I had promised to advise first time business
owners. I will start with basic concepts that are extremely important
especially for first timers.
Back then when I
was newly employed, I had all manner of business ideas; stocks, wheat farming
in Narok, maize farming at the Rift, rearing chicken and rabbits in shags, I even though matatus were lucrative. And so I wanted to bite as many and I
actually did. And I was still employed as a systems programmer and that comes
with long nights of coding. Luckily I was still single and searching. My
typical week would be packed from the first to the last hour. Monday to Friday
dedicated to my employer and the weekend would be dedicated to running around
and with benefit of hindsight. I can now say that I was just running
around like a headless chicken just like many first-time entrepreneurs do. I
actually would dash to Narok and check on my wheat, then pass by Njoro to
check on the maize, then pass by my shags to check on the chicken and rabbits.
Then I would realize that the weekend was over before he could get an
opportunity to meet my girlfriend…a frustrated girl who could rarely meet her
sabuni ya roho… I thought I was doing quite well in business until one
day I collapsed on an afternoon and doctor told him to relax because I was
running too fast.
I wanted to grab
all opportunities and I never realized that the “opportunities” were wolves in
sheep's clothing. I may have learned the hard way that juggling multiple
ventures spread me thin and limited both my effectiveness and productivity.
It actually dawned on me that all was not well when I made straight losses in
two seasons of farming wheat. In between I had planted maize near Mau forest
which had done so well till I got the shocker of my life when I went
harvesting it only to find that half of it had been harvested the previous
night. I attempted to recover my maize only to be frustrated by cops who
favoured the local pastor cum shepherd who stole my maize; mind you we had
assigned him the role of taking care of my crop.
After the
aforementioned loss, I decided that I could only invest in businesses
that needed the least of my time and minimal managerial issues. Now you know
why I landed in real estate albeit confined to speculating with plots.
Business only made sense to me when I decided to focus on one line and
perfect it. You may want to know what I did with my chicken and rabbits. I
got so mad with the guy who was in charge of them till I decided to donate the
entire investment to his struggling brother back in the village.
What lesson can we
learn from my not so good start to investing? You can never jump at all
opportunities available. If you do you will be like that proverbial hyena who followed two roads in a junction until his legs broke because it could not make up its mind which road to follow. Just focus, focus and focus.
More
lessons to come for first timers
