{"id":864597,"date":"2026-07-06T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=864597"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:26:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T13:26:50","slug":"the-man-from-mamelodi-who-started-selling-t-shirts-out-of-his-car-and-now-operates-17-stores-across-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/864597\/the-man-from-mamelodi-who-started-selling-t-shirts-out-of-his-car-and-now-operates-17-stores-across-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The man from Mamelodi who started selling T-shirts out of his car and now operates 17 stores across South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mamelodi-born Dube\u2019s fashion brand grew from humble beginnings, selling T-shirts out of his car in 2008, to working on his streetwear fashion brand in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Job Creator and Medium Business Entrepreneur of the Year Awards are awarded to businesses with a turnover above R50 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dube operates 17 stores across eight of the nine provinces in South Africa and employs over 200 people, 90% of whom are under 35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a booming online store, and we do about 30,000 orders each month,\u201d Dube told Business Partners Limited<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having planted GALXBOY\u2019s roots already when Dube was in high school, he explained that his plans for the brand are to grow it into a global brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGALXBOY 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Cheese Boys to GALXBOY <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, Dube started working for the South African streetwear brand Amakipkip as a designer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of 2012, Dube officially registered GALXBOY, filed the trademarks and started selling under the brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GALXBOY brand includes T-shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, bucket hats, sunglasses, tote bags, sandals, sneakers, and bracelets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cskater and hip-hop\u201d traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 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,\u201d the brand wrote on its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough ambition, perseverance and teamwork, GALXBOY was born,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a period of restructuring, Dube relaunched his fashion brand in 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dube urged new entrepreneurs to remain steadfast in their pursuits and not be discouraged by others’ negative opinions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recommended that new entrepreneurs seek advice only from individuals who have already achieved the goals that they aim to accomplish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thatiso Dube, the founder of GALXBOY, started from humble beginnings and now employs over 200 people. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":864740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2074146611811238207","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[25661,25662],"class_list":["post-864597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-galxboy","tag-thatiso-dube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864597"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865568,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864597\/revisions\/865568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}