The man from Mamelodi who started selling T-shirts out of his car and now operates 17 stores across South Africa
Thatiso Dube, the founder, head designer, and creative director of South African luxury streetwear retailer GALXBOY, won the 2025 Job Creator and Medium Business Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.
Mamelodi-born Dube’s fashion brand grew from humble beginnings, selling T-shirts out of his car in 2008, to working on his streetwear fashion brand in 2012.
The Job Creator and Medium Business Entrepreneur of the Year Awards are awarded to businesses with a turnover above R50 million.
Dube operates 17 stores across eight of the nine provinces in South Africa and employs over 200 people, 90% of whom are under 35.
“We have a booming online store, and we do about 30,000 orders each month,” Dube told Business Partners Limited.
Having planted GALXBOY’s roots already when Dube was in high school, he explained that his plans for the brand are to grow it into a global brand.
“GALXBOY started in high school. We had a crew of friends, we called ourselves the Cheese Boys, so I made a T-shirt for our crew, and we used to wear those T-shirts during casual day,” he said.
Dube explained that after he and his friends started wearing the T-shirts at school, other students wanted their own, which inspired Dube to start selling them.
“I used to get R20 from my parents for lunch every day, for three days I used to make my own lunch and save the R20 so I could buy a T-shirt and sell it,” he said.
Dube explained that when he was in high school, he did not see his T-shirt sales as a business but rather as an opportunity to make extra pocket money.
“I wasn’t aware that a black person could own a clothing brand. When I discovered Amakipkip and found out the guy was black, that just blew up the passion even more,” he said.
From Cheese Boys to GALXBOY
In 2012, Dube started working for the South African streetwear brand Amakipkip as a designer.
Dube said that instead of a salary, which he turned down, he asked the brand to give him knowledge and to teach him how the streetwear clothing industry operates.
By the end of 2012, Dube officially registered GALXBOY, filed the trademarks and started selling under the brand.
The GALXBOY brand includes T-shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, bucket hats, sunglasses, tote bags, sandals, sneakers, and bracelets.
The brand is centred on African culture, including references to local icons, ancestral symbols such as Adinkra and Ndebele patterns, and counterculture messaging reportedly rooted in “skater and hip-hop” traditions.
“In 2008, he saw a gap in the market for a brand that was designed by the youth for the youth, in particular, Millennials as well as Generation Z,” the brand wrote on its website.
“Through ambition, perseverance and teamwork, GALXBOY was born,” it said.
However, in 2017, GALXBOY shut down. Dube said that while they excelled in clothing production, they lacked the expertise needed to market and sell their products.
After a period of restructuring, Dube relaunched his fashion brand in 2020.
Since then, his global online store has shipped over 200 orders to countries around the world, including the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
The GALXBOY aesthetic is defined by its designs, which are rooted in a 21st-century African design philosophy that, the brand believes, reflects the modern aspirations of South African youth.
The brand is inspired by the “new age” youth of South Africa, who continually redefine what it means to be “African, young, wild, and free.”
Dube, who became an entrepreneur at a very young age, has advised upcoming young entrepreneurs to harness their creativity and never give up on their dreams.
“I would advise an entrepreneur to just believe in themselves and be consistent, take no days off, and when you have a product, try to push it to anyone and everyone,” he said.
Dube urged new entrepreneurs to remain steadfast in their pursuits and not be discouraged by others’ negative opinions.
He recommended that new entrepreneurs seek advice only from individuals who have already achieved the goals that they aim to accomplish.
Loading ...