School drop-out to business success
... while everyone else was resting, I was out there working: Nadia Motala
FROM selling pies at a taxi rank and working at a backyard salon with three clients a day, to perhaps becoming one of the biggest names in the Durban beauty scene, Nadia Motala knows a thing or two about hussle.
The 31-year-old businesswoman’s journey is one she describes as long and hard – but in the end, all worth it.
Motala has worked with celebrities like DJ Zinhle and TV presenter Lerato Kganyago and has more than 31 000 followers on Instagram. She now owns a hair, make-up and beauty spa at uShaka Marine World with a staff of 10 and has clients flying in from all over the country just for her work.
sat down with the mother of two at her upmarket glam/chic store and she explained that before Instagram and before her brand took off, she was just a regular girl doing the rounds trying to make her career work.
Motala left school in Grade 10, knowing at the young age of 15 that she wanted to become a hair and make-up artist.
“My teachers were horrified and questioned if my parents agreed with me leaving school at such a young age, especially when I had such great potential. I assured them and they supported me every step of the way.”
She enrolled at the then Natal Technikon (now the Durban University of Technology) and studied Hair Technology and Make-up Artistry.
“I had some of the best lecturers, who invested their time in me. They saw my talent and wanted me to nurture it. And I did. While everyone else was resting, I was out there working, practising, trying out new hair colours and techniques because I knew if I were to make it in the industry, I had to work hard.”
As part of her qualification, Motala needed do in-service training for a year. She managed to get into a Rolf Offermann salon and that was where her passion grew. “I only worked for tips but was told that my dedication and hard work would get me to the top one day.”
Once her in-service was done, she started a local salon in Isipingo as the head stylist – but was never paid.
“I left and began selling pies at the taxi rank for R350 a week. I was only 18. It was tough but I did it and I think to some extent, it makes me grateful for what I have now.”
Motala married when she was 19 and moved to Mpumalanga where she set up a little salon in her three-bedroom apartment, where her clientele began to grow. She soon had her first baby, a boy named Daniel.
But in 2009, her husband’s business ran into financial trouble and they returned to Durban.
“We lived with my mother and dad for a few months and then moved to the beachfront.”
At that time, a woman from Overport, Amina Jamal, contacted her to rent out a place.
“It was a backyard salon. We began working together and I would have three or four people a day doing bridal hair and make-up. People began knowing who I was.”
She then fell pregnant with her second baby, Benyamin, and eventually found a place in Sherwood with two small rooms and bought it.
“I hired my first employee, Gugu, in 2011, and then hired Mbali. We began to build our clientele and would give vouchers in exchange for adverts.”
Motala worked right up until she gave birth.
She stayed in Sherwood for five years and her business grew when she began advertising on Facebook and Instagram. In 2017, she was able to buy a place in uShaka and now has brides booking her two years in advance.
Motala said her parents and her husband were instrumental in her success. “They have been with me through everything.
“I can confidently say I would not have been able to do what I do if it weren’t for my family.”
Motala said a typical day for her was to get up at 6am, get her children ready for school, have breakfast, which is normally oats, coconut milk and coffee and get to the store at 9am.
She also owns Nadia’s Curry Café in uShaka and a service station in Johannesburg, which she flies to once a week. Motala believes she is at her most confident in all spheres of her life currently.
“I feel at 30 you know who you are and where you want to go. There’s no second guessing yourself. I wanted a two storey home at the Point Waterfront and I have it. I wanted to become a household name and I think I’m nearly there.”
Her home can be best described as neutral, simple and eclectic.
As a lover of nature, there are plants everywhere with even their own vegetable patch, planted by her children.