Blogs I read and October Agenda.

I have not been here for a while now. I visit now and then but I am mostly on other blogs, earlier only to read but lately to also engage. I have visited sites that are relevant to my start-up and the funny thing is that whatever I google, I end up on a blog as opposed to a website.

The result has been my subscription to so many great blogs that I need to keep my eyes on especially if I am to stay ahead of the industry with top notch information and emerging trends whose impacts may be just as great here as they have been abroad.

So every few hours, I get an email from one of my many blog subscriptions and as much as the inflow of emails has been overwhelming, its has been quite the ride and with every ingestion of knowledge, I have become increasingly confident, more assertive, and better equiped to creatively work around some set business models in this industry.

So my head has been spinning for the past few months that I have been heavily engaged in conceptualizing the business idea and putting it on paper. I am almost past that. I am dealing with the executive summary part of the Plan and my consultant is waiting to make heads and tails of. Given her professional experience and position at the Bank, she is best placed to tell me if the eagle has landed…

Today morning has been long. My mind has tested fatigue and whenever I am in this state, I head to two of my favourite places online, Upande Mwingine where Serina resides with great poetry and I also pay a visit to Kaasa where Kaasa lays it down like it is. Between marveling at Serina’s mastery of Poetry in Swahili and following what the thought provoking and interestingly insightful Kaasa, I usually feel rejuvenated  to and easily get back to business.

They have been busy for the last few weeks and have not blogged much but I hope they’ll be back soon. I also fall in that category because I have not been blogging much too. I have also been to The Way I think where Cynthia puts her mind to work. She has also been MIA because she is working on her thing since she got back to Kenya. I read her blog with the other business blogs that I have subscribed to.

I also like to read the stories featured weekly at Storymoja. They can be a quite a delight. I have been published there a few times and it is the best place for budding writers to get feedback on their writing skills and potential…

Lately, I have been shopping around for Kenyan bloggers who are as interesting as the above mentioned. I am yet to find those who will make me come back and comment to their posts and thoughts.

For now, that is all I have to say. My plans for the next month are ambiguous because each is dependent on the next and I am not sure how they will play out. I want to approach the Youth Fund, some Banks, a venture Capitalist or two, the registrar of companies, a potential client who invited me to make a presentation, and also try to meet with the  prospective Board Members of my start-up.

I am traveling to Nairobi this weekend because the Rationing might be over but more so because I will be attending the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Summit – Kenya, which will take place on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at The Nairobi Serena Hotel.

As Kaasa says, Sayonara.

Serina says Kwaherini

I say Bye Bye Till I blog again.

PS: If you are wondering why I did not leave the links to the Industry Blogs that I read; well, its because they will have a place at my company blog which I will launch in a while.

Diving into the Unknown!

As I wrote earlier, I am going out on my own, running a start-up. I got the idea from an acquaintance who I was working with on an Amnesty International campaign. I thought the idea to be interesting and decided to do a bit of research on it just to check what the margins were so that I could either take it up as a worthwhile investment or discard the idea altogether.

So there I was, researching, asking friends questions, and trying to get a feel of how this could work here in Kenya. I wrote my acquaintance who runs a similar business but in London, and asked him all those questions that I needed answering if I was to be utterly convinced that this is indeed was the entrepreneurial break that I have always known would happen to me sooner or later.

He answered some questions but the rest I had to find out myself. I googled so many questions and when the answers started becoming similar, I changed how I framed the questions and got more unique answers. I talked to my immediate former boss who is running a different company now and he told me to run with idea, write a concept paper and then get back to him. He was hoping that this would be a venture whose spin-off would benefit him too. I will be seeing him later on before and after I get this thing on its feet.

But till that time, this was just a concept, a theory, a candle in the dark that could easily be blown off by anything and anyone. I remembered a friend in AIESEC who once told me that “if it is not on paper, it does not exist.” I decided to put this idea on paper. This was the time that the laptop that I had been using to that point went MIA. I now had no place to type on and I urgently needed to type this thing before I lost momentum.

Buying another laptop was of course on the table but there were now more complications. Previously, I used my laptop to write blog posts, play around with ideas, write articles for submissions to various publications, and to hold my CV just in case any job opportunities came up. But now it was different. I was starting a company and any costs that I incurred in this process needed to be expensed properly. I decided to hold off the idea of buying a new laptop too because strategically I thought it would play into my getting the first client for my new company.

So there I was, needing to type but wondering how to do it. But as cumbersome as it would be, I decided to use my brother’s computer. It would mean me traveling and staying in Nairobi for this duration, but it was all good because I have been planning to come up here for a while now. This only expedited my travel here. Sure I would lose out on the flexibility that I had with the laptop but it was good because there were other aspects of the whole thing that would out well. It works like the time value of money concept, or the opportunity cost theory. Over the years, I have continuously learnt to do more with less such that when I find get the capacity I needed to begin with, I could do even more.

Before leaving for Nairobi, I had started writing things down. But I was not getting anywhere. I got as far as my name and contacts. I had so much to write but could not find a way to structure it. This was really frustrating. I was eager to do something but lacked that initial touch that I could momentum on. But then I remembered something, an entrepreneurial kit that I had acquired while in campus. I was very active in AIESEC and through it had a lot of experience with the corporate world. Later as the Vice President in charge of Corporate Development in our chapter, I gained intricate knowledge and exposure, and networks that are serving me well now. But better still, I was sent this entrepreneurs kit that I had no use of then but which I thought to be important enough to bind and print.

Back then, I had this beautifully crafted entrepreneurial kit but no idea. Then I got the idea suddenly this kit became the most important thing in the world to me. I had already read it then from the first page to the last several times but now, I read it page by page while filling in the various aspects of the business concept that I have. It was precious. It had provided me with the structure of the whole business plan. But with further reading, I realized that I needed to do more research to address some of the questions that it asked and which my hitherto research had no answers for. That ensured that I had not left any angle of the business concept remain vague or ambiguous. I am now almost through with the plan and the tentative logo’s have been designed by my younger bro. There are changes that I need made but that will come later.

I am usually a very meticulous person when it comes to details. The good this is that I know what to overlook. But what I do not overlook, I break down and analyze its smallest elements so as to understand the building blocks. I have done that with this plan and I am continuing with the process as I write this.

But will the bird fly? Will the plane take off? Will this baby of mine get off the ground and on its feet? That is the question that is haunting me. We are never a hundred percent sure and doubts always find a way of paralyzing whatever they touch. But a sense of skepticism is always good. I am convinced that there are various avenues through which this plan of mine will take off but that may not be the case for the next person. They may have questions that will shake all my assumptions and I need to hear such sentiments before I go further. I need to know hear the hard questions I need to answer so that I can preempt operational problems when I eventually launch my company. And if the questions raised break the legs of my assumptions, I may have to shelve the plan for now at least, but from what I now know that is very unlikely.

But who do I talk to? Who to ask?  I know that the kind of work I have done on this plan will make it very easy for someone to steal the whole thing especially if they have the money. I do not have the money and will be hitting the banks with this plan seeking a loan. Alternatively, I may commence with what I have and build it from there. Another tenet I have which I got from my years in AIESEC is “start small, grow slowly.” So here I am, torn between hitting the banks and getting a huge sum of cash to start on a wide scale or starting with what I have and building the foundations of the business slowly.

But even before I decide on that aspect of the roll out, I am still wondering which people are safe to approach for analysis and critique of this plan because such critique can only make this plan better. I have two in mind but I need at least two more, all from different professions. I am this careful because I am listening to Kaasa on this. She told me to keep the whole thing under wraps until I launch. I am not through with the plan yet but what remains to be done is not as complicated as what I have already covered.

I must admit; I am diving into the unknown and I am scared but also very excited. Wish me luck and include me in your prayers. I will be employing a lot of young talent if my growth projections go according to plan.

Ringera, KACC Board, as Corrupt as the President

I have just come back to edit this top part and the title of the blog. First, I have to say that following the revelation in the news just now, I am sickened though not surprised. I got over being surprised in this country a long time ago. 5 members of the KACC board, instead of their scheduled meeting were caught in the act meeting with Ringera (tunda mbovu) at a city hotel and ran after the cameras caught up with them. COMPROMISED is what the police call it when one of their own is sleeping with the enemy.

The same Advisory board to the KACC which yesterday condemned the appointment of Ringera today skipped their much hyped meeting to meet Ringera at a secret Rendezvous point.  While I will not blanketly condemn the whole board, it is sad that the very board whose powers were usurped by the president have now softened their stand and are playing the tune of  the president. Though I expected behind the scenes armtwisting to take place so that Ringera is accepted, I did not expect it to be this soon and with the Board Chairman sneaking around like a cheating husband.

Below is the blog I had written earlier in the day.

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This has been a difficult past few months for Kenyans. First we were told that there was no food, and then there was no water, and when energy went, I honestly thought that we could in no way sink further than this. But apparently I was wrong. We have sunk and this came in the way of our mad president who reappointed Ringera as the Anti-corruption czar.

From a distance, you may think that this appointment has nothing to do with the water, food and energy crisis. Look closer. Is the big picture getting clearer? If it isn’t, I will educate you.

For starters, we have no water in the country. Blame the gods all you want but we all know that we had a big hand in all of this. Since independence, our shameless leaders have been handing away land to their families and friends like lollipops. These are not lands situated in Kitui, or Samburu, or in North Eastern but rather are prime land inside our then forests, now ranches. From Aberdare, through Mount Elgon to Mau, forests were felled to make way for farm land and this is going on to date. These were our water catchment areas and they have run dry. The acquisition of these forest lands were in no way legal. Furthermore, there were those illegal connections redirecting water from needy Kenyans to some influential affluent personalities’ homes. These were corrupt deals by the various regimes and hence the work of the anti-corruption commission which Ringera headed.

Then the food crisis came and we had a thousand reasons for it. We blamed it on the post election violence, and then the drought, and finally the funny dealings by our leading politicians in the name of Ruto and some relation of the Prime minister. The result has been the starvation of nearly 10 million Kenyans. Those that did not starve would have been given poisoned maize had alarm not been raised. Yes, for people to starve the way they are now, some people are making good money trading on this bad fortune of “shortage.” When people could not relent in demanding accountability because they did not take lightly people trading on their livelihoods, there was questioning of these leading figures by the anti-corruption commission which Ringera headed.

On the energy crisis, I do not where to begin. We can say that the water which ran dry because the forest cover land illegally allocated to influential figures has effectively killed the water catchment areas is to blame. But then again you have to question why a power generating plant has taken close to two decades to be completed. But then again you could look at the president commissioning that energy project way before it was ready as the reason two decades would pass before something gets done. There was also that guy who caused a loss of close to KES 8 billion and then was handed a one way ticket India. These are all corruption cases because somebody did something that they should not have and which have put us in the crisis we are in today. Ringera who headed the anti-corruption commission had his men look into this I think.

For clarity, I am saying he headed because I hoping and others are praying that with legality of his reappointment being an issue, he will not see the inside of the KACC unless he is the one now being questioned by a more competent less partisan, correctly vetted, and legally appointed Director.

So there you have it. The entire crises we are facing as a country have a corruption bearing and to avert future crisis, it is important that this institution that is called KACC is headed by a competent and impartial person. Under Section 8, sub-section 3 of the Act of parliament that set up the KACC, the advisory board is supposed to the recommend the names of the director and his assistants to the national assembly and once approved they go the executive who can the sign off on them. The wisdom of those who coined that clause sought to ensure that what the president has just done could not be done, legally. It also sought to ensure that a competent and impartial person would survive the vetting process and lead this important institution. This appointment therefore represents another crisis for the country, one which should not be swept under the carpet because there is already too much garbage there is no longer any space under there.

Ringera is not a toothless tiger; he is not even a wolf in sheep clothing, no! He is a chameleon in a plain lizard’s clothing. Five years ago, I gave him the benefit of doubt and looking back at his record, no more attaching benefits to my doubts. If I doubt you, prove first that you are beyond reproach and then the benefits come without the baggage of doubt. Ringera was at the helm when KACC when the Angloleasing scandal came calling but he refused to answer to his call of duty. Instead, according to Michela Wrong’s book, he accompanied Kimunya to London to try and convince the only man who answered the call and exposed this scandal, Mr. Githongo, to put a seal on it. I do not know about you but when you hire a hyena to guard the hen house, that is exactly what you get. This is a whole anti-corruption chief who was involved in the cover up of a scandal regarding his relations. And then he is put in charge for a second term! We all know what that means, right.

Kibaki is a man of many hats which have made him hard of hearing. Before he started acting funny, I was his staunchest supporter. Now, I am his biggest critic and I let that known from the onset and if I were to have a one on one with him, guest what I will call him to his face. Over the years, I have learned that I sleep better at night when I say what needs to be said without beating around the bush. So here goes… Kibaki stole the elections felt nothing. He in fact went into state house and slept for two months as the country burned. Then he came out and acted surprised, wondering what all the fuss was all about. It is said that we will complain all day and night for even a month and he will not do shit about the appointment. He will not even react to all these words against him. Then when we keep quiet, he will have had his way. True. That is how he has survived to date. And that is why I support the Imanyara motion which strips his ass off immunity. We’ll then see whether he will choose to keep quite when he has charges to answer to.

Ringera is the only man Kibaki trusts to cover his ass. He has done that successfully for five years and Kibaki needs a man of Ringera’s moral aloofness to protect him and his cronies. I have heard LSK and Human Rights bodies claim that they will head to court to protest this appointment. I wish them luck. But given that the head of the Judiciary donned his official gear on a Sunday and swore in the president at night without as much as the national anthem playing, I doubt these legal efforts will go far. If this guy can turn a blind eye to the constitution of Kenya, he won’t even have to turn not to notice a mere legal order by a judge that he appointed and hurriedly swore in while his justice minister (the one that resigned in protest) was out of the country. Again, I do not know about you but I am keeping count of all the affronts that this guy is doing against my beloved country. When the immunity goes, I am moving in. These people must learn to respect the rule of the law. The law may be an ass but it should be an ass to all of us on equal measure. I hear Moi now coming out of the woodwork. He may be right on some issues but if I were Kibaki, his ass would be in Kamiti or his land and that of his project in the hands of squatters.

But since Kibaki is now our (this generation’s) problem, he should pray that he dies before this country gets better otherwise, he will wish Ocampo would have come for him and taken him to those fancy jails out there.

I will confess again that Mutahi Ngunyi may have been right when he said that the legacy of Kibaki may be to sink this country so low that we cannot sink any lower. The only other way would be up. I am hoping that this Ringera appointment is rock bottom but knowing this man, he has his henchmen digging day and night for a new low and he might soon declare Jimmy his project.