Choosing furniture pieces for your house or office isn’t an easy task, you need to search for the best quality, design and price, which is usually a very tough equation. I myself prefer simple, stylish and unique furniture pieces, which is exactly what Mazuna Home offers. But Mazuna Home is more than a regular furniture store, it has a story that started decades ago. We’ve spoken with Ibrahim Mazuinah, the owner and founder of Mazuna Home, and he told us all about his background, the furniture store’s journey and his website.
Ibrahim studied Medicine and specializes in anesthesia and clinical nutrition. But the furniture store is related to his passion for design and wood. He explains:
I’ve always been fascinated by wood, wanted to get creative with the material and my passion for it grew because of my family.
You can watch the full interview in the video below or read on to know more about his inspiring success story.
About Mazuna Home
Ibrahim’s late grandfather, Hag Hussein Mazuna founded the business in 1928 in Giza. And to continue his family’s legacy of wood trading, Ibrahim founded Mazuna Home in August 2019.
When the business first started, the team had three members only, Ibrahim – founder and designer - and two crafts men. As the business is growing, their team members increase too.
The business model mainly depends on having a strong digital presence. As customers visit Mazuna Home’s website or social media channels to check the furniture pieces and designs, then they communicate with the team through the internet to send them the designs on their phones and finally delivering it to their doorsteps.
At the same time, people can visit Mazuna Home’s offline stores and show rooms. They’ve started with one and now they have two furniture stores in Cairo. If you visit their showroom or check their designs, you’ll notice that their designs are mostly contemporary rustic style, as they aim to provide their customers with high quality organic furniture. They use genuine and original wood, and they use unique and special techniques in crafting and putting together the furniture pieces.
Besides Mazuna Home’s strong online presence, Ibrahim stresses on the importance of having an offline showroom too:
The idea of shopping for furniture online without seeing or feeling the piece itself isn’t there yet. Sometimes clients want to see our products in order to make a decision, they get to feel how high or wide a chair is, is it comfortable or not? All these details things can’t be detected in a picture online.
Ibrahim’s future plans for his business is to expand it, by introducing new products like curtains and cushions, creating more artistic pieces by different designers and more future collaborations. He believes that they have high quality resources, designs and manpower in Egypt and the talent needed to produce furniture pieces that can be exported and sold in different countries around the world.
He explains “In Egypt, we have amazing talents in designing and producing. I believe that we have a great chance to grow the business and implement the latest techniques in furnishing and expand our reach to go beyond Egypt and reach global users all around the world.”
The furniture store’s online identity
Ibrahim’s relationship with technology isn’t good, he jokingly says “I can’t call technology my best friend”. But when it was time to set up his business’s digital presence, he knew that it wasn’t a luxury but more of a necessity. He explains:
In the current digital era that we live in, there has been a huge shift from offline marketing to online marketing. People nowadays use their smartphones all the time, the first thing people do when they wake up is to check their phone. Because of this shift, we make sure that our business is available online too.
Ibrahim then explains his journey to build a website for Mazuna Home, he says that it was very easy to set it up, as his friend introduced him to GoDaddy, the first thing he did was to get his business’s domain name Mazunahome.com. He says that he felt very lucky to find the domain name that he wanted available, then he moved on to build his website using GoDaddy’s Websites + Marketing tool. He explains:
The website building process was very easy, straightforward and enjoyable. All I had to was answer some questions, then in a couple of steps and less than two hours the website was up and running.
Ibrahim explains that Mazuna Home’s website acts as its online business card and fingerprint. He says, “It’s very crucial for businesses, even if they’re still small to set-up their website and social media profiles especially if they’re depending on online marketing to reach their potential customers.”
The furniture store’s website content consists of a biography about the founders and about the business’s story and how it started. Mazuna Home also has a strong presence on different social media platforms, and he uses these channels to showcase new collections, designs and business updates.
The recipe for success
If you think that the entrepreneurship journey is easy, then you’re wrong. Ibrahim says that his journey to start a business - which wasn’t related to what he studied - was very challenging. He says “When you start a business, you invest a large sum of money; hoping that you’ll be able to make profit soon. And making profit or even breaking even would take a long time. That’s why you need to be sure that you are doing is what you love.”
Ibrahim then shares with us his secret ingredient for success is passion. You’ll spend a lot of your time, energy and resources on your business, so if you’re not passionate about it you’ll probably give up when things are tough. You need to dedicate time and be as meticulous as possible when you’re planning your next move, especially if you’re a solopreneur. Moreover, when you’re starting a business you need to do a lot of research, to know exactly what you need and so that you can plan well for the future. Ibrahim makes sure that his customers feel like they’re getting more than just another furniture piece, they’re buying a piece with a story behind it that they can then tell their children and grandchildren about.
Ibrahim’s final words for aspiring entrepreneurs are:
Treat your business and products like your baby. Always keep a close eye on details.
Mazuna Home is an example of how dedication, passion and hard work can be the secret recipe for success. By producing the beautiful and organic furniture pieces and making it accessible for customers online and offline, Ibrahim has set his business for a bright future.
