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HelaChap Start- Ups, Nairobi West (2026)

12/09/2019

#3. The profitability phase

Most businesses that you’ve seen operate in your neighborhood for an year or so, are probably in this phase. Every start-up hopes to reach here some day. This is the reward for solving a problem! Welcome to your business!

In this phase, sales revenues are slightly above the cost of operation, not statically but gradually and smoothly rising. The entrepreneur can comfortably foot their bills and save something. They can afford to support their families, at least basically, and occasionally treat them! After the previous bumpy ride, most entrepreneurs feel they deserve some good time. They have been roughed up enough, therefore it is time to clean up, sit and have it easy.

The most common characteristic of this phase is that it is a comfort zone. Midway though, profits will go through slumps and recovery or just remain constant. The revenues are at this point highly dependent owner’s decision. Good financial or marketing strategies will improve profit but poor strategies easily lower the revenues. The business cannot survive in their absence. Often, the entrepreneur feels insecure to delegate duties and when they do, they have to closely monitor the activities.

After a very bumpy ride, it is unlikely that the entrepreneur wants to try new territories or new strategies yet. There is a momentary phobia to open new markets or invest further. If this phase is long, although this depends on the kind of business, it is likely to be over taken by other peer businesses or lose part of its market frontier (mostly due to too much familiarity with customers, unprofessionalism and I-know-it-all attitude). Soon profits may start to slump without recovery! At all cost, no business should get here. The owner(s) should put up proper independent working systems. This is the gateway to the fourth most-romantic phase!

#4. The sustainability phase

Businesses in this level have sort of assurance of continuity for a very long time. Profitability and continuity do not highly depend on direct actions of the owners, their abilities or skills. Usually, the owners are vision carriers who only provide guidance to the professional management team, already in place. From top management to the lowest cadre, this vision is articulated and absorbed in the hearts of all stakeholders.

Over time, a business in this face develops values that guide its operations. A fully operational finance department is in place to incur costs and receive payment on behalf of the owners. Production and sales department are well constituted, professionally run, and responsible. Specific roles are assigned specific people who are accountable to the top management or to the owner(s).

A sustainable business will have established market share that gradually grows. Systematically, more investments and new territories are concurred with ease, while gradually and predictably, profits rise.

Very few businesses have reached this revered, more like Abraham Muslows’ final phase of Hierarchy of Needs. Every start-up aims to reach here. Nonetheless, you will agree with me that it takes time, effort and resilience. There is need to allow for slow but consistent growth. Every forward step an entrepreneur makes plunges them closer to sustainability.

Here at HelaChap, we wish you the best as you metamorphose to sustainability.

12/06/2019

YOU CAN DO IT!

I sat on a wooden bench by a wooden table chilling in the afternoon breeze coupled with a cocktail of sounds from diving and water kicking in the YMCA’s swimming pool; well blended with background noise from vehicles that passed along University Way and State House Road. I delved into an article that I accidentally, well, incidentally, came across in my emails. I had subscribed to UPLIFT Website but had not been keen to check their uplifting messages. As it combed through it, one statement seemed to shout from the rooftop: YOU CAN DO IT, YES I CAN DO IT!

What one would ask is; what do you want to do? This is a fundamental question, to which one needs to find an answer. There must be a clear thing to do! Well, is it to starts a new career? Is it to begin a new course? Is it to shift to a better paying job? Or generally to change the way of doing the things you do? Whatever that is, it must be clear! Your mind is quite receptive. It is a great consumer of what your eyes see, what your ears listen to, and more importantly what you tell yourself. For you to achieve anything, your mind must first conceive it and believe it! Then your brain will instruct your body to the right places, right people, right materials and right activities.

Often times, our minds consume what we do not want it to believe. This is tragic, yet it is where you come in. You have to intentionally, make a move! Tell your mind what you want it to believe. This is not easy as we are mostly subject to our past and present experiences. For your mind to believe what you tell it, you have to say it repeatedly and with unrelenting persistence. Only then will your brain direct you to the right course of action.

Here from HelaChap, we hope you already know what you want to achieve. Tell your mind you can do it and do not stop until you believe it. We wish you success as you make deliberate moves!

22/04/2019

THREE THINGS THAT HAPPEN WHEN YOU RECEIVE YOUR SALARY.
1. You don't think!
2. You Spend.
3. You get broke.

21/04/2019

STARTING A BUSINESS IS LIKE SWIMMING: YOU NEVER LEARN UNTIL YOU JUMP INTO THE WATER!

For the longest time I have loved the art of swimming, especially the hype that comes with being young and able to swim. Your friends make it appear the greatest achievement one can ever have. I agree. It is.

I loved watching amateur swimmers jingle and open their mouths when sprinkled with little drops of cold water (I still do). They slowly and cautiously wet their hands, face and legs before they get used. You may think they will never get to swim. In a matter of minutes, you see them exude high levels of psych as they dive from one end and come up the other. Wow! It is a beautiful art.

Just how do you get to learn how to swim, by sitting on the periphery to watch how champions swim? Most trainers will tell you there is only one way to do it: Jump into the water, think less, and do more.

Business is like swimming. You learn nothing on the periphery. You have to start! At first, you will be frightened. You will jingle and open your mouth, literally. Soon, you will have your first dive and realize how easy it was! Like a learning swimmer, you will want to do it again, and again. Every time you ‘jump’, you get better!

Think of it. If you are not a swimmer, like most of us, how good would you be if you started learning the art six months ago? How about a year ago? How about two? You see!

There are no hidden tricks into a business. There is only a step: Jump into it, think less and learn on the job!

21/04/2019

HELACHAP says; Don't just stick to your ideas, Be free to think again!

12/04/2019

TEACHERS HAVE TAKEN OUR JOBS!
Young people in Kenya and Africa at large are running from one office to the other looking for jobs or at least any active engagement. To their disappointment the answer has been the same, “currently we don’t have any opening.” So, how is it that the system is producing more ‘skilled’ labor than the market can absorb? Well I have sought to break it down for you.

First, the system is not producing more than enough. Some employees, yes, employees have personalized those positions. Once they got them, they owned them personally, till death or retirement do them apart. This is wrong and misguided. A government employee, who has worked for over fifteen years, should exit service so that another deserving person can grab the chance. You may be thinking, how is this proposition fair or even reasonable? What can fifteen years of employment do? Well, I will tell you. If there is nothing fifteen years of employment can help you achieve, then why stay on it? You should have stepped aside to start your own venture!

Where do teachers come in this discussion? Well, they have ingrained into us this idea that once you are done with education, there are big jobs awaiting which once you get them you become rich and successful. This paradigm is founded on an impractical lie. Nevertheless, the good followers pursue those jobs to desperation and in case they get them, I mean incase, they hold on to them personally hoping to get rich and successful. They do so until, unfortunately, death or retirement catches up with them. No wonder some resort to fraud and plunder. My take is this; every responsible person of influence (teachers included) should focus on entrepreneurship as the key to quality life!

Most of you will agree with my second observation. When young graduates acquire jobs, in the first two or three years, they will rush to buy expensive cars, notwithstanding the fact that most are acquired through loans, which they pay excessively for the rest of their service. Just a quick observation, how many cars are in the parking lot near you or in the organization you work in? How many of our youth are in the manufacture or import of these cars? Do the owner of these cars come with them in the morning and leave with them in the evening? I bet yes. Just how much is a decent car? Maybe more than a million but what much can a million do? A good question should be, how many people can a million employ?

While in high school, I looked at the number of idle cars in our school parking lot. Every single day there were more than ten of them. Their owners would move them against the sun to secure some dark shade. In my little knowledge, I approximated their total worth to be about fifteen to twenty millions. My quick calculation shows that with proper entrepreneurial attitude, this amount could employ the ten individuals and one more for each, while leaving ten openings for other candidates. As a result, thirty people would be employed!

My presentation does not seek to undermine anybody, especially, not teachers. I only found it easier to relate to their world (probably because I am a teacher). My assertion is clear, entrepreneurship is a force whose ripple effects cannot only change the figures in our bank accounts but also more importantly, how we live.

29/03/2019

DO NOT TARGET THE POOR
In my usual strolls, I look around to see what businesses people are running. It is both encouraging and interesting how entrepreneurial Kenyans are. In the middle of urban centers, they range from clothe hawking to classy boutiques, from kiosks to supermarkets and from Mpesa shops to banks. What is common about all these ventures is that they pursue one thing: profits. The question of whether they come forth is not only important but also fundamental. Nevertheless, a more superior question should be, how much of these profits come forth.

I get disappointed when I evaluate some of these businesses only to conclude that very little or no profit is gained. When interrogating the reason behind this, a keen eye notices the wrong market. Regardless of the prices of goods, the target customers determine the volume of sales and effectively the amount of profit gained. However, there exist no direct causal effect between sales and profits; a subject I will discuss in the coming articles.

A few years ago, two of my friends had invested in green house farming somewhere in Kitengela. They bountifully produced fresh, dark green and shinny sukuma wiki, very attractive to anyone who cared for some greens in their meals. Seeing this, the duo decided that it was their time to make a kill. To attract more sales, quickly, they packed their groceries in bunches twice bigger than what prevailed in the market. At the market price, they would definitely attract volumes of customers. They did! Interestingly, however, the prospective customers mostly stopped to ask about prices. Once my friends quoted the cheap prices, the would-be esteemed customers passed over to the next mart. My friends were only in business for a week before all their sukuma wiki turned yellow and unattractive. It was a waste.
So where did these partners go wrong? Well, market. They didn’t understand the kind of customers they were dealing with. It later dawned on them that the customers they targeted were the kind who associated higher prices with better quality! This is not unusual, most customers do, especially those in the high end society. The price for which they were quoted aroused their doubts on quality and hygiene of the groceries.

Now; if this same scenario were applied in a lower end society, say somewhere in the Mukuru Kwa Njenga or a village like Kanyariri in Kiambu, the results would be positive. The customers in this market are likely to interpret lower prices as fair. Based on their social status too, they are likely to value quantity over quality.

The above case simply shows how important it is for an entrepreneur to understand their target market. They must clearly define their target market in terms of social class, interests and financial ability. Only then, they can use the available resources to put the right business in the right place and promote their products the right way.

One major problem I have observed with most small-scale entrepreneurs, although, is a poverty mentality. They think because they don’t have money; other people also don’t! They believe that certain prices are wrong or unreasonable. This is not true, especially in a free market.

My advice to established and prospective entrepreneurs is; do not target the poor! They don’t have money. Customers are rich enough to buy your products. Your biggest assignment is to assess their financial ability, social class and interests, understand and give them value for their money.

20/03/2019

helaChap Start-Ups invites you to submit creative business ideas, who's budget should not exceed 50,000. Interested entrepreneurs should submit their write-ups through the 'Send Email' icon on this page.

helaChap Start-Ups shall provide a Cash Prize of 50,000, on April 15th 2019, to the best and most practical write-up.
Our team shall also provide entrepreneurial support for three months to the winner and walk them through the starting and running of the business.

helaChap Start-Ups wishes you the best!

More information shall be provided on request through our email.

19/03/2019

Business space, Simple economics, Investments, Innovations and Start ups in Kenya.Learn common yet gross mistakes in the Business.

18/03/2019

How to get into Shares Business; Get the basics first!

A share is the smallest unit, into which the capital of a company can be divided, representing the ownership of the shareholder in the company. The term shares and stocks may be used interchangeably. Financial pros however, may; look at stock as a collection of shares owned by a shareholder converted into a single fund. They may go ahead to refer public limited companies (companies that sell shares to the public) as stocks or stock companies. E.g. Energy stocks or food stocks to mean public limited companies that deal in energy or food respectively.

A share is that unit of capital that shows how much or what percentage of a company the shareholder owns. In essence, when one buys shares, they become owners of the company to the maximum face value of shares they hold.
What does it mean therefore to have shares in a company? Well, it means you are an owner in part of the company. As such, you are entitled to a share of the proceeds/profits arising from the business! In financial jargon, these shared profits are called dividends.

At the end of the trading period (usually one year), the company calculates its profits and the board of directors decide on the amount to be shared. Dividends are offered proportionately to the number of shares one holds. The amount is also dependent on the total profits a company makes. This forms one of the most important bases on which to decide on the company to invest in. So,

• What does it mean to buy a share?

• How are shares bought?

• What informs your decision to buy shares of a given company?

• Can you sell the shares? If yes, how?

HelaChap Start-Ups will be answering these questions in the next post. Check out as we show you how to get into the Big-Boys Business.

HelaChap Start- Ups

12/09/2019

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22/04/2019

21/04/2019

21/04/2019

12/04/2019

29/03/2019

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18/03/2019

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