Interview with Tope Babs: African Fashion Entrepreneur & Founder

Owned and operated by Nigerian and American entrepreneur Tope Babs, Afroswagg.com believes in helping consumers look good and stand out in a crowd through unique and well-fit fashion. The company offers a variety of styles from various designers across Africa with the option to customize any item to get the perfect fit and finish. Whether you’re looking for that specific style or a piece that’s hard to fit, Afroswagg.com strives to help you feel your best.

Tope and the Afroswagg.com team give back to Africa in a big way as they strive to help alleviate poverty and unemployment by periodically providing professional training to their designers. Earlier this year, Afroswagg.com also donated sewing machines to some of the designers sold on the website.

For more information about Tope and the designers, please visit AfroSwagg.com.

HBM: Can you share your background?

Babs: “I spent most of my younger years in Nigeria, West Africa and I`ve always had a passion for providing business solutions. When I moved to the United States, I received my MBA degree from American University (in Washington D.C.) with a concentration in Finance and Entrepreneurship.

Since I have had the opportunity to live in Africa and North America, my exposure to these cultures has allowed me to identify and fill gaps in both markets and so all of my entrepreneurial activities have been geared towards that.”

HBM: What makes this brand unique?

Babs: “Our products are never mass produced and all our products can be customized to your particular body shape. We believe fashion should never be a one-size-fits-all process. You can mix and match colors, shapes, and fabrics so you can have a totally unique look.”

HBM: What advice can you offer to an aspiring entrepreneur looking to launch a business?

Babs: “You must create a detailed business plan. Creating a business plan should never just be a checkbox on a startup to-do list. It should force you to think and answer questions that will be critical to your success.

Another caveat to watch out for is, it is very easy for entrepreneurs to be extremely optimistic about their ventures, but experience teaches you that growth takes time and perseverance.”

HBM: What is your favorite tool or resource to run your business?

Babs: “They say numbers never lie, and this is absolutely true. Most decisions I make are based on what the numbers/data tells me so analytics tools are critical. If I am running a marketing campaign, sales promotion, adding new sales channel, etc. the decision to stop, continue, or expand such strategies is always based on the data/results from the first couple of attempts.”

HBM: What do you have planned for Afroswagg in 2018?

Babs: “At Afroswagg, we always look for ways to provide better value for our customers. We have a lot of enhancements planned for 2018. Just to share a few, we will be introducing our “Travelling Tailors” to offer in-person body measurements used to create a perfectly-fit outfit, for customers who do not want to use our online body measurement system. We will be expanding the logic of our measurement system to fit more body types.

We will also be introducing more African fashion from other countries in Africa than we currently have now.”

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