 Tuesday on why and the morning I go by the name of by Moses or it's very one every social media platform and it's always a pleasure please remember to keep interacting with us on our social media handles that white 5 4 channel on Twitter white 5 4 underscore channel on Instagram and white 5 4 on Facebook don't forget the hashtag why in the morning and entrepreneurship Tuesday and don't forget to tell us where you're watching us from so we can give you a shout out so it's about that time time for our first segment of the day and this one is about to be motivational I call it motivational Tuesdays and I have the very our very own mr. Sebastian and hoda I got it this time you can introduce yourselves on camera for and tell us what you represent in terms of organization and the reason we're here today we can start with the lady right yes okay so my name is for Dan and I am the founder of the Alliance Access which is purely helping entrepreneurs to level up in their businesses and succeed in all areas of their businesses and life I mean and it's basically focusing on really business coaching and really shifting the mindset all right business coaching and shifting the mindset that is something we are going to be talking about so don't touch that down alright so my name is Sebastian I'm the founder of Kenyan Entrepreneur and one of our major events that do is connect entrepreneurs conference and development so actually that is how I get to meet hodan Mohammed that is how you got to meet hodan Mohammed you'll give us more info on that but hodan you went to business school and study psychology as well so this is something you always wanted to do your story is very interesting because the way you find yourself in this particular field is I don't want to say unlikely I'll find an adjective for it but tell us how did this happen okay so I graduated in 2010 as an engineering student electrical power option but for two years I was jobless and I crashed on my brother's couch for some time and then during the period social media was just picking up so I sort of found my way around it and I knew how to sort of following for people for myself first at some point I was among the top most followed people in Kenya on Twitter yeah but then I lost what time is this we should 2010-2011 wasn't as popular as right now it wasn't Kenyans buses Nigerians on Twitter guys didn't even know what it was about corporate are very hesitant to get on it to use it as a communication platform so what I did is I started approaching musicians and TV presenters whoever was in the limelight and I would do it for free for them for some time once they got sort of hooked then I started charging them so at some point I had almost at some point I had almost 80 people I was doing this for each paying 5000 per month but but the problem is now I didn't have a business structure on it so guys would go without paying sometimes you're a train engineer who ever say yeah so guys go without paying sometimes it's just hectic but I sort of got tired and now the post started looking the same you'd go to say a money or a remote page and Kenzo's page because I was doing this under Gopa DJs and they would start looking the same but that was not really what I wanted to do but now during this period Red Cross was doing a peace campaign in South Coast so they called me in wait I was working with EcoDead the gospel artist and then during that period I met someone who does events he was doing it for an agency and then during this period after the the ghetto championship tournament that I was doing with him someone spotted me and introduced me to this agency so I whatever I was doing as myself I started doing it for the agency and they were being paid a lot for it all right two months down the line I realized I was making them a lot I was being paid a very small fraction of it so I quit I didn't know where I was gonna go so for February since February 2013 till December was purely jobless but not like going back to the same thing so I met one of TV of the TV presenter at that time and that's where the whole story shifted so what happened is I and a friend of hers asked me to collab with them and now register our first company which is social media Africa you are purely doing social media for now small businesses and then at this time I felt like an entrepreneur hence the name can I interpret no so I called myself that on Twitter and Instagram all right so at this point is when you had you found this handle it's this can you know it was unique in Kenya nobody was doing it around here people are sleeping on social media and fast forward you're here today all right back to you now we've got a taste of a story you're born in Somalia yes how do you get to this point well that's a long story but the short version is that I born in Somalia being part of the refugees that flee from Somalia for the Civil War and the hope to go back to one day but unfortunately that just keep going on so we flee to Finland grown up in Finland finish my education in Finland but there was something in me that was keep telling me that you know it's not here everything that yes not really I didn't even thought about that yet at that moment so so the entrepreneurs I tried a couple of times of you know setting up my business went into trouble and while I was studying the business and before about to finish I say you know what I can't get into the entrepreneurship because there's something is missing there's the ingredient that is missing that I don't have it and that's the moment I decided to venture to the world to find the success behind the business and I really worked went to look for knowledge so I looked for the knowledge and then I worked for corporate 500 companies like IBM like Oracle like you know click those type of companies and I still in Finland no I went to Ireland UK yes so so what I did is like I was taking this businesses to other countries and growing the businesses and afterwards what I did is basically found the the ingredient secrets that I was looking for and then I came into Dubai and I remember that was like about six years ago and Oracle approached and say that hey we want you to help us to come into Somalia and help us to venture into you know Somalia and at that moment I was like but that was the best choice I've ever done and went back to somebody yes I went back to Somalia six years ago that's Oracle from the ground up in Somalia exactly it's still alive then it's still alive there all right so you're in the habit of building yes and let it grow and thrive and then go into into building another yeah so yeah so basically it went from helping venture like 500 ventures to grow to now I get into the passion where I say you know what I believe there are like entrepreneurs where I actually saw a lot of individuals very very great ideas but just stuck and just they were lacking the ingredients in the process exactly that is how you you came up with dirty yes and that's was my calling that was your calling there's us there's a there's a good fun fact why did the name of the company come from well the so you know how can I say Dodie is actually my nickname given by my colleagues in Dubai they felt like I was a bit cute and it's a very Arabic yeah so the whole idea behind the Dodie lion is it's bring that cuteness but turn from a cat to lion and find your success behind that cuteness which leads to a question the name of the company yeah this is the representation of the brand how much thought should go into first before we even get into the skills of an entrepreneur what how much thought should go into the name because this is what represents a brand when it comes to the business name personally I don't think it matters it doesn't matter doesn't alright somebody told me it has to tell the story of the business I don't do you believe that someone for on everything right when it comes to this but yeah but I remember when I was setting can't had limited which is now the acronym for entrepreneurs conference development guys were asking so what is that like countered what does it mean you know but the more they hear it it becomes part of them so it's what you do with it for you when it comes to the name what about you when it comes to the name because maybe I have a beautiful idea but it doesn't sound like Uber to me what do you think about this the naming of the business well so whether we acknowledge it or not but coming with the name it actually comes unconsciously okay so even though if you haven't noticed yeah when he was telling his story you say you moved from social media to Kenyan entrepreneurs so you saw the recognition in your passion and then you actually called yourself can you and it's a story actually comes around it and you know that brand that you created for that name of the logo there's a backstory exactly story is very very important when it comes to the name and when it comes to the brand so can you entrepreneurs conference conference right it's not only a conference where people meet from time to time and do their thing what are some of the the things that you do under this umbrella okay so Kenyan entrepreneur like I said earlier it was just an Instagram and Twitter handle so what happened is people started asking questions thinking it was an organization they didn't know it was just some guy posting stuff so I saw the opportunity and then I didn't have the answers because I was just a guy on a couch with a phone you were using your phone yeah so what I did is I started reaching out to people who are sort of in the media through shahitya pit and warty and telling them look I have these people asking these questions but I don't know what the answers are do you mind having breakfast with them once a month and then now that mushroom to 50 people to 100 people 200 people the biggest conference we had had over 2500 people 2005 entrepreneurs in Kenya right now yeah that is the conference but our database is way over 25,000 way over 25,000 yeah which leads to my next question yeah they're over 25,000 but stats have it that not so many startups survive for what is the time three years a statistic put out I think I'll let last year it said 470,000 SMEs die every year 470,000 yeah and these are guys with loans yeah so if the businesses die yeah they're left in debts yeah and everything yeah all right us and then we are told always pick up yourself dust yourself and move forward but it's not that easy it's easier say than that yeah before we get to the solutions what do you think are some of the reasons that lead to this three years yeah well yeah well so to be honest entrepreneurs is you know the whole entrepreneurship is journey okay so the failing is just a feedback okay it's not an end and it's not something to be scared of so we do sometimes fail and we get set backs and all what you need to do is to learn from those so you don't repeat them again and go for the next so that means that you need to look into what went wrong and pick yourself up so yes it is a huge challenge for entrepreneurs to succeed when you are not coming from entrepreneur background which I mean by entrepreneur background is not the good education alone because we do study but the studies the education that we've been given is really to become an employee not an entrepreneur unless your parents are an entrepreneur and you started working in their business exactly or if you have a mentor then only you're really able to succeed as an entrepreneur because we don't we are not tuned we've been tuned for for industrial aspect so that's one of the biggest reason people struggle in getting entrepreneurship even though somewhere in there God says like okay you get your freedom you get your financial you know everything but the really the the the challenge is how do you overcome when things is going against you what do you do when things is not working what do you you know how do you overcome when people are not believing what you're producing and what you are like your idea what you're passionate about because you saw some opportunity somewhere but you're stuck because you don't see people are telling you to not go after this because it doesn't make sense like look at the uber or what it called this air and be yeah I mean no one even thought about that how can you have never invested in maybe exactly a lot of people did not even actually believed in them and say no we're not going to invest or it care like when he came in on the market they were like what used furnitures who would want to who wants to do their own furnitures you understand so so the the idea is that how do you keep going and believing in your idea when when everyone else is not believing in you because maybe you might have succeeded in the fourth year which you gave up in fact wonderful all right so we are talking about failing we have to focus on capital yeah so we have so many people with brilliant ideas I've been one of them amazing ideas I sometimes I think about them and maybe not so amazing so there's a there's a link between the person with the idea and investor it's very hard to make a to build a successful business without capital or investors so so many youths watch this show they're always like from the musicians to the artists to the actors to the tech developers they're always like I don't have capital I don't have this I don't have that yeah what is what is the process what is the next step to take when you have a brilliant idea and you need some capital and don't forget to tell us how you protect yourself and the process as well I think he is a very good example right now here okay I said the first part of it and then because she links entrepreneurs to investors or so she'll answer the second part but for me the first part is when it comes to capital right banks will not give loans and they surely have a problem with banks even when we are hosting them during our events because you have an idea for example you want to sell Kenya from Western Kenya to Nairobi anyway so the thing is in Nairobi you buy kidney chicken for 1800 2000 same chicken goes for 300 400 say so when I start doing that for example in the first year second year because you also have to build trust first year second year third year when I'm failing the banks will not give me the money why is that yet they would prefer to give it to you who's starting out they don't trust people who have failed because if you failed you already know where you did the mistakes so why are they not doing something to help you yeah and you you know where the mistakes happened and you can fix them but they will never give you the money but also when it comes to raising financing personally have been very hesitant and we keep going back and forth with hoarding sometimes you don't really need the money you just need someone to point to the right direction for example like the conference that we we're doing at the moment yes at this point we pay money to even the venues and even to accommodate the entrepreneur that are coming right but when we started out we were looking for free spaces you know foundation that is that is our work yeah they know they would give us the spaces for free you know like for example your studio and it's not being used can I speak to the management and then you can give it some mention yeah so it's just going out there and establishing strategic partnerships money is good but only if you are in the I think when you're in the manufacturing aspect of entrepreneurship say you're building something an app or a software and you need the financial you need the devices but if it's something you just need good will and sometimes just having a good time in PR you just go out and go out and do it go out and such people can partner with you because I'll give you a good example when we are doing the conferences we do a lot of animations for videos for social media marketing we have so many campus students who are very good at it and they just want to also shake with the brand so as opposed to going to an agency that will charge you 300,000 for that work with a campus student give them 30,000 give them some where to start they are doing the event and expose them to different people how they can invest that 30,000 if they can do that for 10 people they already at 300,000 so it's just about being willing to work and going out and establishing partnership that is promoting startups in the process draw wonderful all right maybe you can shed some light yeah so so I mean he said really beautifully there I wouldn't much add into but if it comes to the investors so you know investors invest through feeling and emotion is very important it's very important so it it comes like across whether it's it's making a sense to invest that this this company really convinced me enough to really put the money out of my pocket and just put here on on this company do they really believe in their own idea do they really have that passion to drive that business if I give the investor needs to see it on your face exactly how you speak how you believe in this thing exactly if you are struggling and you go to an investor to give you investment it's you're struggling isn't it so it's it's you shouldn't come across like you're struggling you need to be able to but the way you present yourself is one but also make sure you actually the business is worth investing so if you were in a business for two years and you don't even have a revenue to show it's gonna be really difficult for any investor to even believe in that business and another thing I always say to my clients is that if you succeed to convince your family your friends to invest even ten dollars or you know five five hundred children into your business then you know what anyone else you go in front they will believe in wonderful you're having one of your conferences yeah a stubborn chap like my little brother is very stubborn reasons the hand and says I want to make a billion and they ask go ahead and I say have you ever made a billion you say no and you say I know I've never made a billion then how are you going to help me make a billion how would you answer such a question which part of it how are you going to help me I came to this conference to learn how to make a billion you've never made a billion how are you going to help me make a billion okay if you want to make a billion that's a good thing that is a very good thing but what is a billion really because this how I break it down if I want to make a million shillings I need to ask myself what can I sell for one shilling to ten million to one million people yeah so strategies yeah the other way to do it is to sell to a hundred thousand people at ten thousand so I break it down so if I find there's the premium way of selling one thing so if I can sell one to you a space during the event for one million then I only need one person to make a million then do that a million times and I have a bill just go out and figure it out the power is in your hands yeah what would you say very very good as well to be honest I agree with him on all of what he said and everything comes to your strategy and how you break it across well if you ask you haven't made a billion but I could say I hope make for others billion but when you are employee you have a limit a cap to how much you can make it okay so when you are becoming an entrepreneur there's no cap so if you have a proper plan and strategy in place that you can actually lay down onto how you can achieve as what Sebastian just said into breaking down really do I sell to a million it's never grows on trees artists like banner boy but today I'm going to put banner boy shout banner boy banner boy said Africans across the world especially Africans in the States are facing the problems they are facing because Africa is the way it is right now if Africa was a powerhouse like China or Europe Africans would be respected across the world would never be facing these problems do you guys agree first it's a hypothesis I think I saw the interview you're talking about he was saying you can only be as strong as your roots so assume all the black Americans African Americans decide come back to Africa do we even have policies to protect what they have but what if they decide to send some money to invest here they are investing yeah like guys are investing only that we don't come here and walk around buying stuff but guys are really investing at the moment we've seen the likes of PDD GZ coming around in Africa but you still think it's a hypothesis if we are if we were a very strong economy do you think we'd be we'll be facing the same problems we're facing up also okay and maybe it's not true this is just a theory how Rwanda right now is being marketed as what as a clean country yeah it goes back to branding what you see on TV on TV so we learn to volume would as well as much as we are when we go to the States they have that is straight as we do here but they have to brand themselves in certain way that's why we have brand Ken at the moment personally I feel like they're not doing their job properly but it's got back to branding so the power is in branding we have a lot to learn from all of our wonderful words right now what do you think about this as we wrap this up if we were an economic power house like China or like Europe would we be facing the same problems we're facing when we travel across the world the disc the type of discrimination we're okay so actually I haven't seen that interview I can you know same opinion because you don't get the context I didn't get the context but one thing I I do truly believe in and after traveling around the world really it's right now is African time and the the growth and the space that is going by at this point of time is incredible and it's you know a lot of people are believing that it's gonna be the next China at the moment so the speed it's going and the economic and how much is attracting right now international communities and the way it's getting up there well if it comes to the other comment that you mentioned I wouldn't point on that because I really didn't hear the whole interview yeah but Africa is a future from your point from where you're sitting right now it is the future thank you very much I did look at it that way I learned a lot on the entrepreneurship Tuesdays but branding is very important and slept on in businesses you need to brand well from the name to what the people see yeah wow thank you very much guys for coming as we wrap this up do you have an event coming soon okay so I'll talk about the conference that she's got about the program so we have the 7th edition of Kenna entrepreneurship conference on the development on the 7th and 8th of June it's gonna be in Westlands at the signature auditorium we are trying to do it differently this time round so we are mostly focusing on SMEs with a turnover between 5 million to 10 million just because we feel like we've spoken so much to the startups it's now time to speak to actually people who have the money and they don't know how to channel it or even to double it and that's where the delay success comes in I because they know yes yes so we having on in in around 27th of April coming up the game changers program so it's it's gonna be a transformational it's going to be transformational dates time place to Malizekito June 7th June 7th from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. signature auditorium Western Heights in Westlands all right so this is your time to shine your cameras number four let's start with a lady over again just look at the camera tell them give them a lot of advice I'd like you to speak to the ladies mostly I don't want I don't mean to put you in a box but you can speak to the ladies and then you can speak to the gentleman and then you can give them your handles talk tell them your company handles and then just give them a lot of advice your camera is number four okay okay so for the ladies I would really give an advice to believe in yourself and believe you can do whatever you said for your mind your limit is to what you actually comprehend in your own life so remove the cup that you having on your mind and really believe that you can actually fly and then you will be able to fly powerful the limits is isn't what you said to your mind right so you can only you can only go as far as you you imagine as you're thinking yeah wow social media yes so you can follow me at Facebook dody lion success you can follow me on YouTube you can follow me on LinkedIn and you can follow me at Twitter and all with dody lion success dody lion success thank you very much to your turn now look them straight into the eyes and so I'm gonna start with the digital platforms so to make it easier just go to Google and type Kenan entrepreneur that was such you know civilization is good enough you follow all the links there but I was just a way of ending this it might do anything to you these are conversation right now about what people expect when they give you money and it's in relationships it's in business it's in countries we are taking so much from different countries in terms of loans we are giving so much in terms of emotion emotional investment these for both guys and women but just know that for every ask there is a give for everything you ask for there's something you have to give and for every opportunity mistreated there is a need to be limited to access for every opportunity miss for every opportunity mistreated okay let me give this example back in the days you are the TV presenter right I could only see on TV like very rarely would I see on the streets but right now you know what your Twitter handle is what you Instagram so people miss you that yeah it's a privilege so if I mistreated there's a need for you to block me wonderful yeah so as long as you can access someone don't take advantage of it use it for meaningful engagement how most of all these young people yeah and I feel like they've got enough today we can even end this but we still have more lined up for you on entrepreneurship Tuesday on why and the morning Hilda with he's coming up next so don't touch that down all right thank you