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Young Africans on a mission to save small businesses

By Eniola Daniel
25 August 2018   |   3:34 am
In line with their vision to help small business succeed, Hertz K. Fauzan from Kampala, Uganda, has teamed up with his Nigerians counterparts Kinsley Iweka and Susan Ubochi to change the narrative through a new platform, Discomfort Creative Agency. Founded in 2014 as a graffiti division of Spray it Uganda, Discomfort Creativity was originally meant…

Kinsley Iweka (left), Susan Ubochi and Hertz K. Fauzan

In line with their vision to help small business succeed, Hertz K. Fauzan from Kampala, Uganda, has teamed up with his Nigerians counterparts Kinsley Iweka and Susan Ubochi to change the narrative through a new platform, Discomfort Creative Agency.

Founded in 2014 as a graffiti division of Spray it Uganda, Discomfort Creativity was originally meant to create unusual marketing and product development solutions for businesses, organisations and governments.

It has worked as private consultants or service providers to many a business and organisations in and out of Africa.

Today, the agency aims to discover talents and bringing professionals together through the platform.

As part of the initiative, the team recently put together DC Industry Meet, a cocktail event aimed at providing a platform for business owners, creative entrepreneurs, manager and everyone within the ecosystem to interact, connect, explore possibilities and also grow their businesses.

The event also provided opportunity for participants to learn new insight from experts in the industry that will help them grow.

Speaking at the event, Communications and Strategy Director of the company, Kinsley Iweka, said, “Everyone knows that business could be very challenging in Nigeria because we’ve not been doing things the right way.

We need to build a support base and collaborate with other persons and event like this helps to foster collaboration; it’s all about putting all the bodies, everyone doing different thing in a pool where they can easily be accessible and help each other.”

Giving insight into the organisation’s operation, he explained, “Discomfort Creative Agency is built around a simple philosophy, ‘that your business cannot flourish while you remain in your comfort zone.’

The idea is, we would push you beyond your comfort zone so that you could explore bigger opportunities that lie ahead.

Another aspect is that we as your creative agent will not rest until your business finds comfort.

So, we take the discomfort your business is going through; we take the burden off your and place it on ourselves. We are restless until our partners find comfort and start making money and make sure that everyone know about what you are doing.”

With strong partners from across the world, the agency seems determined to take up the challenge.

“The model that we operate is such that it’s very expandable; we have a pool of talents across different service or service providers within the creative space. With our vast network of professionals, there is no project too small or too big to handle.

We work with a vast team that does not only domicile here in Nigeria but in UK, U.S and across Africa.

So, no matter the scale of your project, all we have to do is to plug in different partners to meet the need of the particular project.”

On her part, the Marketing Director of the firm Susan Ubochi said, “Nigeria brand marketing and product placement was what inspired Discomfort Creative; we’ve been able to see the difference between how products are developed in Nigeria and in other part of the world.

I think over time, the idea we are introducing to Nigeria will fly because today’s generation think differently from past years; there’s a lot of improvement, innovation and way of getting things done.”

She continued: “I’m an economist and I’ve been able to work on big projects like the Calabar Carnival, SERAS Award Africa and the Africa Comedy Award.

The name ‘Discomfort Creative’ is not just about the environment, but also about the people we’ll be working with; the misunderstanding, disappointment, which is one of the reasons we came up with the name,” she said.

On the challenges so far, she said, “it hasn’t been easy for me; even walking into offices trying to talk to brand managers about our idea, they look at me like ‘you are young, you are female, what do you know, you know nothing.

So, it’s very challenging, but I think we’ll get there.

I’m persistent and disruptive as well; I can push when I want to and I think it’s a lesson for other girls because it’s not easy.

But once you start, they will see that you have something to offer, not just being female or young. Once they discovered what you are capable of, they will open the door for you and want to listen to you,” she said.

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