Josiah is an entrepreneur who has just joined a rare club of millionaires. The banana trader in Nairobi made his first million 3 years ago, two years after he started the business venture. Josiah shares his story.
“The first time I touched Nairobi was in 2002 when cars were few, traders were few, money was scares and wealth was rare to come, but employment was so much available. At that time, I had completed my high school and was ready for any challenge in life.
Immediately I settled in Nairobi I came face to face with the challenges of living in the city. The first thing to hit me was that everything I did required money. I was forced to be innovative.
With Ksh2, 000 in my pocket, I decided to sell second hand clothes. The business was at first not good because the location did not have traffic. In a day I could make Ksh 100-Ksh300.That forced me to move to Jogoo Road from Ruiru.
I did the business for two years, making my meagre profit. After realizing I was not moving in terms of financial stability, I decided to diversify. That was when I started selling bananas and Njugu alongside the mitumba.
My first shock came when I realized bananas were fetching me twice as much as I made from Mitumba.Immediately I decided to drop mitumba business and adopt fully the banana business.
Selling after selling, I realized my dream was coming true, but I didn’t know how exactly I could upgrade from selling at retail price to venturing into wholesale business. It is at this time when one of my friends suggested I present my title deed for a loan from a local bank. Luckily, I received Ksh150,000 from the bank.
I took a truck from Gikomba market, together with one of my Kisii friends, then off to Keumbu Kisii.I was charged Ksh 10,000 for transport and also paid Ksh 3,000 for loading and offloading. One truck of bananas cost me Ksh 45,000.
The first trip yielded Ksh 7,000 in profits. That was after I sold my bananas for a period of 4 days.
The business continued and with time I learnt the tricks-which I am going to explain below-and later managed to repay my loan for a period of 3 months.
Two years ago that was when I made my first million-I mean my account had Ksh 1 million and I had a lot of money for doing business. In this journey, I have learnt this:
- That for you to succeed in business, you must persevere: money does not come just like that, people must steal from you, you must make losses, you must meet stiff competition. But all these will come to an end when you become resilient.
- If you have a business idea, don’t say I will start when I get capital: if you are this kind of a person, then I can assure you the idea will be dead. Look for all means to get capital, you can even sell land.
- We all have the opportunity to make it in life, but what some of you imagine is that success is reserved for specific people. All the wealthy people you see around started from somewhere.
- No business is small, what is needed is discipline and determination-you will make it.
- These are the four most important things in business: capital,product source,market and profit.