06/12/2016
Read the entrepreneurship journey of our CEO
If You Don’t Jump, You’ll Never Fly – Abraham Mbuthia
Looking back, it amazes me how far I have come. In my wildest of dreams, I never imagined my purpose in life would be to change the world using technology.
After finishing high school at Sunshine Secondary School, I had a heated debate with my dad on which course to pursue. I was passionate about being a DJ...Yes, a DJ. Something my dad was willing to pay for, on condition I would be a gospel DJ and I would go to University immediately after finishing my DJ School. I therefore went knocking on K-Krew offices asking to be enrolled in their DJ school.
I remember being interviewed by an intern DJ at that time (DJ Gjo) and he mentioned if I was to be enrolled; I would take the title from him as the youngest DJ. You should have seen the smile on my face on my way back home after I was accepted. Shortly after breaking the news, dad requested me to also do an interview at Strathmore University so that I would join University after my three months at DJ School. Who was I to refuse? I had gotten what I wanted after all. I did an interview and passed only to be confirmed to join Strathmore for a Bachelor in Business Information Technology the following month. For me, it was a no brainer; I was definitely going to choose DJ school over I.T given the two were both set to start at the same time. Conversely, there was no quandary according to my dad, I was going to Strathmore and the compromise was to enroll to DJ school when on break. (Of course that never happened).
I decided to make the best of the opportunity given the big sacrifice it took for my parents to take my brother and I through Strathmore University concurrently. (For which I am forever grateful). This definitely meant foregoing a few luxuries here and there. I had one of the worst phones in my class (a pink C3). I remember at one time one of my female desk mates asking if I was gay. (Lol! How I wish, she meant gay for "happy"). I had to share my laptop with my brother in between classes and even shared a few official clothes with him in the course of the week. Fast-forward…I bought myself my dream phone (iPhone 6); I have my dream laptop (MacBook Pro) and I wear the finest clothes, courtesy of my own sweat.
While in second year, my good friend from Church, Joel Munene, linked me up with one of the biggest Software Companies in Kenya that makes Mobile Banking Software Solutions for banks. For about two months I got a chance to intern in Quality Assurance where I tested all banking solutions before they went out to the market. This exposed me to a lot of software development techniques. This was my biggest turning point in life; I noticed how easy and satisfying it was to come up with innovative solutions. This is the more reason, even after my internship I was still being consulted for the same role. Yes, I was a consultant while in second year. And it was at this point it hit me that I wanted to be a tech-solution provider.
Shortly after leaving, I was requested to recommend someone to take up an open project in the company. Having grown an entrepreneurial mind, I quickly asked the top student in my class (Erick Mabusi) to take up the job on a contractual basis and we would work on it together to get it done. We contracted the job under CLEM Creative Computing; a limited Company incorporated in 2012 in Tanzania and had compliance in Kenya Erick co-founded the company with Christopher Leole, both of whom were in Strathmore University.
My partner, Erick, was good in Technology, while I was fast in noticing business opportunities and easily pursued business prospects. Because of this, in mid 2014, I requested to be the Marketing Executive in CLEM so that I could bring in more opportunities. After working together on two (confidential) banking solutions, it was quite evident that we were well destined to run a company together. In December 2014, I was added as a new Director and the CEO of the entire company. My role was to manage the company and source for new opportunities. It was one of those moments you hardly ever believe--being a CEO of a company existing in two countries while still in third year! Life was already moving too fast for me to keep up. (I still have my old business cards as Marketing Executive, which I keep to remind myself where I started off.)
At this point, I started diversifying my investments and became a serial entrepreneur. I started farming with the help of my dad and grandma in Karatina. I used to travel after every two weeks with my father, who mentored me in the new field. I farmed successfully for a whole year and took a break in mid 2015, after my 4-acre land of maize was destroyed by cold weather and what survived was stolen by the locals. Later in the year, I co-founded Soko Mkononi with my sister (Anne Njeri), an initiative to deliver green groceries to estates. We would get groceries from the market in the wee hours of the morning and deliver to homes. However, this initiative ended faster than it started due to lack of persistence. Other, than this we also registered a company known as Finito Legato to get access to government tenders for the youth. I have not given up on these business ventures; I am taking a break to re-think strategy.
As a new Director and sitting as the new CEO of both Kenya and Tanzania at that time, I quickly pushed revenues to approximately KES 200,000 by end of 2014 from the previous year’s KES 50,000. This was a major milestone considering I was still in University. When I joined the company, we had diverse products. My immediate change of strategy was to narrow our range of services. We had to stop Hardware and focus on Software development only. This was based on advice given to me by George Muhia, one of the successful I.T. gurus in Kenya, whom I met through the MbuguaRosemary Foundation. As a result, we made a mobile POS (mPOS), the Jijenge APP, a Search Engine Optimization, a money transfer platform and a help desk management system that gave us the privilege to work with big corporates such as, Eveready East Africa (KE), Samchi Credit (KE), Valley ENT (KE), Hive Money Transfer (KE), and Pride Micro-Finance (TZ) respectively. This saw our hard work grow our revenues to approximately KES 4 Million by end of 2015.
Our biggest breakthrough in 2015, however, was getting Samchi Credit as one of our clients. I got this deal after exhibiting during our graduation at the MbuguaRosemary Foundation, where I met Kevin Mutiso - their former CEO - who showed interest in my line of products towards the Fin-tech market. After a series of discussions and meetings, I was able to close them as our biggest client at that time. This new deal allowed us to scale our operations and raise constant cash flow for the business every month.
As part of our vision to grow the company to be self-sustainable, we had to change strategy again in 2016. The first thing we did was to split operations in both Kenya and Tanzania. The Tanzania branch is now head by Christopher Leole and I currently run our Kenya branch. We now had constant cash flow every month and the ability to create our own products in the market (unique in every country), which could generate us more reliable funds.
However, every successful entrepreneurship story has its ups and downs. Our 2016 strategy was quickly forgotten as we got too comfortable with our new client. We were only working to satisfy them and hardly looked for more clients. In May, our biggest client wrote a letter of Termination of Contract. We had scaled operations but we had no cash flow. I wished, we had taken time to come up with our own product, which would have been continuously generating revenue even in such times when clients exit contracts. My partners and I tried to source new opportunities but we did not find any. We managed to sustain the company with the small reserve of money we had but it could not last too long. We exhausted our company and personal accounts in less than two months as we also did not mitigate the problem by scaling down our operations because we thought it would be a short-term crisis.
We started sourcing for investors starting off with a large city transport company. We overvalued our company, and as a result, lost the opportunity. We were then approached by our former client who was willing to invest KES 7 million for a 51% stake of our company. Knowing that we were crawling on our knees, we almost agreed. But thank God for the guidance we got from Angela Kasili (Program Coordinator, MbuguaRosemary Foundation). She held us by the hand until we declined that offer. She helped us source more opportunities and linked us with a good lawyer who ensured no one took advantage of us at that vulnerable time.
Instead, we looked for financial help from family, which kept us running operations until October 2016. We lost 95% of our employees at that time and had to scale down our operations including shifting our working space to our residential homes. This tough times made us focus on our 2016 strategy, which was to develop one product and put all our energy to it. This product is known as UzaPoint, an ERP for small and medium sized businesses as well as upcoming enterprises to manage business processes and connect with their clients. One month before even the product is ready for the market, we have seen companies showing interest and even others financially committing to get the product once we finish polishing it up. Right now we are currently working with Invergara Members Club, The Good Food Company, Seven Sea Food and Grill, and awaiting contract signing with a large to***co company and a new upcoming Supermarket. We are quickly bouncing back from our tough times and for the last two months the company is now sustaining itself from its own cash flow. I have hired new employees with whom we work 18 hours, 7 days a week to make sure we revive the company from where it is, to where it is meant to be. I look forward to seeing kiosks, shops and mini-marts growing to huge supermarkets due to proper use of technology.
You will never know until you take the plunge and jump into the unknown. When you fall, remember it is not how hard you fall, but how fast you get up. Lastly, take up one idea and make it your life-think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea and you will succeed. Abraham Mbuthia
