters in Nairobi’s Lavington to introduce the hair care line to potential customers. Surprisingly, many people than anticipated stopped to sample the products and give their advice.

With a team of four, Marini staff educated customers on how to care for natural hair, and what products would work best for their specific texture.

Soon, news began to spread far and wide, according to Ntalami, who attributes the response to the market for natural hair being largely untapped.

“Bear in mind, only a handful of customers had sampled our products. They are the ones who began spreading the gospel,” she said.

Marini has so far sold more than 20,000 units of products whose cost ranges between Sh650 and Sh1,200, Ntalami said. The products are available across Nairobi and Mombasa, and the plan is to spread to major towns across the country and outside it.

To market the product line, the Marini team relies heavily on word of mouth, social media and the fact that there are very few natural products made specifically for African hair.

“The market was ripe and ready, and they wanted to get a feel of our products. Holding off till the new year would not have been feasible. It would have almost seemed as though we are making empty noise — the ‘coming soon’ song had been sang long enough,” the CEO said.

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