Marilyn Kamuru — transcript

How Do You Build a Sellable African Business? | Marilyn Kamuru | AfriCAN Do! Ep.1

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:01 [Music] yeah welcome to the first episode of African do Post podcast um this is the culmination of something that we've been working on for a long time and it's great to have you with us as we launch it into the market we are going to be having conversations about entrepreneurship from the unique lenss of the African entrepreneur and I hope to have guests who will excite you teach you um maybe cry those who cry uh and laugh for those who love to laugh and we're looking forward to a very very exciting story about the African entrepreneurial experience and also changing the views of narratives regarding the African entrepreneur so thank you very much for joining us and welcome today I have with me my first guest yeah first guest is a a very good friend and someone I really admire and uh she's called Marilyn mudoni curu I'll tell you I have a name for her

1:07 but that name is not for for this formal sessions and um let me start with why who she is so Marilyn is currently um she's a Serial entrepreneur she's a feminist she's um uh an angel investor in in in several businesses and just an all around great person yeah thank you but but why why I have called her specifically and she doesn't think of it as a big Accolade but I think it is quite a unique accolate in this journey of Entrepreneurship um Marilyn has conceptualized a business uh brought it to life uh built it into something and eventually sold it and and that is not many people who can say many of us have built businesses closed them or built businesses and walked away for them for them for one reason or the other but she's actually managed to sell it and that Journey sometimes is is painted from a very let me say sexy perspective you know it's

2:17 made to look like it was all uh enjoyable and yeah and then I how much money did you make and you know now are you going to enjoy and we just want to have an honest conversation about that so marily welcome thank you yeah it's really good to be here so um I wouldn't even start by mentioning the business but um I remember we were once talking about this and you told me the journey you're a lawyer by training um um IV League trained lawyer and um just walk us through how did this start and and how your company the idea of your company came about and how you launched it into what it became okay um so as I was telling you it's it I I sold this business a couple of years not a couple actually um going on five six years ago um so there's a lot of memories coming up in fact I was just thinking I should have gotten tissue I should have made sure I have some here because some of

3:17 these are just sub stories um so I was living in the states at the time um we moved to the um to the US when I was 16 um and actually at the time I moved back to Kenya in 2005 IID lived the vast majority of my life outside of Kenya um but I really wanted I was working as a corporate lawyer and um I had my son and I really wanted to come home um I really wanted my son at the time um to just to know Kenya and not no Kenya like um you know summer holidays Safari and the beach you know um and and so i' been thinking about how am I going to come home what can I do um and you you know so so that was in the back of my mind it was percolating it was you know just generally I want to do this but I didn't have a path um and so I'm in the states I'm working I'm in House Council um for a company called Bright Horizons which was um uh listed company on the um NSE

4:19 and we were the first to do corporate Child Care Solutions in the United States so um it was a a really interesting business husband and wife founded and was very startup modish um and I was uh a legal counsel but I reported directly to the chief operations officer yeah and during this time I'm going to date myself here um we had the the whole Enron Scandal and the sarban Oxley act that came out um and they started becoming this huge Focus around recordkeeping and retention of Records in the event of litigation or um fraud um and I was tasked with with that thankless task you know um was basically just told just you know figure this out and figure out how to keep the figure out how to no how to make sure we were compliant with sarban Oxley now as it's coming out um so from a legal standpoint figure out our compliance um and make sure that you know you're sort of

5:18 advising us generally to do this it's a new thing so it at the time nobody really thought it was a big deal um and so I started doing this it was really exciting and very interesting um gave me lots of exposure to the board to the the CEO and the CFO and my my uh boss um a guy called Steve dryer best boss ever had um and and so when we started doing this one of the things that um we realized because we were operating in multiple States was we had state regulations and federal regulations for document retention and then we had because we were dealing with babies and children and um the us being such a litigious Society we had our own internal um thinking about what the time frame we would want to retain records beyond the legally required time frame um so I was developing all of those policies writing them up in the course of doing that I discovered how we retain

6:14 our records and we were retaining them in multiple facilities um the leader in the business is a worldwide I I believe still is is a company called Iron Mountain um and the the way this business works because these are primarily paper records and even when there were digital there was still at the time a huge um bias for paper records um you know so files filing cabinets filing cabinets you know people didn't believe a thing until it was written right even if we had computers they wanted to printed out um and then there were also a lot of things that are signed you know like a parental consent form you know um my child own is uh allergic to nuts there's a signature you want to retain that form um and so it's the course of doing this I discovered how much money we were spending and we discovered as a company how much money we're spending and we were spending an enormous amount of

7:07 money spending money keeping the records keeping the records and the way the business model works is you rent out um as okay so for for us as a company we're just retaining records the records are stored in boxes in archiving boxes now we have archiving boxes in fact when I came to Kenya there were no archiving boxes I had to actually help the carton manufacturers create create the archiving boxes um so these archiving boxes have uh basically let's just call it a square footage but the billing for the company the records management company they bill you based on cubic footage okay so they basically make money off air yes is what I like to say right so we're billing you based on the cubic footage um but we pay for square footage cuz you re you lease a warehouse you rent a warehouse and you're just paying for square footage um and what

8:00 happens with records is for the most part people once they give them to you they never so the company is basically paying a monthly or an annual fee to basically store boxes yes okay and actually it's a quarterly fee and it's quarterly in advance um and then what what the sarban Oxley act um now made mandatory was the retention period um so one of the things that people wanted to make sure was you definitely had the records retained and you could prove that you had been retaining them God forbid something happened to it um and you weren't able to produce the record you would have um a policy and a practice that would basically be your defense in court um and so we're spending an enormous amount of money and when I looked at it we weren't going to be able to mitigate any of that cost okay um because we needed to retain these records in fact in some cases um we weren't tracking how long we were

8:53 retaining them and we wanted to retain them longer um and so my job then was to rationalize this uh this supplier relationship across the various States try and reduce um our expenditure if we could and then just create policies around it and in the course of doing this I of course learned an enormous amount about this business and it was to me a ridiculously easy business um like all things seemed yeah and and it was super profitable because we're paid quarterly in advance um you know you could get a a discount if you're doing annually in advance you have what's called a termination fee so if you want to leave you have to pay to sort of exit the contract um and for the most part you have to retain the records for legal regulatory tax or some other purpose so it's not just you want to keep them um and the the warehouses once you got the

9:49 warehouse you essentially were just the moment you covered your um operating expenses the based on your square footage was usually just like two boxes deep and could often go 60 80 High okay so great great model um and Kenya was super paper intensive right um and even though i' been gone um you know as I've said h a really long time since I was 16 I used to come back almost every other year every three years um so I I was still sort of familiar with Kenya and I I thought of Ken's home um I was soon to learn Kenyans didn't think of me as Kenyan but but I was like I'm going home so I I thought about this business um and I decided I'm going to so from your learning of of this statutory storing of Records in the states that's driven by a legal requirement you say there they are equal legal requirements in Kenya to store documents like I know for publicly

10:49 traded companies it's five years and for tax purposes it's also five years uh so you said okay there's a business model here and now you decide I'm off we're moving okay we're moving um so I quit my job um I still remember my uh my boss my the CEO just asking me I mean you're I mean obviously they they're like Africa you're going to Africa right and I was like yeah I'm just I'm going to give this a shot um and I think I should also say one thing when I um when I graduated from law school by the time I graduated from law school um we were in the you know the.com boom mhm um and then soon after about 2 and a half years after that we had the crash the dot crash yeah um and I had this sixf figure corporate um associate job actually I'd wanted to be a human rights lawyer but you know they didn't really hire Africans to do that work at the time so I was like let me

11:49 make money um and and then we had the crash and I lost my job and for me one of the things that was really helpful about losing my job is I was like h it doesn't matter how good I am at what I do y um the only person I can count on is me true you know so I I I really feel like losing my job I I'd had um when I was in law school I'd started uh a a business called Kenya law we were transcribing and digitizing um legal cases because at the time Kenya wasn't reporting and because we're a common law jurisdiction you need precedent to go to court okay so we started digitizing these cases um and we had a model we were going to sell them and then we fell out with um my partner at the time um and and she went on to do it but um I I I had an interest in business but being laid off really um made me understand was the last push you needed to I I'm don't not even sure if it was a push

12:51 what I would say is that what it made me understand is it doesn't matter wherever I'm employed yeah um the only person I can count on is me because they could let go of me regardless of how good I am at my job and I was very good at my job um and I think the other thing that it made me realize is I I'm not ever going to get attached to a job right or even a business so I'm not one of those people who called my business my baby I always kept telling people this is a business I'm growing it and and I intentionally planned on selling it um because again that's the way the the business grows um on on an international even nationally um businesses grow by acquisition so you you grow a business it gets to a tidy sum and a bigger player comes and just swallows you up because they just buy your clients and they buy your long-term contract so so from the beginning and

13:41 may maybe now it's a time to introduce e-manage Africa so you come back home and e-manage Africa is born yes and uh for those of you who don't know e-manage Africa it's still a company in operation yeah and it is the first am I right in saying that well it the it was about the first um we we were the first yes we were the first indigenous um record storage business document storage company in in the market and you you then now now here you are welcome to you've come to Africa and then now you you have to I've liquidated my 401k yeah I've packed up my entire house um and I have 41k is a is a Kenyan equivalent pension you your retirement fund yeah yeah so all my savings my 41k I mean this was the it was a do a die um um although the the framing I gave myself was I'm here if it doesn't work out I can always move back um and that's just

14:45 what I told myself and I cuz I hate feeling boxed in so that's what I told myself but I basically cut all ties I mean I left my nice um turkey oh my gosh yes um we packed up the house put it in um my I I moved here with my son uh first and um my then husband was left W wrapping things up and he was going to follow us and I moved in with my parents because you know I had to come find a house which is why I was coming first um so moved in with my parents um didn't have a car had to get a car didn't had left my nice you know Land Rover and was driving some silly Toyota here that was electric blue and just oh my god that car made me want to cry so you're here you know you're here and what do you how do you start you know where where do you start when you want to start a business like this it's a new idea you have no one to look to and and and uh emulate and say okay so

15:50 where do you start you know what to do um but I would assume you're looking for space or what are you looking for yes I mean I had a business plan so one of the um I wouldn't call it a mistake but one of the things I did is I really overprepared for this um you know I had a business plan I had fiveyear projections I mean oh my gosh it was beautiful and you're going to make the money I was going to make the money I was going to sell this business in six years I think I'd said on the outside and it was going to be Regional and you know um and I wanted you money and I felt like it was possible yeah you know um yeah and so I come here and it took me I think four months to register my business and those were the days there was no uh just to register my business you know um you're eating your own cash you're earning nothing no and and it was really expensive this is the other thing

16:50 that I think um sometimes we don't really understand Kenya is really expensive even at the time I was like wait a second this place it's like I'm in Boston I mean it really I I didn't you know there's a way we think about it um and now that I've lived here I'm sort of like yeah this is what you know it costs to live here but it's kind of expensive to live in Nairobi um so I'm going through this cash I'm watching a dwindle and I know I don't really have money the business has you haven't started yeah no my dad is really upset with me because he's like you have a great law degree and you're just quitting and you had a great job had a great job and you know perfect career path and then you're just over here to come and do what my house eating my food yeah and you know I mean he was not happy he was not happy in fact he was so unhappy that um he convinced me to try and go to Kenya School of Law and at

17:42 least um Regular admitted be admitted to the bar yeah um and so I went and they told me yeah you need to do three years um and I'm like I I have an undergrad degree I have a JD and a master's and they're like yeah yeah you still need to do three years um if you want to so I didn't know I didn't know I should have had a conversation around that you been told passing the message the message is not Landing yeah I was I got nothing which was really the first couple of years of being here right um you go there even registration it took me that long because you give me the process and I'm like okay so these are the documents you need so I come back with the documents you need and then I'm wondering why you're not moving so where are we what year is this when you're doing 200 5 I arrived in 2005 November I actually didn't even stay for Thanksgiving um 2006 my business is

18:36 registered so when do you open doors now you're now 2006 I opened doors 2006 and then what did you do I found a I found a facility in industrial area um some a go down or what is it yes a go down some nice Italian guy uh Georgio rented um a small go down to me um and and you know that was that was really helpful cuz I I was speaking to businesses but without a space nobody could really you know um nobody was willing to to entertain the idea but I think the other thing that I discovered during that time was i' I'd obviously tell them how I'm a lawyer as I thought that you know it was building trust and credibility yeah and credibility and they were just like why aren't you practicing law where you com to P documents in boxes um there's a real and I think we're not honest enough about this in Kenya people really look down on entrepreneurs yeah until you've

19:33 made enormous amounts of money or the story is sexy but but otherwise they think you otherwise they just think you know you're an entrepreneur because you couldn't do anything else you know it's so interesting you say that because my journey is the same my Dad's reaction is almost identical to yours you know he looking at me and saying you want to do what why why you know you're on this track and you're going to become this guy yeah yeah so you have now opened Italian Guys rented you a go down rented me a go down it's a small space I kid it out um there's no shelving so I have to build the shelving with a supplier um I mean I just I had to do a lot of things myself right so we do the shelving I have to do the measurements there are no archiving standard archiving boxes so I develop a standard archiving box that we're using and um and that's what

20:23 they're they're um they're making for me they they have the diecast they charge me for all of that and then now I'm in the market trying to sell my so you're now knocking at those yes but you're selling people something that they've never used before no so they've never had and so they don't know that they need but you're telling them that listen you guys need this thing yeah and how does that pitch look like um so before I tell you that let me just tell you that at the time you could be in on Mombasa Road and actually I lived um I lived um up Lata Road road we could call it Karen but really not really but whatever um so and I was working in industrial area so I'd be on mumbasa road you could buy jugu karanga that were wrapped in um bank statements at the time okay that's that's where the records were that's where the records were the the white and

21:15 green ones remember those yeah from the you can even see somebody's name and you know those details were already there so we didn't really have an um any respect for the Privacy we we were really sure those documents had been released for um for Destruction but they weren't being destroyed they were being recy house value yeah they were being recycled um so I go to Banks I started with banks and um in the interest of honesty because that's what we're trying to do on on this podcast that's what my my brief was yeah um I had um some contacts an aunt of mine um uh had uh some shareholding um with this uh bank and um knew one of the directors so I got a meeting with so she sent you sent me yes um but no that CEO not the job you know you're being sent to pitch your I'm still pitching and so luckily enough I pitch I find um that they're in the

22:15 process of of uh moving um their um their records and I find a fairly um open uh person and so we have this discussion and uh they' had experience in South Africa and they're like oh yeah I understand this business yeah this makes sense we can do this and and so uh I think it took what uh maybe six months no four months and then I got my first boxes and the first client was critical because again you're doing proof of concept all this time so your first client is a local bank is a not a local bank but it's a bank but it's a bank in the country that Trad in the country that TR country but not a local bank that that was another thing that I learned was that local banks were the most risk averse and the least trusting of it seemed to me local entrepreneurs yes MH yesh yeah you knew exactly what I was going to say where you're going man

23:16 I know that you know that story you know that story yeah they were the worst they were the worst and and the most extractive so um there's a bank that shall not be named that um basically um had us do a Consulting um engagement to identify the scope of the work should we get the work so they could you know basically um tender for the work yeah and I still remember they paid us 100K that work cost more than 100K but I was you know optimistic and after this I'll do the work and and and I'm good and I've met the CEO and they sounded positive and you know I've sold them this story about coming back and you know also the other thing was people really just expected me to fail um and it some of them said it other people just were like waiting M she'll come she do her thing she can't yes and and then you know my accent was really strong I was used to doing things extremely properly so you

24:20 know you suggest something to me and I'd be like no no no no we don't do that you know and so everyone would just kind of roll their eyes and like yeah she's not going to last um so we do this job and then they turned around and they hired somebody inhouse to replicate what we were doing so the consultancy that you are doing which you are paying 100K you paid 100K yeah which I went at a loss to do local bank comes and doesn't give you the work to do takes your idea and gives your paper to an in-house guy and say set this up like this they they inh housee guy welcome to Kenya yes and then a few years after that they give the business to someone who's related to one of the you know top those challenges not withstanding you've now you've gotten your first client I've gotten my first client and are you how are you are you making ends meat is what they paying are you paying

25:17 the rent are you yes I'm paying rent I'm paying salaries um how many people do you have on board at this time oh gosh maybe about like four people so one of the other things that I discovered with st staff was so everyone says labor is cheap here I actually had the worst luck initially with University graduates okay um they were very difficult to teach they were very entitled um and they hated working for a small business okay so they they were actually they resented the fact that they were there they thought they were better than this business yeah who are you yeah meanwhile I'm like this is my whole life man you know I need people who are as hungry as I am and so I started hiring people who had uh way fewer credentials but just had passion the right attitude yeah um and like my operations manager um her name is Grace karoki and who I we left with

26:11 she actually eventually um moved on before I sold the business um and Grace um started off helping me with everything from the archiving so she done a certificate in archiving um and so she was helping me with the archiving and she understood that but she would deliver proposals she would help with a cleaning I mean I would clean too um I I drove our truck and I did deliveries and so I would do everything and and my expectation was again maybe a little too much of American atud you doing are you doing any digitizing of the records no because just storing them you're taking them from where the bank stores them and you're putting them in another place yeah the banks will all tell you they want to digitize right and they all told us they wanted to digitize but first of all you only digitize what you know you have okay and they didn't most of them didn't know what they had so you would

27:05 walk them through this is how you do digitization as a process and they'd be like yeah yeah yeah yeah but it's it was sexy and it was um my my my sense of our Market is we love sexy stuff we love the new sexy stuff yeah yeah um and we talk a great game yeah but the actual doing we're not really great ear no wants to put in the nope Noe nope nope nope um and and then I wasn't I I I never gave a bribe I never gave a kickback I mean and I I say this in all honesty if I had to do it over again I would do it different you give a little W I'm sorry I'm sorry I would I would I mean you know people would ask me y you actually got that business I would I would pitch for work I would and then I'd really follow up you know so I sometimes people are just like man maybe maybe she'll manage but then now payments would be very slow yeah um and I was horrible with payments because I following up no

28:09 I was great at following up but I was and I learned the hard way that you know it's really bad when you're the owner of a business and of course you do have to do collections because at the time you don't really have a professional enough person to follow up with you know like um one of the big accounting firms so you you want to maintain that image image but it's really bad when you're the person who is the owner of the business and having to do collections as well because you know to do collections you need to be a little ruthless but then you can't then turn around and be the person who's like so we really appreciate your business meanwhile meanwhile you're sending you're on the verge of sending the auctioneers you're like you know give me my check yes and and um I I'm going to say this now because I can there's a really bad culture in this country where I believe

29:00 um larger corporations and government um are being F not just bullies but they're being financed by small and mediumsized Enterprises agreed because they're not paying on time so what I'm doing with my small business is you've got my money for three months when you should have been paying me every 30 days so essentially we're financing them and then they have these great profits and people wonder how come you're not making we're not money because we're financing those guys to make their you know amazing profits so you're you're in essence a shareholder you because you you're financ the business and then the other side of that coin is there others who are also being financed by their staff you know because they don't pay over time yes and so what that was one of my big commitments I I always paid my staff on time and um georgo was a fantastic landlord in terms of being

29:56 accommodating but he would need to be holding a check yeah he was like listen I understand you're a small business but I need to be holding yeah I need to be holding a check we we we we've now gone 2006 let's fast forward because you run e-manage for 12 years I think it's about 12 years so now let's fast forward to around 2010 2012 where are we now so now we have um this how is your team uh are you in the same space has have you gr we got a bigger space uh um my team has grown I one of the things that um we did phenomenally well as a company is um we trained our people I I um as I told you I started hiring people with a lot less experience um and and just investing in training and um building a company culture that was very responsive and and so even as we started to get competitors in the market um people would come to manag for the staff so I ended up sort

31:01 of start poaching your people yes Banks our clients are poaching I mean and and my Approach was you know what I can't pay you that much it's okay go grow you know um but remember how you got to be here and if you can give us business it would be great you see work for us there yeah but that's very interesting because that's not very common yes of growing people and um I actually have a bit of a a different experience because I feel that we do have some owners who feel that the staff owe them you know I got you when you're nothing and now so what are you doing leaving but anyway how many are you you started you are four so now we're about maybe like 10 15 permanent and then we are constantly taking on casuals for big projects right is it still the just the storage or is there still just the storage in anyway we have we have so digitization has grown in the market but what's happening

32:05 is the guys who are doing digitization are um for the most part they're getting a cut you know the The Exchange is if you're doing maybe let's say 10 Shillings per page um like four of that is going to somebody to some guy yeah yeah and I wasn't doing that but one of the things we had done is we basically were preparing clients for digitization M because without an organized um set of physical records you were unable to proceed to digitization um so by bringing them into your you brought some order to the way their documents are stores you know what you have yes and then we're helping them with policies so that they're now refining their policies um in some cases we're actually managing in-house um for some clients um so we were creating the the whole backend that allowed them to move into digitization but again um you know being naive um I was unwilling to do the

33:04 things that digitization required um but it started to grow really fast as a business um around us how is your client base at this time my client base is solid um really good companies I'm picking up a lot of uh I'm picking up clients from uh some competitors competitors have come um and mostly because of our service delivery like our service was EX exceptional we were we and I believe e-manage still is in fact um I I did some work with them recently and I I saw the form and I'm like I developed this form this is my form you know they haven't changed some of that stuff um we were really good at Service delivery and and customer service um because I understood very clearly that every every client and I used to tell my team once we get the client they're ours to lose it's if we lose them we screwed up so our job is as much as possible not to screw up if they start to push us on

34:00 price and it's just not tenable we're happy to lose them and again that's one of the things I I learned a lot later was actually I'm happy to lose certain types of clients yeah um you get to in the beginning you want everybody for whatever come from because it's not easy to make that call or you you you uh of course you you talked about your local bank yeah so stuff like that where you're saying stuff like that and then you know Banks coming and they're declaring fantastic profits and then coming when it's time to renegotiate a contract and they want to push you down on price and you're like this is really not reasonable you know so it it was some of that understanding about the um just the the the market but also um the context in which I was operating I was also very active in the policy space so at this point I was starting to really

34:54 understand um this is how it functions and you know this is just not I I'm here to make a profit like I was under no Illusions about that so either you're growing um we haven't entered your your sector so there's a value to getting you and I might make concessions for you as a new client yeah or you're um you know a blue chip you know one of the top let's say top five companies in the country I'm doing that which was a really stupid business model now that I think about it but um I did it at the time and and they're the worst by the way the biggest companies demand um the most concessions from small businesses which makes absolutely no sense and I think it's one of the things we've talked about with you Blanco which is super important is entrepreneurs needs to understand that a lot of this has very little to do with them when you're

35:52 there wondering why is my business not doing well why am I not making this much money don't personalize it personalize it there is a culture here that is so extractive that you know somebody's at the absolute Apex of this ecosystem and they're trying to just squeeze blood out of the stone that is an SM you know there there isn't an understanding that there is an entrepreneurship ecosystem so let let me segue of that and and and we are at 2012 you're now an established business you have customer service standards but let's speak a bit about the motion of it you know so you you you've done your your six to seven years yeah and I don't know I think it's it's the Hidden Side of Entrepreneurship yeah the emotional roller coaster the tool on personal relationships even as it's starting to look sexy because I'm sure by this time people are saying hey e manage Africa

36:52 maybe you have some ads on the radio or you know nothing no ads but maybe you have an identity you know when you give your you have a brand when you give your a card guys are like what's this and what you do and like and you say maybe what do you call yourself owner founder CEO CEO so there you are oh CEO yeah yeah CEO without a CEO salary but you have the problems yeah but but maybe speak a bit about your exhausting I mean really exhausting as I said I I really a lot of um disrespect um so you show up in spaces um you know I was an entrepreneur with my legal background having done a lot of mergers and Acquisitions you know um you know in some cases I mean I've done deals of almost a billion dollars in some cases so I had that entire background you know so when I speak yeah when I speak in uh a policy space or a private sector meeting and people are

37:56 just like but what do you who are you are you know um so really frustrating um and I was very interested in policy because I actually I I guess also because of my background I understood that some of the impediments were policy yeah so if my taxes have to be remitted by a certain time but you guys your withholding tax process is delaying me again I'm loaning you money there's no recourse for a big corporate delaying the payment and there's no understanding even that that's generally what happens like that's the practice the exception right um so there was there was for me a real frustration with a policy space um an inability to really influence it um based on rational argument um do do you think would would you agree with me if I said that um in a lot of cases particularly to do withme the policy is not complementary but the businesses thriv in spite of the policy not because of

39:01 not because is that is that a fair comment in your experience it it is a very fair comment and I do want to say on this um and I've told you this before Ken of cul I remember once going to him and I'm I saying Ken man if you joined us doing this we're doing some advocacy um around uh local content requirements yeah and Ken just told me don't waste your time there like spend your enery a very way yeah there was no there's no upside to this conversation was like this is not going to happen and I didn't listen I should have listened um but I also learned lots of lessons from doing that and then actually from from doing that work I I um ended up being an adviser to the cabinet secretary on um the access to government procurement opportunities program so I mean there was an upside but not an upside for my business and I was looking for an upside

39:57 for my business right um so it was a really frustrating and exhausting time um uh I was lucky to have my parents were were quite supportive my my my dad had died by that point but before he died he was super super supportive I used to go shopping proud I hope I don't he he got proud because I think he also was surprised yes he saw the fight F he saw the fight and he saw um that I could have fallen back on my degree could have fallen back to the States and I just you know I was like no actually I can make this work so he watched you build something he did watch me build something um and and and I could see that he was also impressed that I could make the shifts not very fast but could make the shifts that were necessary to operating Kenya um I used to shop at their house I always tell people that you know you would go there to pick things groceries I'd be like man I've

40:51 got to pay salaries so and I need money for gas I need some let me take some OAS here yeah you know um and then my son you know uh Maliki my eldest son cuz he had come from the states he only ate orange oranges and yeah I didn't see these green things those are not oranges and you know orange oranges are imported yeah I used to buy like three man and I'm like nobody eat the child oranges you know because we can't do that you know and then he you know he had this American taste he liked cheese and I'm like dude once a month we're doing cheese you know so I mean it was and it sounds like a small thing but you know when you're having to change your entire lifestyle for a business it is I think one of the things that is not discussed and you've brought it out is the assumption is that while your business is growing your personal life is on hold

41:45 and it's not your kids are growing you know they're going to school yeah you're alone you you you have some challenges you want to buy some things you can't afford um there's no understanding you have this big name and title but you don't have the money to boot but now let's go to or the car or the car yeah let's go to now you you sold and I think and I and I celebrate that about you I know it was not um actually the other day when you told me after you sold you you had tears in your eyes and and and I thought about I actually when I read the Richard Branson book early in in my career same same thing when he so Virgin Records he guys was saying he's a multi-millionaire and he's running through the Streets of London and tears so I got that image of you so what happened why did you sell why did you feel the need to sell your business had

42:43 settled I knew I was going to sell uh one of the reasons I I felt that I needed to sell was I wasn't able so I financed this business when you own on my own um you know uh I had minority Partners but you know they weren't you know infusing cash into bu not day today yeah and they were not day today I was running the business entirely and and so we were you know just plowing our money back into the business right um and I would do some Consulting and i' plow my Consulting money back in here yeah um this was my big so even though you're running your business you have a side hustle I I had a side hustle because also at a certain point you're just like man my kids in private school I can't take the amount of money I need to take so you know um and I knew I always knew I would sell and around this time the leader in the world Iron Mountain reach

43:33 out to me and Iron Mountain number one in the world who are who are met in the states and the guys who I knew I wanted to sell to so the VP um of uh International reaches out we have a discussion um they suggest a meeting um and they suggest a meeting in Paris H good that's good yeah so me I was like we're going to Paris and we went to Paris with my I was like Yan we're going with my kids and um my husband at the time so no they're not so you're flying to Paris on your dime on my dime yeah uh and I talked to this guy and I realized this guy was not going to buy us what was he doing he was scoping out the Africa Market aha so you have pop popped up on some radar we popped this is what is happening in this part of the world doing uh I was doing industry conferences especially in the United States and I was sending my staff when I could yeah um to these conferences and

44:36 so we popped up um and I think maybe uh six months to a year after that meeting um there was a spin-off of uh this you know I I it was essentially a spin-off with um the vice president as one of the interested parties where they were acquiring businesses in africah mhm so again you you you find that we're in this market and no one actually even gives us the respect that they would in another Market which is come here acquire a business that's been built by a local it's then let's create a middle company you know that is going to do that acquisition which means that really what they're trying to do is make sure that the value extracted the full value extracted when you sell to an Iron Mountain is not going to be retained yeah so someone else someone else and I've seen that I've seen that in h actually I know of um um I know of something that happened like that in the

45:36 oil marketing space where some people came to do some work an acquisition local acquisition didn't work out yes but then they set up because of access to Capital yes which we they set out which we don't have so they set up something and that's something started building something else and in 3 four years you'll hear that thing being sold on for a fair Penny and in addition to access to Capital because of the narratives around who are African entrepreneurs right yeah so there's um and and there is a deliberate intentional flattening of who we are and our capacity and capability one of the things that you like to talk about a lot and and I've really I've understood it very differently since speaking to you is the value of our knowledge yep which is sort of you know diminished and poo pooed but in actual fact it's the thing that no no one really wants you to put

46:29 on the table because if you put that on the table they can't take you off I always ask guys to do this exercise yeah um any media uh particularly now LinkedIn is the most but any commercial media Google Africa expert and look and see how many of them are Africans and then and then on the same note go and uh you know a lot of Kenyans in the diaspora Africans in the diaspora how many of them can get away touting themselves as European or you could tout yourself as an American expert I know you've lived the life you've been to the schools you're there since you're 16 you have studed in the Unis and all that but no one will allow you to position yourself as an African expert and they won't pay me yeah it's not a comparable thing right there there's no real value attached to that you know um and and so I think you know one of the things that for me was really interesting about

47:26 doing this podcast I think it's really important is that we really need to start having narratives of ourselves y by ourselves by ourselves um and and that really place an enormous amount of value on the knowledge that we have around maneuvering our own systems lack of cash notwithstanding lack of cash notwithstanding you know because the cash is going to come and to be very honest I've seen people with cash in this market you know I like I you and I talk about this all the time we see a business and we're like they have have too much money because you know what it's like to operate when you don't have cash right and I know in the beginning it really seems like cash is huge huge huge the bigger thing is is there a Clarity of vision is there a real business value and business proposition is the timing right cuz you when when you said you will sell your business in

48:19 six years even though you sold it around year 12 yes yeah but you you knew that you building something and I think that's a conversation that we really need more of how do you build sellable African businesses so you yes and and that means also that the way you're so systems I was huge on systems and processes um as I said you know I I'm looking at the forms now there are my forms So eventually when I sold I sold to at the time I had um I was entertaining office offers from the largest player in the the Iron Mountain guys then in their spin-off subsidiary um the largest Africa wide player who was listed in um in South Africa uh and and then a French company a French private company and that's who I eventually sold to um they also run a a moving uh uh a moving business uh so the the mobilitas they they archive systems um but their moving company is oh my God

49:22 why it's just yeah gone my Perman any you sold to the French so I sold to the French guys and I sold to the French guys cuz the French guys actually gave me the best price okay also um the French guys understood so we'd go to meetings and the other guys would not understand that I was the key player cuz I was a woman you are you are a front they looking at you like where is the where's you you can't be the person you can't be the person we have a mutual friend who are not mention on the podcast without her permission and she's just built her house a really nice house in vipingo after running her business which still runs for 29 years and everyone thinks she's a kept woman she's like who who who who's house is this you know what I say built for you the house yeah nowadays I say I want a sponsor like me because that's what they imagine

50:12 you have a sponsor right so I keep saying I want a sponsor like me um but yeah people just don't see you so you built a you you you this is the journey that I admire you conceptualized the business you came you actualized it you build it it was pulling teeth was painful it was an emotional roller coaster your family paid a price you personally paid a price you've now sold it you've gotten your check and then what then I crashed I had burnout I had burnout um I needed to I needed to just uh I needed almost two years to just recover from that and I sold because I also didn't have the money to grow the business the way it needed to grow if you had the money would it still be opened would you think I would I Capital was not an issue I would be a regional I would have sold still because I was planning to sell anyway but probably not sold but it would have been a regional

51:05 business I would have sold it for more money maybe I would have retained a minority share so does it hurt you or does it pain you because we do know that there's a African Capital available there's capital in this market probably yeah there's Capital to the tune of what the French people paid you yes but you didn't even have a local or a regional player or F that could come and see and say and give you your fair value yeah um non-cash value and say listen what if we were to fund this thing and you continue as CEO but at market rate salary you know and enjoy that so does that does is there some pain there there's still Pain still pain me particular potential pain because you had the vision yeah so you're now seeing oh this thing could have been but I think that's that's part of what you need to accept especially if you want to Be A Serial entrepreneur um

51:59 that you know you win some you lose some um I think one of the reasons we're talking here is that we're hoping fewer and fewer African entrepreneurs are going to have to be making that decision yeah um and hopefully the more African entrepreneurs that are around the more we have you know angel investors who can maybe just get you to a little just give you a little boost that we have more um Africa Centric funds including Africa IC committee members right y that's a big one for me with deep African knowledge not just I'm an African not a diaspora African no offense and and as a former diaspora person there is a a wealth of difference in terms of the the understanding of local context and local circumstance you know as I said the understanding of and the placing of value and the placing of value I say Kenya is not aspiring or I view Kenyan entrepreneurship not an

52:57 aspiration to be a mini Europe or a mini mini Asia Latin America this is Kenya and it has Kenyan nuances to it Kenyan challenges which you're going to have to learn yes and and and uh yeah and they should come at a price like if you're going to learn them from me I paid a price to learn them right so you should be prepared to pay that price for myor um and and I think we also need to be prepared to demand a price maybe that's also how we need to so you're now uh Marilyn curu the serial entrepreneur uh you continue to you now Angel invest I know um and how's that Journey going and what are your big take homes and what does the future look like for both yourself and for the African entrepreneurial landscape in your in your opinion I I think it's um I think if we can have more honest conversations about the cost of Entrepreneurship including the personal and emotional

53:53 cost um I I there's absolutely no shame in you know stepping off of this roller coaster if it's starting to be too much for you take a break take a take a timeout go get a job or like I did have a side hustle that helps Finance some of the most difficult parts of that financially um I think that's really important um and it doesn't make you any less credible um and maybe I just I'm going to do a little small snippet and say there's a difference between an entrepreneur and a business person in my view MH a business person is really just a Trader some guy who's finding this thing at X and selling it at X Plus right entrepreneurs create value they innovate um whether that Innovation develop Talent they develop Talent they develop systems they develop institutions because companies are institutions right it's not the size of the business that makes it an

54:48 institution it's whether it has systems and processes and whether it exists Beyond just the the entrepreneur sort of ego right um does it exist Beyond just feeding me right um so I think there is a lot of space for us um I think that we need to have very serious discussions um with um continue to have these discussions with government um around policy because it we can't continue you know succeeding despite um so I I have I have a take on that and i' I'd like to challenge the what I call the African intellectuals because I think that there's a disconnect I am I am so myself challenged accepted given by myself anden so um but here's what I think I think that um and you know this H I know this might cause Raffles some feathers but I think we are an over corporatized market and what I mean by that is that um the the African corporate has been

55:53 placed placed on the pedestal yeah at the expense of African entrepreneur and I'm not saying it's a choice between one or the other but I'm saying that this entrepreneur sees this thing differently Y and because we have Decades of experience of people who've worked a corporate Journey retired H paid off the mortgage then that seems to be where we are pushing everyone to go yet the decisions are ultimately even the policy decisions you want addressed are ultimately addressed by owners yes so this highflying corporate who has to report to some shareholder out in South Africa or in Europe or in the states ultimately is not the decision maker no and if you want to see Kenyan policy change then Kenyan owners with the weight and clout have to sit at the table and demand that policy change that they want to see for the benefit of their Market well they have to they have

56:52 I I do think that they demand it I think that there is a lack of respect again for the Kenyan entrepreneur the indigenous Kenyan entrepreneur in part because we tend to run smaller businesses Y and so there there seems to be the the value seems to be attached to the turnover when in actual fact I actually think even from a risk standpoint we're much more stable as a country with a solid base rather than you know a handful of of large you know um even if they're you know entrepreneurship based not not straightup corporate we're way better off building this very solid pyramid I would argue that might actually be almost a bottomup approach you know like you've gone there no I I've stopped I've stopped anyway uh first of all um we've talked about this for years and for you to finally be sitting here across from me as we do this first first first episode of our podcast thank you very

57:51 much I think you have a phenomenal story um I like the fact that you you're telling it and I think you should tell it more I think um um it's very important for young women young Kenyan women entrepreneurs to see themselves and to know that um there is pain but there's also learning and and young and men can also learn yes yes yes definitely okay okay I forgot you I'm sitting with a feminist so young kind men and women you know can can learn and I think a dose of a bit more honesty and vulnerability you have not been afraid to say that there was a price to pay yeah so one thank you very much for joining us on African do yeah episode number one and um look forward to I I look forward to having you back again uh should we continue we we will yes as we continue uh and uh yeah I I'm still a huge admirer of your journey and I can't wait to see what comes next as you

58:57 serial entrepreneur and Angel invest and continue CH championing the rights of women in Africa and all over the world so thank you very much thank you marn and it was a pleasure having you thank you it's lovely to be here and I I'm really excited about how you're changing the way we see ourselves excellent and the world sees us uh I'd like to just this is unprompted but just celebrate SE BX and done a and his team I think they are building another entrepreneurial story and uh it's great that we can have this because we've been talking about this going to do it in my backyard we're going to do it where I bought some mics which I haven't used so it's great to have a place like this where we can come do this and actually take it to the next level so yeah yeah good to them yeah