Entrepreneurship/Business = Chewing glass

“Running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends”. – Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a big deal in the Techpreneur space, with mighty accomplishments (If this is the first time you are getting acquainted, kindly google him)! But even he realizes that entrepreneurship is not a walk in the park.

A homie  who was also a highschool mate recently paid me a courtesy call.  After exchanging the usual pleasantries he goes like… “You folks in business/entrepreneurship have it easy. All you have to do is establish yourself and it is  smooth sailing onwards”

I was shook man! Like what the hell is my long-time  friend going on about? Is he deranged or something?? Haven’t I documented my struggles enough?? So many questions ran through my head not to mention a couple of choice words hahaha! However, what came out was a feeble…. “Maybe you are right!”. I simply did not have the wherewithal to engage my seemingly clueless friend, so I changed the topic to something “easy”….. Covid 19 and the craziness surrounding it.

Anyone who knows me and has a clue about my journey thus far knows very well that it has not been smooth sailing, in fact, now that I think about it, I have never really gone into the torrid details of what my journey has been. Save for my wife and business associates, very few can recount my struggles in their very graphic nature.

I will not delve into my shortcomings on this one because I  feel it comes with the Entrepreneurship bible… “Amplify your successes and talk less or not at all of your failings”. Or maybe I should break the cycle of abuse and give you one episode of the never ending Telenovela that is my journey.

I think I should. So here it goes….

Once upon a time I was the Town’s (Bungoma) high flying event organizer. What started as Whatsapp group hangouts was cultivated into a business model, Just that it wasn’t the best model there is. Sometimes back in 2013, having started my DVD shop ( popularly known as movie shop) I realized I had amassed quite the following 15 months in. I actually didn’t know this fact yet; Whatsapp groups were just catching on. What started as a way to thank my customers by throwing a small party, with invitees being my Whatsapp group members right in front of my small shop, turned into my next business model. The party was off its hinges! The turn up waaaay more than the 50 members that was the limit Whatsapp groups were going by then.

My maiden voyage..er… I mean my very first event was a pool party at the old Sarasa gardens. The very first of its kind in Bungoma! I was charging 500 advance tickets and 1000 at the gate. Everyone thought I was crazy! In Bungoma??  You’re mental mate! Voila! The turn up was amazing, I even broke even! Totally incredulous given how events can totally take you back to the village.

Basking in the fleeting success of the pool party, I hosted Sudiboy at club Drips in Kanduyi in an event I dubbed The Red black and white affair. I went negative Kes 20,000 and shed tears on my way to the ATM after being handed to the measly gate collections.I didn’t stop there. I figured that if I roped in a partner and with the shared risk, maybe this time it would not be that baaad…right? WRONG!! I was high on the imagination that I could go regional, so using my contacts I got in touch with H_Art The Band’s management. They had just hit fame with their new hit single Uliza Kiatu and I leveraged the fact that they had never got a gig out of Nairobi into paying a very good rate. Talked my host club, Club 411 into footing some of their riders.

Eldoret gave me beginners luck. The turn up was excellent. Save for them rejecting my halloween poster, which they claimed was short for advertising devil worship, everything else went well. The club held their end of the bargain and I held mine as well. A small negative was incurred which split 3 ways, didn’t leave me wailing like the Sudi boy gig did. A friend from campus who was a silent investor still calls me names to date for returning his 30k with a dent. Hahaha! You’d think after all these missteps, that I would’ve learned, maybe improve my model or call it a day. I did not, I was in my mid twenties and the allure of being celebrated was beckoning. I simply couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop!

I did perform a couple of tweaks on my model. I put out of town events on an indefinite hiatus, and focused on growing Bungoma talent. We had done the town’s maiden commercial theatrical play, and the audience was half the red cross hall. I tasked my team with creating another play, a more compelling title, MY BUKUSU DARLING and partnered with some local brands. Voila! I registered my first positive figure! Boy was I beside myself with joy!! The problem with events is that folks tire with a concept quickly. Three more plays down the line and the audience shrunk considerably. I decided to throw a beauty pageant as a shake up. Unfortunately, no one was willing to partner on this one besides the local Hotel that hosted us. I broke even in an event that cost north of 150k to put together, my most expensive at the moment. I should have quit while I was still ahead but I didn’t.

I pushed my luck by putting together the town’s very first street festival using the then Shenanigans bar, now Shaleen’s, as the control center. Locals who were not so amused by some movie shop fella closing down a street just to himself, called the cops on me. The same cops I had already made arrangements with before and even had a letter from. Needless to say, the 3 hour disruption to my scheduled start time left me with a 60k loss. I asked for a  loan from the bar which had amazing sales on that night and talked to my partners to allow me to repay my deficit in labour. I was managing the joint at the time as a side hustle. I paid my dues but didn’t learn my lesson. I hosted a couple more plays, themed night parties and even tried to re-enact the pool party mojo but failed terribly.

My friend Rob Kearns, an Irish fella, who introduced me to Tullamore Dew Whisky ( I didn’t like it so much, mostly because I could never afford it on my own) partnered on what was going to be my last hurray! Only that I didn’t know it at that moment. Everlast, the Gudi Gudi hit makers had just gripped the nation’s attention with their club banger. We pooled close to a quarter a million in advertising and deposit. The Idea was that we would give these young lads a tour of the Western rift; Kisumu, Eldoret and Bungoma! On paper that sounded great. I hired influencers in the respective towns to get the word out there! “I will be attending posters were customized” for social media, Hard copy posters were printed in large quantities, A3 size in fact! I was either taken for a ride by my influencers or it was simply my time to exit the business. Remember that Manchester United vs Arsenal game that ended up with an 8-2 scoreline?? Well, I was Arsenal that weekend. I took the mother of all beatings! Kisumu backfired spectacularly and I thought of cancelling Eldoret but my business partner talked me out of it and we proceeded with the event. My goodness here I was thinking that the 40k raised in Kisumu was bad. E- town took me to the cleaners. Club Timba had just been opened, the new concept they had going on must have lured away all our potential traffic and even with no headline act, that damn place was full to the brim! Meanwhile I was at Club 411 collecting a measly Kes 4,000.

I called my business partner aside and told him “Hapa kimeumana!” “It has bitten itself!” Hahaha! I will stop goofing, translated to Queen’s English… “We are in deep sh*t my friend”. I told him we will be of no use to these fellas ( Evalast, Naiboi and Kristoff) with no dime to our name. In the most clandestine manner possible, I rounded up my crew and sped off to Bungoma. We had checked these guys into their respective hotels so we knew they would be fine. I then switched off my phone so that I wouldn’t  go crazy.

Waking up the next day at 2 pm, I switched my phone on and It immediately started buzzing with “I tried calling you” texts, followed by calls. A flurry of texts from Rob Kearns too. I called him and explained the clusterf*ck of a weekend I just had. I then tried to reason with the performers’ management given our dire situation only to run into the Kenyan version of TMZ’  Ghafla news headline reading….

“What a shame! ‘Gudi Gudi’ hit makers Everlast, Naiboi and Kristoff travel all the way to Eldoret just to be conned and treated like sewage rats by a promoter”…..

Now get this. I booked these fellas rooms in Kisumu and provided cash for meals, something I had bargained out of the riders initially. Did the same in Eldoret!! In Kisumu, I booked my team a room, which they shared and my business partner and I slept in the car. In Eldoret, we hit the road back home. Two nights of slaving around only to run into that headline for a paltry 64k out of a 300k deal! My business partner, who actually introduced me to the artists’ management, tried to reason with me to commit in writing how I would repay the cash. I was in debt already! There was no way I was going to go further into it by borrowing cash to cover the shortfall. I felt slandered and very much unappreciated for the much we had done. I kept my head low and simply wished away the demand letter they had served me with and after a week or so it did actually die off. Save for the incessant calls from the artists management.

This is not my recount of events given that the trash gossip blog didn’t bother to reach out for my side of the story. Naah, this is me 3 years later reminiscing on how much glass I chewed back then. The year was 2017 and that marked my last, ….well second last event. I laid low as I contemplated throwing away all the buzz and excitement that was associated with my outfit, “Flash Entertainment”. With a heavy heart I came to the realization that it was time to pull the plug on 4 years of social capital.

That was it, my problem with this model of business. You amass clout but no tangible assets unless you venture into sound, tents,chairs and the other things that go with event organizing. Eighteen events later, it was a wrap for me. That’s when I ventured into branding ….( story of another day).

Look, start-ups (of any kind) are the most uphill, unforgiving, treacherous ventures ever! You must, I repeat YOU MUST be a certified nutcase for you to be able to stick it out. For you to be able to turn a deaf ear to the detractors, naysayers and self doubt, an indomitable spirit and self belief must lie within. And even with all these beautiful vocabulary, things still always go wrong. What you must possess within you, should you for some incomprehensible reason choose this path, is the ability to play out the worst case scenario as vividly as possible in your head and share it with your think tank (It’s fine if you are your own think tank haha). It’s crazy as you have to ignore the counsel of those very close to you; parents/wife/husband/siblings you name it. This is because you’re the one in the steering wheel. Nobody understands your capacity to take a beating more than you. And above all,  you have to be very honest with yourself, brutally I must add.

So where is the upside, one may wonder? In what seems to be an Insurmountably gruesome tale? You know, the usual, be your own boss, live life on your own terms? Blah blah… I find them vain. What I trust or rather what keeps me going is the comfort of leaving something behind, something bigger than myself, a stepping stone for my generation, so that they never have to scrap for morsels and dimes. That those who will immediately outlive me will pass on my work ethic and build on a good life of utter abundance. Cheesy huh? I know…. that’s what keeps me going 🙂

What is your experience with business? Ongoing or otherwise…. Drop a comment below or email joelmukoma@flashbyte.co.ke cc j.mukoma@gmail.com