The entrepreneurial spirit is so strong in some people that they’ll walk away from a high-powered role in an SOE to follow their dream of becoming independent and more fulfilled. This is what qualified chemical engineer Aluwani Mutamani did when she took the plunge to devote herself full-time to Motama Kitchens at the beginning of 2018 after starting it as a side-hustle in 2016.
Motama Kitchens and Interiors offers turnkey architectural interior design and décor, home renovations and project management services for both residential and corporate clients.
“Most of our clients come from Instagram although we would prefer to advertise on tv in the future as the business grows. Word of mouth is also working well for us as our works speaks for themselves,” explained Mutamani.
Current turnkey projects include newly-built homes in Waterfall Country Estate and Copperleaf Golf Estate in Centurion. “Our services at Waterfall include architectural interior design as well as interior décor and project management. We specified and installed the kitchen, bedroom built-in cupboards, tv stands, bathrooms, wall art, furniture, curtains, cushions, bedding sheets, designer lights and other decorative items. We are now completing the décor – it’s a home with plenty of scope for creativity!
“At Copperleaf, we’re also completing turnkey projects for two houses of 513m² and 440m² respectively and we also have a 680m² project in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga and a 252m² project in Nzhelele, Limpopo. We go everywhere our services are required,” she said.
Aluwani Mutamani’s husband, Phathutshedzo (Gift) Mutamani resigned from Eskom where he worked as a project manager for more than 10 years. He joined Motama Kitchens and Interiors as a project manager for all site works; he is also the company chief finance officer. “Having someone take care of the site works and company finances has helped me to concentrate more on the architectural interior design and décor part of the business for now. We are grooming our junior interior designer to become more independent so that in future I can concentrate more on strategising the business and growing our customer base,” she said.
“We currently have two carpenters and would like to increase that number in future. We assemble all the cupboards at our workshop in Mnandi, Centurion and use trucks to transport the assembled cupboards to site. When we arrive, we only need to install the cupboards and in this way we ensure that we spend minimal time on the client site. Our company showroom and offices are at Riversands I-Hub where prospective clients can physically see our workmanship.
“As a growing business with future aspirations of creating more and more employment opportunities, we are looking at ways to secure a “working capital fund” and this could be in terms of approaching the government for a grant amount or releasing some of the business shares,” said Mutamani.
There’s little doubt that this company is on the cusp of becoming extremely successful!