 Çok boa matiazangi vat aíu. Zub realmente,oda kwa kwa napewa. Kiyoka,zeb,bizini iyaidzia, Zub mouzaosa tiaesde. And tajianak nasatia nihaidi, Kwa tajianak mouzaosa, supojama nihaidi ligu kwa matiazangi Iwa icho yaw mwakini maidaimu kwa napihau nihaidi. Karibu sana kenya. Nuek mwakini kwa haja. Zub na mwakini kabita. Nubenu mwaku, Hata hikini. Nu kwa haja kaingili. Kenya Nito Baraka kubia MSia sales and emotional marketing expert also founder and chief cheerleader at i Entertainment Africa awesome that's great of course you can catch us of course uh on our social media platforms at Y254 of course on twitter and all the other social media platforms i will get straight to our interview of course with Kenyan Nito so who is Kenyan Nito Kenyan Nito Baraka is a relationship based sales and emotional marketing expert yes with an entrepreneurial mindset that saw a gap in the entertainment industry and decided to found an entertainment company together with two other friends so two other friends yes yes everyone was full and everything was getting good all right that's great back in high school back in high school yes that's where you began yeah so you began entrepreneurship while still in high school yeah what were you doing back then will you come with the mandazi okay it was an illegal business in school all right but we were selling chips pinpops lollypops all those things actually so we had a tough time with the management but all that we were doing not simply because we didn't have money or we didn't have food i can't lie about that but we were doing that simply to raise about 30 000 shillings to start the holdings company so all these you began because you were in need of capital yes yes yes and you do you manage to raise yeah but we didn't hit the 30 000 mark right 26 and then i talked to my dad my late dad and he gave me 5000 shillings so we did we started now the company every entrepreneur before they launch at the marketplace they are led by a particular gap that they see what gap is in the entertainment industry um as we put it our entertainment africa was found to tell the african story of love all right so the african story of love is the love for what you're doing right now all right your love for journalism yes the love of of an actor for the acting skill they want to gain the acting skill they want to gain mileage in the acting industry but then we realized um but that was back in high school in 2015 all right um our director was the senator right now for kakambe ga kwaunti kwa first malala and so uh he was busy whatever he will do was just to teach you to act up to a certain level which was high school and then once you're done with high school what next wait when do you live high school in 2016 2016 yes yes all right so how how did you begin all these in 2016 we did our first event yes and i entertainment africa that time it was not a holdings company we were just entertainment africa it was actually not even a company it was a businessman all right so we did our first event with the capital we raised about 31,026 from uh selling chips in mandazi and then 5k from my dad and then now the company started and picked from there uh our first event was a loss a big loss because we had uh matatus we had a track to do road shows for about three days right but at the end of it we got a thousand shillings just a thousand yes yes you made mega losses yeah out of a mega event yes yes how do you feel when you make a loss and yet you're anticipating for huge profit uh it's a setback uh actually because i had promised my dad that i will defend him the 5000 so it was a times two loss because of the dad yes and then on top of that we had a debt of about 41,000 shillings from the suppliers 10 seats chairs all those things total up to 41,000 so it was really a tough time and uh i remember going back to my dad my dad he's late um we lost him last month oh sorry for that yeah thank you so uh we i went to my dad and asked him dad i can't pay you the 5000 by the end uh because of we had a loss yes but he told me one thing in life you give what you can lose all right and so that that is that was it because now from that point onwards we started uh doing what we believed in that is telling the african story of love without looking at money without looking at anything else we were just looking at how do we tell the african story of love in the perfect way wait just to understand this yeah let's make this right for you it's not about money it's all about sharing love in the african continent yes yes how does that even narrow down any wearing a suit man um when you do what you love and you do it perfectly money will fall money will flow on your side wow that was amazing you were mentioned to me officer that mazel kwanga acting yes and even your co-founders also yeah yeah how did you then come on board just to see how you merge all these things and get now become a brand by yourself um in 2015 i was doing it alone all right um but we were doing shows we did actually two here at the kenya national theater one in phoenix it was so sad that phoenix was closed eventually yeah but then we did shows that is acting shows because i'm also a script writer all right so um later on i came to realize that now for me to do to do a play perfectly and present it in the theater i need someone who is going to paint these models someone who is going to paint the actors and so now i went in search for a painter i realized i'm not that good in acting all right i'm good in scripting all right but then there's this colleague of mine who is good in scripting and he's he's good in acting and he's not good in scripting all right so that is edwin wafoola and so now i went to him and asked him i'm thinking we can do this and so now together we teamed up we started actually sending dms to all these uh companies looking for a partnership that is so it when you mentioned partnership how was the reception why you were you really accommodated into it and being given the partnership no no you can see i'm tiny uh so that is a major issue that we deal with because uh when you go to for instance we we are doing and uh uh some a project called fashion in the wild yes we have been doing it for the last one year i don't want to mention media houses the names of media houses but i can say we approached dozens of media houses all right up to the last minute no media house uh much easier all right but now up to the last minute no media house had come in but then one day to the event i'm telling you every media house was making a call we want to partner we want to partner but then now we decided let's go with the people who believed in our dream first that was y254 and kutv awesome let me ask yes i don't want to ask your age on air but do you think your age hinders you to access some of the places that you wish to to access it used to right now it's it's not a big challenge because at least now we have established some connections within the uh marketing space because that that is the uh when we go to a company like coca cola airtel for instance we normally engage with marketing managers brand managers those are the people we deal with and so far we've been we've established some rapport with them they've seen our our ability to deliver and so now it's it's not a big challenge but it's still a challenge right when someone doesn't know you because they look at you you're tiny you're telling them you you're a founder in a company someone will just look at you hey wait okuna dem let me start yeah yeah yeah all this time i like one of ya manzana kwen courage all the way through to this point i am see the same all this time to me but i'm a bad guy all right but she has really been supportive very supportive very supportive all right let me go probably and ask failure is inevitable in the market place and especially in the entertainment industry what are some of the challenges and failures that you went through or rather you're still going through in this time i can see the biggest challenge for an entrepreneur especially when you're young yes is getting started that is it because every time you'll keep on postponing what let me let me let me first find a job that is paying me do this do this but then we were we're realizing something as a company that now millennials millennials are changing the workplace because now someone young is not just looking for a job that is changing someone young is looking for number one a good boss someone who is going to encourage them to pursue their dreams this person is not looking for pension anymore as it used to be this person is this person is looking for passion yes this person is looking for purpose that whatever i'm doing right now i feel it and i love it all right have you employed people persons in your company right now uh we have 16 employees and about 65 models just one question for you yes there's these uh uh there's these analogy or other it's it's there that the customer is always right how do you take that yes the customer is always right yes as i from a marketing perspective definitely because for me to to speak to you for instance uh i have to speak in your language sure sure i can't if i was speaking japanese right now you're holding here definitely yes so i have to learn to speak english that is your language so i have to learn my customers need first for me to be able to deliver to them whatever they really want so you motivate your workers yes yes to give the clients not my workers we don't call them workers you call them uh at entertainment afrika we say we are pride of lions wow all right all right so you motivate them yes yes to ensure that they serve their clients to the best yeah do you think money is a motivation of factor to them yeah definitely so you pay them well yes by there i hope you are watching wherever you are so the founder is here nana jum nali panguapua so just due to nana kandama nini anyway that's that's amazing uh where does your motivation come from my motivation comes from every morning when i wake up i realize it's not just about kenyan ito baraka sure it's about the people who believe in their dreams and i believe in their dreams too the people who have told now you're a model come to our entertainment afrika we're going to brand you we're going to give you all the mileage and you're going to be a top model in kenya awesome so that that that is what motivates me at the end of the day realizing that i have a mom i have a late dad to make proud i have a sister i have a girlfriend all that motivates me how old is your sister my sister is just asking four years older than me four years older than you yes so that's nice you know when you told me your age i was like bhebe kwanimina fanyanganini you know i was like i need to do these things but it's not about age that's what you say it's not about age it's all about the entrepreneurship that is in you yeah and we're all in different time zones yes so i might be doing this uh whatever you're doing wherever you are it's it's it's also okay as long as you in your time zone and you're going that is it there's something you mentioned about passion i want to ask you passion and career you go to your parents and tell them bhebe i want to be a dj i want to be a dj and parents are like bhebe wezikwa dj uku uku wezik how what what do you think about that just stand firm in from one from two from three my dad and my mom didn't want to hear anything about acting right now i can see they're best friends because of the entertainment company uh my dad gave me money to start the entertainment company because he saw this guy is not just wasting time he really believes in his dream and he wants to go for it yes so you're four years already as i entertainment where do you see yourself in the next few years uh we see ourselves being the first entertainment company in africa to go public right that is our our five-year goal we have actually we have a vision called the Ayuvishon 2024 yes yes so you are aiming to hit african the next five years yes that's your main plan yeah and probably what what what what do you think you have brought on board for the entertainment industry what do you do you think you have brought on board uh number the first new thing is telling the african story of love in a classic way all right because uh you find that the african look at this film for Why do we have to wait for some mzungu to come to Kenya, record, massize dancing, post it on YouTube, get money, put ads on the YouTube channel, get paid and we are still here. That is it. That promise to me to ask you this question. Do you think when we talk about a plane or other abad, when it's soaring high, when it's going upwards, it really has its wings flipping out of the way up. One imefika ju, once imefika ju, starts there, so we come and collected. My question is very simple to you. Do you think young people we are afraid of launching out? Yes, yes. Most young people are. Because every Wednesday, as an entertainment Africa, what we do is bring on board people who want to start businesses, young people. Because all my co-founders are young and the person we actually teamed up, we have a sister company called we create media limited. So the person we teamed up from we create media limited is also a young person. Our mentor is the former head of visibility for Airtel in Africa. He is called Chendendeti Onza Company called Goto Market Africa. He is our mentor. So he is also quite a young person. He understands that now we need to bring on board young people. So the three companies what we do every Wednesday is we bring on board young entrepreneurs and we coach them and we also try to get to understand their challenges and give our input wherever we can. You are a student. What are you taking there? Tourism and marketing. So how do you expect too much entertainment when you are coming on board with tourism and management? I can say being an entrepreneur is not about whatever course you are doing. Being an entrepreneur is about leadership. That is the basic thing. Leadership. I attend leadership classes. My teammates do attend leadership classes and that is the first thing. That is the common denominator. So going now to Zitek to study tourism and marketing. That marketing element helped me to move from earning 1000 in an event to bringing this company to be a media enterprise in three years. So that is why I took marketing. Right now we are talking about unemployment in the country. It is quite a great manace. Do you think there is something that really needs to be done for us to try and solve this manace of unemployment in the country? What do you think should be done? Young people should think outside that. It is not about the idea. It is never about the idea. You can have an amazing idea but if your execution is wrong that is it. Awesome. So if you are young and you are in a position to venture out and start something, start it as soon as possible. Forget about the idea. You can have a perfect idea. Wait for even 30 years. The idea will be great but then if you don't do it early it will take time. Look at for instance Warren Buffett and his company Bakusha. It took so many years to get where it is. Amazon. So many years to get where it is. Steve Jobs, the late Apple took some years to get where it is right now. So I think it is about young people in Kenya. Stop thinking. I am not saying don't look for jobs because I also want people to look for jobs within our company. But then just make sure that you are following your passion. And if you follow your passion well you are going to. Let me ask you don't go. There is something about believing in yourself when you are launching out. If you cannot believe in yourself no one can believe in you. Do you think you had enough capacity within yourself to say that now I need to launch out? I can't say I had enough because I always kept on getting motivation from people, motivation from colleagues, motivation from my parents. You have to get motivation. You have to get people to believe in you. So you can't do it alone. This is your Instagram page. I am looking at this picture particularly for this young lady. You did even the modeling itself, the art. There is someone called Innocento Ngutu. He is also a co-founder does that. Alright. That looks so amazing. You have done something about 7 steps to become a successful model. What I didn't mention entertainment Africa is a holding company. A holding company is a company that basically in real sense does nothing. In real sense a holding company does nothing. It just holds shares in companies related to it. So whatever now we do for that especially that about models we acquired shares in a company called I create Africa. So I create Africa is a modeling agency. So that is why you will see a lot of models here. This looks so amazing. How many companies are you affiliated to? We have 4 companies right now. So you together you merge and you do all this stuff. I say something about Mother's Day. So you still do the same? Mother's Day was we were doing something for fashion in the wild. Fashion in the wild Africa is our company that we started and fortunately fashion in the wild has been able to go Africa in the whole continent. As you can see this first the 2 photos the 3 last photos. Those ones are from an event we did on 30th March. So we actually had Takenya present, Zittek University present, Y254 was represented. We had NHIF present. We had many companies and it was an African thing the whole continent. I'm seeing something here. I'm seeing something about children's home. So you still do the visits? We have a foundation called Icare Africa foundation. This is our head of CSR. She's called Kelsey Wangari. So she's holding a baby when we were doing something called the kids festival. So it's giving love and showing love in African way? Yes. I love that. I'm loving it because it's the way we lead. We need to nurture ourselves even as young people. Whether to seek a new mentality or to put to a job not to get to find a killer kid. We need to be job creators. We need to come up with these jobs. What would you think about the marketplace and right now with what you're doing? Do you think is Kenya ready for these? Are we really ready for all these at once? If we are making money paying bills, Kenya is very ready. Kenya is very ready for making money? Yes, yes. Why? Okay, so I saw a mercy. I'm loving it because when we were taking off and you said something that really probably brought my mind to your attention. Like I'm not so much into some other things that don't make sense. I'm so much into what to me makes sense. So to you your company is about what to you makes sense? Not what to me makes sense. I believe I speak for the majority. That is for the youth in Kenya who wants to venture out but they still don't want to venture out. So I believe I speak for that person and by me speaking for that person I have to do what I feel is right. A skill of leadership is your intuition, whatever you feel. So sometimes you won't be told or you won't read somewhere that you need to talk to this colleague of yours to maybe change their behavior or do something or change their approach in something but your intuition will have to tell you and you'll have to go with it. You mentioned something about leadership. Yes. You are a leader by yourself, you told me at Arilan. What do you think needs to be done in terms of leadership? Do we in Africa have people who really inspires in terms of leadership leadership parties? I can mention someone called Esther Mwaneke. She is the CEO of Lapid Leaders Africa. It's where I schooled a leadership course. That is in 2017. I went for a leadership course there. Esther is the representation. She was working previously in PWC and then now she came back to Kenya and now started a leadership school. I believe such schools, his parents don't just take your kid to from one, from two, from three, from four, they are done. That is it. You tell them now, go to uni. They go to uni or college or wherever and then now you tell them look for a job. The world is changing. Right now you need to take people to leadership skills. When you're also in leadership, you have to keep on attending leadership. It's a skill that you gain slowly. I know five years from now I won't be the same type of person I am because of such leadership. That's amazing. Let me ask you because our time is running out. Let me ask about steve typing. Onananga place or rather you have been a victim, some of your friends in the industry have been victims. Do you think you've been victims of steve typing? Where by you find like, whether it's in your mentality or whether it's DJ. What do you think about that? I work with 65 models and we actually outsource sometimes whenever we want to use more. These are good people. Different in their own way but they are good. Before we go to them, have we been a victim? Myself no? But I'm explaining now from a perspective where I work with models. They talk about models, they talk about them or I can't date a model because of this and this and this and this and this. At the end of the day it's not about the career they are pursuing. It's about they themselves. People are different. You can find which career they say is good. A banker for instance. An accountant you know? An accountant or whichever but this person is not your type. So simply don't just judge based on this person is this so I can't do this. That's so cool. But when I'm trying to look at the stereotypes there's that notion of kuna wana elementality ima kwa kridayina especially in our generation. If you find someone in the especially in the secular world kuna elementality umsi siwazi kwa kwa tunasaidha sozake na chinia maji na fanya witu zingene. However probably come across such kind of people whereby you work with them in terms of mentorship and you work them out. Who have been victims of the stereotypes? People who have been victims. Most of my models are victims. So how do you help them as a leader? You tell them people are different simply because a person says you're a model it can't work out or something it simply does not make you a lesser person. That is it. You just have to believe in yourself. What do you want to young people or the young upcoming entrepreneurs looking at you probably from home and they're like man I want to launch out I want to be somewhere like this guy you know like Baraka I want to get to this particular place. What's your word to them? So much has been said so much will be in blogs but I'll just tell you one thing. Start now. Simple and precise start now. You'll learn along the way. That's a good one. Start now you'll learn along the way because still it's a journey into it. Kenyan a heated person that you believe can help me grow? I can say I can mention many it's not one unfortunately. Like how many do you have? There is the CEO of Recreate Media, it's called Sudi Ali there is the CEO of Go To Market Africa, it's called Chendendeti, there is my dad my late dad, there is my mom Let me ask. Ya my dad was an entrepreneur actually in Bungoma there is a company called Mayanja Agro Ventures. So it is his company it deals in agriculture supplies. Alright so it narrows down all the way to you now. Narrows down all the way to you because if the father was an entrepreneur you come as an entrepreneur. My sister is also an entrepreneur she owns a company called Mawas Kakes another one called Kitchen Bloom. So all of you guys are like entrepreneurs at house? Ya ya we are entrepreneurs we have an entrepreneurial mindset. What are some of the challenges you think are hitting most of the people in the marketplace? Number one being young simple because you don't have experience truth be told even if you go somewhere and they tell you don't have experience you know you don't have experience Number two I can see it's being in a position where you don't know people because the most let me say the most productive form of marketing is not even TV is not social media the most productive form of marketing is the word of mouth when I'm talking to you face to face that is the most productive form of marketing and if I don't know you how will I talk to you if someone a young person wants to start a company but they don't know the CEO in X company how will they start out that is it. So for you it's just very simple that start now you learn as you go. Those are the words of course from our guest for the day of course he's called Kenyan Nito and it's great to have young entrepreneurs on board who are really growing and as I said as I began the economy of which in every country and these are such kind of people that we need to be having of course Jenes in just a few for now we take a short break