 Welkom back. It's time for entrepreneurship Tuesday. Our second segment happens right now. Thanks very much to Barry Moses for the first one. Well, it was really nice looking to the foods. But right now we get to mention something different. This morning I'm joined by Sebastian Gide. Yes. And it's nice to have you. Thank you. He is the founder of Ken Entrepreneurship. Yeah, yeah. Karibusana. Thank you. I have ever been here before? Sometimes back. Sometimes back. Yes, yes. All right, Karibusana. It's nice to have you. And of course we get to talk about brand development and what you're doing currently. Okay. You've been doing so much about corporates. Yes. Tell us. Okay, so my name is Sebastian Davison Gide. I'm the founder of KENKTED, which is basically Ken Entrepreneurs Conference on Trade and Development. So under it we do events, media and branding. So under events is what now you're referring to, maybe corporate events, social events in terms of the technical aspect. So the production of it from screens, sound tent and all that. From the media aspect we specifically focus on reliable corporate reporting. So we have a website, Ken Entrepreneurship, where we only publish content that has been sent to us by corporates, the way they want it. So that, for example, we want to invest in a company that we publish for. You can easily follow through what they are doing, what the plan of the year is, what the financial report of the year is. And so on. And then under branding, number one we do personal branding. So if you're looking to have a presence on digital platforms, like communications and media, but we also do that for SMEs and startups. So ideally just helping them put their name on them. Alright, Sebastian, before we get deeper into the content of the Ken Entrepreneurs, let's talk about who is Sebastian because most people will be like, we can relate to the product but we will not relate to the person. Yeah, initially it was intentional. What we wanted to do is to focus more, people to focus more on what we do as opposed to the people behind it. But I'm a last born in a family of 13, two moms, I come from a polygamist family. My background is electrical engineering, power option. Although I don't practice it, but that's what I want to school for. Yes, and I want us to talk about that but later on after you done with the intro. And then currently I'm a father. And I tend to think of myself as an opportunity creator for others, especially for the team that works for us. Alright, Sebastian, you talked about you being an engineer which you don't practice. Why would you choose to weld something different than your field career? Two things. The way I ended up in the engineering class was number one, I would say, not peer pressure, but you see when you go to high school and then you get certain grades, that's what you get called to do. So you are a victim of the constant. Yes, you would say that. And then now when you get to school, now you realize you are more into the entertainment aspect of it. So when there's an event happening, you're the one who knows where the speakers are, who knows who's going to speak on the stage, you know where the wiring is. So over time I tended to drift towards that. I was the guy who would be setting up an event on Sunday and then sitting for my catch or whatever paper on Monday. So when I graduated, finally I realized that I was more inclined into doing events. But all is not lost because with that knowledge it helps in the critical thinking of even how we approach our business. Alright, let's talk about you being the founder now. When you look, each and every entrepreneur, when they're looking for a way to venture into the market, they usually see a particular gap. You know, probably they can't look into it and say, I want to venture because of this particular reason. Why did you choose to venture into this particular field? So in 2014, in 2011-2012, after being jobless for some time and you have your papers, yes, but you're living with your relatives, you're sleeping on the couch, you start looking at what else you can do. So at that time social media wasn't that big in the Kenyan market. So what I would do then is to approach people, mostly TV anchors or musicians to sort of manage their day-to-day Facebook and Twitter pages. And it did so well that now businesses started identifying with what we are doing and then I would get one or two businesses signing up. But you see, it wasn't really a registered business. It was just a guide doing Facebook. But why are they paying? Yeah, they are paying. But now you see now without the structures of a business, the money isn't accounted for. You sort of fail to separate your personal money and the business money. So in 2015, I met a couple of friends. I met a couple of people, one of them was supposed to be a client, and then we ended up registering my first company called Social Media Africa Limited. So you're still on that? I left. I left. And I'm going to get to that. So what happened was when we registered that, I felt as an entrepreneur. So what I did was I created a page on Instagram and called myself Kenyan entrepreneur. And then I did the same thing for Twitter. So what guys were seeing about aspect was an organization. They didn't really know it was a person because what I would share on the pages were motivational quotes, business quotes. So guys started asking, so how can you help entrepreneurs? And I was like, wait, so guys are actually looking for this information. So I can call you a business oligarch? Not really. I'm not there yet. Alright, but still heading there. Hopefully. So the plan was to get people to attend, like small events and bring a mentor and talk to people. So the first few days of setting up, we had Trisha Heitia and then we had Pete Andwati. And then I was like, okay, so this can be a thing. So we started doing it as an annual conference. And over the period we've done, for the first four years, it was an annual conference. But now we started doing it as a quarterly event. And in November we'll be doing our eighth conference. When was the first time you held the conference? 2015. Alright. So since then you have been having them annually until now? We had them annually for the first two, three years. And then we realized the demand was high, so we started doing them quarterly. So let me ask about the persons who attend this conference because according to what you gave, it's 15,000 plus. So we have different elements of it. So they are open days. They are open to anyone who is interested in entrepreneurship. So you have like 2,000 people show up. But then we have industry focused ones. So we say, like the one we are doing in November is asset finance. So not unless you are in business and you are looking to do asset finance, that doesn't really resonate with you. But for the open days one is where we have our biggest numbers. Let's talk about the job market because you're mentioning about creative, creating opportunities. And looking at what we have right now, not waiting even for it to come. Talk about it. In terms of opportunity, I think, with every venture, because as long as you have structures, the current constitution at the moment allows you to have a limited company as a single person as opposed to how it was before. So the moment you have a business, say you are selling mandazi, the moment you are selling it from a business perspective and not just as a subsidiary seller, where you are just selling for that you can meet your needs, you'll have someone who is doing the needing, you'll have someone who is deep frying them and you'll have someone who is packaging. So with every small venture you have, there is always a trickle down effect. The same way when you hear companies are laying off people, people just look at the numbers of the people who have been laid off, but they forget that these people have dependents. So it trickles down. So if I have 18 people in my team, these are people, some of them who have families, some of them who are supporting their brother, some of them even paying the landlord, it goes back to the money that they are making from this. So with every venture you do, there is an opportunity for it. All right. It's getting better and better. Keep interacting with us on social media platforms, Facebook. It's Y254 on our Twitter account. It's Y254 channel. It's Kai underscore Alex. You have a social media platform? Yes, it's Sebi. That is for my Instagram. But in this case, just if you type in an interpreter, you'll find everything. All right. Sozawa. And also remember our question for the day. What do you think about the borrowing trend that I've been making so much significance in our today's society? What do you think about it? Keep interacting with us. We'll get to look at some of your comment at the end of the show. Let's continue, Sebastian. And as we're asking this question later on as we come to the end, the Entrepreneurship Conference and Trade and Development. What's the main aim? Okay. So I don't know if you're familiar with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. We sort of just did a spain off of it. And the idea for it is to help push conversation on issues that affect not just the youth but the economy at large. So when we do a kengtad conference and talk about finance, it goes down to the Mamamboga, you know. And then how the policies that the government is implementing affecting them, how the land rates are affecting landlords and thereafter the families that depend on these premises that have been set up with these landlords. So it's just a conversation starter. But the bigger plan is to be at a position where we are part of policy making, of course based on our interactions with the people on the ground. Looking at the people of the ground, what do you think we stand as a country in terms of development? We are headed there. Being a third world country, a developing country in that matter, there are things that come with it. Primarily in the entrepreneurial field? Yeah. So now we are seeing a lot of companies, mostly with Swahili names and they sound like they are Kenyan companies but they are not necessarily owned by Kenyans. A few months back we had a conversation that was going on whether Jumiya was a Kenyan African company or not. So I don't know if it is us that are not seeing the opportunities or if we are just more inclined towards being consumers of platforms but I think with the more conversations that we have, more and more youths because we see when there are more youths getting into manufacturing which is the one thing that has been lacking for the longest time. The problem is most of us want to do or create the next Facebook, the next Instagram or the next WhatsApp. These platforms are there but I think in as much as they speak to us even us guys need to now look at how can we create products that other people can relate with and sort of scale up. All right, when we began to mention you also began something, a company of the social? Social Media Africa Limited. Yes, yes. How sustainable was it back then compared to now? It was sustainable back in 2015 because that is when more companies were being open to the idea of having digital presence but now the problem is the market is saturated sort of. So not unless you have something that is very unique it's very hard to make it sustainable as a business and now the tricks goes back to when you're signing up a client are you making sure you have a longer contract because if you're just doing a month to month basis people sort of see what you're doing and they just copy paste and then you become useless at the point. Good, what do you need to consider when you're creating your brand? Okay, so at the end of the day it goes back to what you want people to remember you for. You as a company? You as a company and you as a person. So depending with because there are people who their personal brands are stronger than their businesses so the personal brand sort of carries the business and then there are companies that are bigger than the person behind it so it just depends with how you want people to know you. If you want people to have an understanding of who you are like for example if you were to say people will say I don't know if I'm allowed to say but they would say blue band is opposed to marjari because it has been embedded in the head that whatever you apply on bread is either blue band or jam forgetting that these are names of brands. The same way we say flask it's supposed to be a flask but people say thermos because ever since you're growing up they were being called thermos you forget that thermos is a name of a company so it's just understanding that you can embed your brand in people's mind so that they confuse your name for the product. What are some of the things that you look at in terms of your company because understand you're now working with 18 people what are some of the things that you look at in terms of values because a brand it's not just something that comes up overnight and you just kick off. In terms of hiring most of the people that we work with the young people some of them are even still students because we believe but unless you're dealing with heavy auditing and all that you need someone who has experience to do that but if I need someone to go and oversee our partner setting up a tent at an event I really don't need someone with 15 years experience so it's just the drive and the person understanding what we do and it's sort of just owning it some of the things we also do to keep them around is if we see you bringing value, you bringing clients we sort of give you a fraction of the company so you feel like you own whenever you're bringing in money you're also making money for yourself. Alright, you have mentioned your business model B2B What's all that talk about? The B2B now remember earlier when I was talking about the conference so we have open days that are general so we have anyone coming in but now the industry focused ones mostly business to business ideally like we were talking about asset finance then it means that this business wants to get this tractor this lorry for their business but they don't have the full amount upfront so the company that is giving them the car is also a business but now in between there is a bank that is financing it so at the end of the day it's businesses doing businesses with others Alright so it's just a matter of if we come together we can get network and you almost said someone else's slogan just now so that's how much branding goes into your life without you necessarily knowing Alright, so it's just a matter of coming up, have the best and saying it over and over so people think they're saying something from the head kumbe they're just saying what they see on TV and news papers Well when you begin you said something about the Kenya Enterprise that you guys have you don't by any chance write anything, it's what you receive So we are we call ourselves reliable corporate reporting platform So what these companies do is they send us information as it is based on how they want people who are either their investors so people have an interest in their product to know because sometimes you go to a company's website say if it's an e-commerce platform they can't do a lot of blogging or writing on it so they need a platform where if you want to follow this certain company what they are doing what their financial is for example you want to buy stocks and stuff or maybe you're looking to get employed or you want to see what the achievements they are doing even if you look at our site most of our readers are not in the Kenyan space there are people from outside looking to see what companies to come and invest in so the way they send it was is the way we publish so your brand is primarily focused on what you receive but not what you use necessarily do in terms of writing and the like let's now go back to the basics of the entire blog or rather the entire website it's your own how do you manage to get contents from the rest of the companies to just afford to you because I don't know whether we have any other company not that I know we have bloggers so people who would see say KBC or White Five for doing something and then they write based on their opinion right and then we have media houses so media houses we have editors who sort of go through what they do whatever you send them they have to edit it but you also realize that if it's a newspaper if it's too long it's going to eat up the advertising space so they need to cut it down advertising is not necessarily to remove content it's more of keeping the main content but in less awards and then you have people who just save their bloggers but there's no one other platform apart from ours that allows corporate to give information to the followers and to the readers and to the investors like ours what are some of the companies that probably post with you we have the Faricom we have Sport Pesa we have Buckleys so the way to get them sometimes is through their agencies and that's a hard question probably for some of you sitting there thinking like for you it's just happened how did you get to all this it doesn't so initially when we started we were a blog so we write stories on entrepreneurship but our readership was not where we wanted it to be so we did what is called pivoting pivoting is just tweaking your business model for it to make business sense so now what happens is we decided okay we're going to focus on corporate reporting because you realize there isn't much like if you wanted to read about a certain company you wouldn't know where to go and look so we started doing whatever we are doing for free just to get the numbers and to get the content so that when we were pitching people actually see that there's a platform that exists and then now after some time once our numbers hit in thousands in readership now it gave us a bargaining chip so we tell them look we'll write your content wherever you send us we'll publish but these are our packages wow so you already right now giving packages to other companies so when you come you either check a quarterly package a six months package or a yearly package on presumption how would it be if I came to you with my own company how much would it be we tend to shy away from saying numbers on a right estimation we tend to shy away from it you just come to the office I understand because most companies prefer you know to go like because if I tell the numbers it is a shock or the invite me because what we do is we show you value we come and we tell you over the last month we've had 500,000 people visit our website and it's not a sporting site it's not a social media site it's not a social site when you're coming there you're coming for business news so if 500,000 people are visiting the website and then we break down the demographics of the age where they're from then you see the value because numbers if I say a thousand shillings or if I say a million shillings it all goes back to how does it affect your bottom line as a company so you just come to the office and get to see how things go probably as we wind up human sharing your social media platforms and how we can get you so when you go to Google and just type the Kenyan entrepreneur we'll come as the first result on Facebook we have the Kenyan entrepreneur on Instagram we are Kenyan entrepreneur if you want to get in touch Kenyan please go ahead 0704 024 707 alright that's Sebastian him sir I have a question for you Sebastian that's our question for today I'd like to hear your answer the borrowing trend has become so much from up until the country we have so many apps that have been coming up what do you think about the borrowing trend in the country okay borrowing is not bad most companies that out here as multi-billion companies or multi-million companies have debts debt is not bad as long as you've borrowed for it to affect your bottom line and there's a plan to pay back but the problem with easy accessibility is sometimes because you'd go to a mobile lending app what you need at this moment is 5000 but you go and look at your limit it's 20,000 you're like oh this 15,000 I can do something else with it so you borrow without really having a plan so at the end of the day you are in deeper debt and whatever you borrowed for and then now paying back becomes an issue then you end up on CRB now you can't borrow again so what would be advice if you have a plan to use that money to make more money that has been Sebastian Gida I thought it was Gida but that has been Sebastian and it has been awesome to have him on board Barry Mo is coming up next and later on we'll be looking at some of the comments that you have been sending along the way this is Y254, my name is Karanja Alex