FIVE THINGS I LEARNED ON THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP JOURNEY

No one prepares you for or can explain the turbulence, thrill and grit that entrepreneurship is - you need to set sail on the voyage to get it. I jumped into the murky waters in 2017 after sixteen years of a rewarding corporate career working for multi nationals in Kenya, USA and South Africa, and after returning to Kenya at a time when the construction industry was experiencing an awakening of large-scale infrastructure development. Following a short stint in management consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers Kenya where I had been hired to establish a new infrastructure advisory business, I became convicted to set up my own business.

Starting a new business in an election year is near suicidal, starting one in a year that held two general elections certainly was, but I didn't know anything about these dynamics because I left the country early in my working career and spent ten years in the less volatile USA and South Africa markets. They say ignorance is bliss and I blissfully built my start up for three years until it was no longer blissful, and COVID19 came along to disrupt everything and everyone. I did pivot back into employment during the Covid years of 2020-22 working in a large plantation business where I picked valuable operations skills before getting back into entrepreneurship at the end of 2022 (entrepreneurs are suckers for punishment). In this article I share five valuable lessons I have learned as I build the enterprise.

1. Your vision commingles with and ignites others' vision.

Entrepreneurs are vision bearers and sometimes they don't even know where this spiritual awakening comes from - it is a God work of wonder. The vision will not allow you to sleep at night or even stray to other endeavors once you have embarked on bringing it to life. I realized that once I had started building the start-up and was sometimes on the brink of bankruptcy that I stubbornly refused to return to employment and turned down many lucrative corporate job offers. The vision is a jealous lover that will share you with no one.

An even more remarkable phenomenon occurs once you get sold on your vision - your fire and passion ignites others. Some of my co-voyagers in the start-up company also got caught up in the vision and then began to morph into vision bearers and mid-wives themselves: Belinda Mugambi went from our prolific inhouse graphic designer to becoming the proud founder of a digital marketing company BELMUSE DIGITAL ; Joy Mukami dappled in marketing and sales and ultimately setting up a social enterprise Comrades Market ; Michael Righa, CAPM? who came into the business with no background in the construction industry and project management grew into a certified project manager and has an illustrious career as an Agile specialist in an EPC company. Your vision is not for yourself only - be a good steward of it because you do not know what divine mandate has been placed on it.

1. It is a marathon and not a sprint.

This is the true test of mettle between a true entrepreneur and someone who goes into business for a quick buck or short-term gains. They say entrepreneurship in a market such as Kenya, and particularly when you choose not to take short cuts, is one of a thousand ways to die! You will be tested, you will fail many times, you will want to quit ...but when it is all said and done, stay the course and run your race. Often the vision is clear as day and you can even see the complete business producing shiny products with an engaged workforce delivering your beautiful products to happy clients. The reality in contrast is a clanky little shack with ill formed products that cost too much to build and deliver, and the customers are few and far between. You sweat beads of blood and strain every sinew of muscle as you strive to produce that beautiful image in your head. What I have learned is you need to be patient and embrace a growth mindset, see failure as your friend that comes to make you better, and consistently executing the small steps eventually leads to the big step change. Just like in a marathon, you build stamina and know-how for going from the clanky little shack to a shiny factory that makes great product.

1. Know who you were created to be.

We live in a world where we are socialized on who to be and what to think. From our schooling systems to societal norms which pressure us to conform and fit it, we barely have the freedom to discover who we were meant to be.

In my own journey of transforming from a corporate worker to an entrepreneur I severally faced existential crises. Initially it was exciting upon realizing the creative freedom that comes with building a new entity from a mere idea until it dawned on me that I actually needed to create money, the tool and blood line of business, that's required to pay salaries and buy inputs before products and services can be created. The act of juggling multiple roles in a single day can leave one feeling thread bare. After several business model pivots and waxing and waning in and out of entrepreneurship I have recognized that I am a builder and not an operator. I thrive in innovation, creating, imagining and setting strategy and integrating ideas to form an actual output that others can refine, package and sell. I am not particularly good in sales, customer service or day to day operations. These wear me out and in fact bore me. An entrepreneur must know and play in their sweet spot in order to remain excited by the vision and have the staying power to weather the storms as you build the enterprise.

4.????? You will touch lives and your life will be touched.

My entrepreneurship story is closely intertwined with the life of the late Allan Nyima - the gifted photographer, dancer and entrepreneur. He came in during our early start up days and captured our first proverbial steps in pictures and videos. He was often misunderstood yet one of the most open people I ever encountered. He did convince me once to accompany him for a 2-hour photo shoot at Arboretum Park so that he could produce a founder's profile for my branding and marketing team. At one point during the shoot, he got me talking freely about myself then he told me the most amazing story about himself, his father who left Tibet as a young man and came to Kenya where he met and married his mum, about his father's career as a chef and his family trials and tribulations. So captivated were we by each other's stories that the shoot was forgotten for almost an hour as we talked and watched other people in the park. The photos that came out of that shoot were raw and truly captured the essence of me. In a tragic twist of events Allan passed away in 2020 within weeks of the passing of his first and only son, and his own father passed away shortly after - 3 generations of Nyima wiped out in less than six months. Allan embodies what happens to entrepreneurs as you journey through the enterprise building voyage. You will touch many lives and your life will be touched. In loving memory of the quintessential Allan Nyima: https://youtu.be/zkpnIssd8os?si=OPKbnKiEIV2Mvq1V

5.????? It is about growth and ascension.

I learned long time ago that the best way to climb a mountain is to meander around it gradually ascending over several days or weeks, instead of going for a rapid vertical hike, when I spent 25 days in an outdoor leadership course in Mount Kenya. The views are breath taking, the lessons you learn from the mountain live with you forever and you acclimatize safely to successfully summit to the peak. In entrepreneurship it can sometimes feel like you are walking up the mountain backwards, that you have lost your footing and scrambled down a dangerous crevice in the rocks or you are hanging on a cliff by your fingernails. With perseverance, grit and resilience you master the art of meandering around the mountain and will sometimes find yourself seemingly back where you started, but you will have either grown or you will have caused growth in your surroundings.

Authored by Rose Kananu

The writer is the founder of BCDIP - a learning events convenor, a business that was established in 2018.