From street hawking to founding one of Africa’s top homegrown luxury watch brands, meet Ghana’s Anthony Dzamefe

Anthony Mensah Dzamefe is a Ghanaian entrepreneur and the founder of one of Africa’s top watch brands called Caveman. His entrepreneurial journey dates back to days he used to accompany his mother to the market to buy items to stock her provision shop in the Volta region of Ghana.

The episode was not only a bonding time for him as he also picked up some entrepreneurial traits from his mother without even knowing it. This, in addition to his background in science and business administration, has come in handy for him in his current endeavor.

“I practiced entrepreneurship without knowing it,” he told Face2Face Africa. “Because when I sit back and remember that I had done a lot of selling in the past when I was a kid…I would go to the market to sell water and all other things.”

Nonetheless, Dzamefe didn’t know what entrepreneurship was. In fact, he never aspired to be one until the later stages of his life. Before launching Caveman, he operated a shop where he sold different brands of watches.

Dzamefe’s affair with watches is one that fits the line “from hate to love.” According to him, he never liked watches and never understood the concept since he could tell the time on his phone. However, it was not until 2015 that he decided to buy one for himself. It is unclear what changed for Dzamefe but he told Face2Face Africa that doing watches was accidental.

“So 2015, I had no job. For the first time in my life I wanted to buy a watch so I walked into a shop and I couldn’t afford what they had in the shop. So I saw somebody else’s online selling a watch for less than $10,” he narrated. “I just called the person and bought the watch. So I put the watch on my wrist to take a picture and someone took an interest and asked if I was selling it and I said ‘yeah.’”

“I mean, I was a jobless guy looking for opportunities anywhere I could find one,” he continued. “So somebody showed interest in that watch and I sold it. I made profit off that sale and that was the moment I started putting ‘two and two together.’ Maybe I could make business out of this. So it was in 2015 I walked into a shop to buy a watch for the first time in my life.”

Touching on his work, Dzamefe said the design process is his favorite. Like his siblings, he draws, a gift he said he picked from his mother. At high school, he said, many thought he should have been reading visual arts instead of general science.

“But I think my artistry has come to help me very much. The design process is what I love. How to put the elements of a good design together [while] respecting the watch making principles. And then the craftsmanship required.”

To make his watch, he relies on other companies for different parts although he makes some in-house. Some of the companies are Ghanaian owned. Everything then comes in-house where the assembling is done and all the necessary tests are done before the watch hits the market.

Caveman recently hit the Nigerian market. Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy and any acceptance of a brand produced in Africa means that the product is of high quality. The brand also has a partnership with DHL to deliver purchases to international clients. Some of his international markets, aside from Nigeria, predominantly include the UK, the USA, China, South Korea and The Netherlands.

Dzamefe has five siblings and was raised by “strict parents” who did not compromise on education. He had his basic education at Mawuli School and went to St. Pauls for his secondary education. He holds a Diploma in Business Administration and a degree in Business Management from the University for Professional Studies in Ghana.