MSME Day: How a Young Graduate Built a 1.3 Million Birr Leather Enterprise and Also Became a Regional Champion

DEBRE TABOR, ETHIOPIA— In celebration of Micro-, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSME) Day, the Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) highlights the extraordinary transformation of Habtam Leather and Leather Products, a local business that has scaled from a 5,000 ETB home startup into a 1.3 million ETB manufacturing enterprise.

Founded by 28-year-old university graduate Habtam Fekade, the enterprise simultaneously secured a prestigious 700,000 ETB award at the Amhara Region job creation competition. The company now operates nine industrial machines, employs six local youth, and is preparing to expand into footwear manufacturing from a government-allocated production shade.

Habtam’s rapid transition from an informal home business to a structured corporate entity was accelerated by her enrollment in EDI’s Entrepreneurship and Business Management Skills Training. The intensive capacity-building program, paired with EDI’s post-training business mentorship, equipped her with vital skills in financial literacy, strategic business planning, and market penetration strategies.

Through this targeted intervention, Habtam was able to refine her operations, optimize production costs, and successfully position her brand to win regional backing while sustaining exponential asset growth.

Her journey stands as a powerful evidence to how structured training and continuous mentorship can unlock individual potential, empower women, and drive local economic transformation.

Before her business success, Habtam’s path mirrored that of many young professionals. Raised in a large, hardworking farming family of eight siblings in Debre Tabor, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Debre Tabor University. Despite her academic success, she faced a harsh reality: a stagnant local job market that left her unemployed for nearly a year after graduation.

Now married to a university lecturer and raising a six-year-old son, Habtam chose to pivot toward self-reliance rather than let unemployment define her future.

Combining her innate passion for fashion and creativity with basic short courses she had previously taken in sewing, she turned to the internet to independently master the intricate art of leather crafting.

Five years ago, armed with only 5,000 Birr in savings and a single sewing machine, Habtam began manufacturing small leather goods directly from her living room.

With a structured business model now firmly in place, Habtam is looking toward the future. Beyond expanding her product lines into footwear, she aims to establish a formal training center dedicated to mentoring and equipping other unemployed youth with leather craftsmanship skills. Her story highlights the critical role that institutional training, paired with individual resilience, plays in building sustainable economic opportunities across Ethiopia.