Starting harsh, ending sweet, The story of Matamiss Enterprise

 If the saying that progress in life is not an event but a process is anything to go by, then the rise of  Ms Matilda Amissah from street hawking to the establishment of Matamiss Enterprise, a pottery producing and exporting company at Tema in Accra says it better. Maxwell Adombila Akalaare looks at the humble beginnings of the company.

THE virtually half-a-day-long intriguing life story of Ms Matilda Amissah, the brain behind a pottery manufacturing and exporting venture in Tema - Matamiss Pottery is short: She was orphaned at age 17,  took to street hawking as she sought to care for herself and later graduated to a petty trader in clothes and food crops.
But the political tension in the country around the late 1970s did not help matters as it mired her business and caused her to later migrate to Nigeria to engage in kenkey selling for two years. That kenkey selling venture also collapsed thereby catapulting her into househelp jobbing at the then Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso Embassy in Nigeria.  Politically motivated upheavals in Nigeria around her days of stay equally did not help matters as she later had to proceed to the United Kingdom in search of a living. 
Two and half years later - 1998, she returned, but hit a hard rock which nearly shattered her life. But after she was introduced to the Lord, she re-galvanised, chanced upon the pottery business and with an urge for innovations, savings and committment to the job, her Matamiss Pottery has today become a renowned guru in the manufacturing and exportation of pottery products world-wide.

THE BIRTH OF MATAMISS
Ms Amissah told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that Matamiss Pottery is the fruits of her habitual savings from “the little money that I got from my past ventures.”
According to her, she had chanced upon a “a beautiful cane basket that was gifted to a newly wedded couple, I inquired about the whereabouts of the basket and was told that it came from a village in Akim-Oda in the Central region. “I later traced the man who made the basket and convinced him to make them in large quantities for me to sale,” she recollected.
After the man had agreed to her request (make the baskets on commercial quantities for her to sale), Ms Amissah said she stored those baskets for one year and later took them to an exhibition.
But while at the fair, her baskets’ patrons, aside patronising the baskets that she brought there, also requested for “something like flower pots” of which she at the time had little knowledge on.
As a result, Ms Amissah said she later got somebody to supply her samples of the flower pots, of which she intend sought more innovative ways of making the “pots look exemptional and attractive as the pots were just ordinary ones.  
According to her, she later re-traced the man that had supplied her the pots to see “if she could put the basket on the pot.”
The man, she said successfully did just that; “drilled holes round the pot and with a chain, he rapped the basket on the pot” to give it the innovative and exceptional look that Ms Amissah had sought for.
But as news of an intended visit of the then PIER 1, an American buying group to the country filtered to Ms Amissah through the then National Association of Handycraft Exporters (NAHE). She prepared her ‘innovative and exceptional pot-baskets to exhibit at the said event.
“I took my products to the fair and fortunately for me, I got an order to produce 50,000 pieces. That order really threw me off board,” Ms Amissah  recollected.
In her attempt to get the order supplied in time, Ms Amissah said she later brought back the ‘Akim-Oda pot man’ and another  pottery expert at Asamakese to Accra to help in the production.
She mentioned that the deal was well executed and in time “but because I was still new in the business, I paid more for the various services that I employed and that seriously affected my profit margin.
But for a woman who had consistently learnt to save and subsequently “plough the profit into the business,” however small  the profit was.  That according to her was the beginning of Matamiss.
And since then, Ms Amissah said her internationally proned Matamiss has being producing and supplying ceramics to its international markets based on the orders it receives from the frequent international fairs that she attends.
The Matamiss currently has 10 permanent employees and exports its products to the United States of America, Holland, Italy and Germany. As for the local market, Ms Amissah said “I have given that to my son to handle.”
She said the West African Trade Hub, the sub-regional wing of the United  States Agency for International Development (USAID) last year sent the company a ceramic designer from the USA “to help us improve on our work, particularlly the designs.” The said designer, she said has since left after spending six months with Matamiss.

THE CRISIS THAT HIT MATAMISS 
“Everything was good for the business until the 2008 financial crisis in the USA hit us hard and reduced the business drastically,” Ms Amissah remembered,  adding that “during the crunch, there was virtually nothing for me to do but I did not give up. For me, it will be well even when things are terrible.”
At the moment, Ms Amissah said things were normalising and the company was currently sourcing for funds to enable “us acquire a workshop, buy a big oven and electric potters’ wheels that would help us expand our production.”
The export market, she observed was full of uncertainities, a situation Ms Amissah said has  made  it difficult for her to access funds from financial institutions in the country.
But even aside those uncertainities, Ms Amissah said “I don’t always want to waste my time going to these banks.  I just save and later plough those savings into my business.

 ADVISE TO THE YOUTH
On GAWE, Ms Amissah said “this is another good platform for women entreprenuers to come together and discuss things that would push their businesses forward.”
And to those who are thinking of giving up on their present endeavours because they are staggering through series of challenges, Ms Amissah’s advise is “we don’t use one day to whiten decade-old rotten teeth; It is small small, don’t rush. And when things are not going well, pray and ask for the Lord’s directions. There’s no short cut to life in this world yet.” Matilda is on matamissent@yahoo.com

In our next issue, we will discuss what motivated Ms Hettie Mercer-Riketts, the Chief Executive Officer of Spa, Body ‘N Beyond, a newly opened health and body care company at Osu in Accra to 'come home' with his therapeadic experience.