We chat to Phila Mbengu, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from Stutterheim - a small town in the Eastern Cape. Phila was born in Rustenburg, North West province but his family decided to relocate to Stutterheim which is his dad's home town. “I grew up in a christian household and I was a very creative child, I could draw, sing and write a lot, and I think all of that came from my crazy colourful imagination that I always had”, he said.
After his grade 10 Phila moved to Gqeberha to further high school education, from there he joined PE TVET College where his love for business kicked in, where he was completing his Marketing Management Course.
When did you commence with Canzi Creations and what inspired you to go for a perfume business? “In December the 12th 2017, I officially opened for business and sold my first perfume. And the inspiration to go into this type of business is I wanted something rare and I had never heard of a person from eKasi with his or her own perfume brand back then so I saw an opportunity and went for it”.
In starting, what were your challenges and how did you overcome them? “Just like any other business I had challenges and one of the major ones was lack of capital as I had so many ways to better my brand but lack of recourses limited me especially the financial side of things stood on the way but I came up with creative ways to curve all that, I was able to start small and grew as people get to know about my brand”.
Since you have commenced, what has been the highlight/s of your business? “Since I ventured to this business there has been encouraging growth and having customers in almost every province has been a high for me. There's also a documentary that was done by Sibabalwe Mhluzi about my work, and recently I was on a radio show at Kumnkani FM talking about Canzi Creations”.
Canzi Creations currently offers the below;
- Canzi Creations 60ml Oil based perfume for Her - R200
- Canzi Creations 80ml Oil based perfume for Him R250
- We deliver around SA for only R100.
When you are not busy pushing your Canzi Creations products, what do you do to keep sane? “When I'm not working on Canzi Creations, I'm either painting or doing photography. But what I do to keep sane is meditation”.