The successful business all started with an origami swan made out of 680 pieces of folded paper
As the co-founder of Mo’s Crib home décor, Michelle Mokone is promoting her proudly South African products on the global stage.
Michelle Mokone discovered her affinity and knack for entrepreneurship alongside her sister, but her path to becoming the creative director and head of business development for her own company was not an easy one.
After completing her Masters in International Trade Law and Economics at the University of Bern in Switzerland, Michelle began working as an agricultural economist while simultaneously starting up a side hustle that would eventually grow into the fully-fledged business that she co-runs today.
After Michelle’s sister, Mo, created an origami swan made out of 680 pieces of folded paper in 2016, the duo took it to a market, where it became an instant bestseller, owing in part to its multipurpose nature.
The sisters immediately knew that they were on to something, and for their next product they went in search of an item that was sustainable, handmade and functional.
“In 2017, we introduced the PVC range featuring a laundry basket made out of recycled water pipes,” Michelle explains. “So, it’s handmade out of raw materials or recycled materials that we found from landfills, construction sites and PVC manufacturers. We turned that into a laundry basket that’s multifunctional. It can be a laundry basket, it can be an art piece, and it’s also weather-resistant so it doesn’t get damaged.”
Creating handmade products that are made from sustainable material creates multiple jobs, in turn, which allowed Mo’s Crib to form.
But it was only in 2019 that Michelle’s sister, Mo, decided to pursue Mo’s Crib as a full-time career.
“We took that leap of faith, and we got the biggest shock of our lives,” Michelle admits. “We didn’t expect the kind of challenges that we had. We found ourselves asking friends and family for money because we couldn’t sustain the business. That’s when we started to focus on selling volume and contacting retailers such as Woolworths, Builders Warehouse and Mr Price.”
Today, Mo’s Crib exports internationally to Crate & Barrel, Target, and most recently, CB2.
The values of the company have remained the same as they were from day one, centred on sustainable, handmade products. And it has grown substantially through the types of products that it sells.It’s also incorporated different types of grass, such as banana bark, raffia, and sisal, into its woven products.
Amid all this planning and expansion, Michelle somehow found time to start a sneaker laundry business in 2021 called Sole. To date they’ve opened three branches in Menlyn on Main in Pretoria, the Discovery head office in Sandton, and most recently at the Chilli Lane Shopping Centre in Sunninghill.
While today, Michelle is confident and comfortable in her day-to-day routine, she remembers feeling as though she was missing out on her youth by working weekends.
But as the business and the team grew, she was able to take time off to spend with her family, something that she now considers essential. “If I don’t do that, then I won’t show up and be fully present at work,” she says.
When it comes to an individual who was instrumental in her career trajectory and general growth, Michelle is quick to mention her late mother saying, “She was a nurse, and she passed away from breast cancer. She was a very, very strong person and she instilled excellent principles in us. My mom never compared my sister and me, and that’s how we’re able to work together so well in business. We’re respectful business partners and we have an innate ability to celebrate one another’s differences.”
But perhaps her most precious role is that of mother and caregiver to her two-year-old daughter, for whom she strives to be present in all aspects of the word.
“Sometimes I feel like I could be doing more,” she says. “But I believe that one day when she’s grown up, she’ll be able to look back and say, “Wow, that woman was really juggling a whole lot of things and she made it work, you know?’”
Michelle and Mo are making a name for themselves here and abroad, and for all female South African entrepreneurs