Ethiopian entrepreneur turns a single sewing machine into factories, a hotel, and a mall

Seid Mohammedbirhan was born in 1960 in the town of Adi Awro, in a rural part of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. He was the younger of two sons in a family of small-scale farmers. Life in the village was austere. There was no electricity, clean water had to be carried from a distance, and the family slept on animal hides laid directly on the ground. His education amounted to only a few years of schooling between the ages of ten and fourteen. By the time he reached fourth grade, conflict in the region forced the school to shut its doors.

One of Seid’s first jobs was at a tailoring shop in the small town of Kwiha. Most of the work involved repairing people’s clothes, and for each repair he completed, he was allowed to keep half of what the customer paid. The shop owner let him stay in the workshop, and Seid slept on the floor to avoid the cost of renting separate accommodation. He cut out all non-essential spending – he didn’t buy coffee or new clothes, and never spent money on anything recreational. His focus was simply on working and saving. Within eleven months, he had put aside 3,000 birr ($1,440 at the time).

Seid used the 3,000 birr to start his own tailoring business in Mekele. It was 1981, and he was twenty-one years old. He spent 1,000 birr on a second-hand Necchi sewing machine and used the remaining 2,000 birr to rent a small workshop.

This small shop laid the foundation for a business empire that today includes clothing, hospitality, and real estate.

Seid credits his business success to 20% luck and 80% effort, maintaining that hard work is the only way to reach the top.

Read Seid Mohammedbirhan's full entrepreneurship journey in our new book, How we made it in Africa II. The book was launched at Harvard Business School and has been shortlisted for the Business Council for Africa (BCA) African Business Book of the Year Awards 2026.