 that you should always take care of and of course during the time of COVID-19 during the first way that is in 2020 most people ended up shifting their business to online so that means that we are all on our screens how healthy was that and what can you do differently and if you're in a position whereby you feel that mumboyendi sour when it comes to your eyes this is a conversation that you should stick around for the studio I'm joined with Roselyne Killonzo she is expansion manager for Light Pair East Africa we're looking at a venture when it comes to eyewear yes eyewear business venture so stay locked remember across all the social media handles that is at Y254 channel at Michelle Ashira is why you can find me across all my social Roselyne Killonzo thank you for creating time to be with us today thank you for having me yes I don't mention your title but let's go deep to understanding who Roselyne Killonzo who she is what she does in details what she was born and bred so let's start from there well a very good place to start yes yeah Roselyne Killonzo expansion manager for Light Pair East Africa basically my job at Light Pair involves expanding to new territories opening up new stores new new locations so far I have led the expansion into Uganda we have five branches now in Uganda and we have three branches in Kenya and we'll be doing more expansion within the year opening more branches all across Kenya born I was born in Kitui okay so it was also a place to start I was born in Kitui I went to University of Nairobi School of Business and I joined Light Pair immediately out of college yes all right so at what particular point did you get into the the eyewear business space in your whole life Jenny that's actually a good question actually so growing up one of my relatives my great grandma she had diabetes or at least what we came to learn was diabetes a bit later on so she lost her vision to Ali if I may say that and so when I was in college I came across Light Pair through a function that they were doing in our school and I was intrigued by what they were doing by what they were offering offering the free eye test for people who needed it free consultation for people who did not know much about their eyes and they wanted to learn and affordable eyeglasses and that's how I got into the eye care business because I wanted to know more I wanted to know more because some of these problems can be genetic and I just wanted to know if it gets to that point what do I need to do if it's me or if it's another member of my family yes okay and then that's when the whole journey began that's when the whole journey began basically yeah all right most people share your way especially when there's this open open air of free medical checkups yes they feel it's a scam or something of the sort and they share you from that what would you say from that perspective right I mean I do understand where they're coming from because people don't trust free things you know but at the end of the day you have to remember you know what you what you want for yourself if you want to be educated about your eyes if you want to know more about your health it's good to take advantage of these opportunities when they come up when you hear of free you know cervical cancer screening free pap smears we go for these things because we know that they're important to us so why not take advantage of a free eye checkup when you know because eyes are very important you know they're the window to the soul and if you have that opportunity to get your eyes screened for free be advised by a professional on what you need to do so what are the eye care tips that you need to follow I think it's important that we take advantage of it so for anyone who is watching us and they feel like you know there's these people have different condition it comes to the eyes not even getting to the medical aspect of the first because you know medical experts so what a couple of the wrong things that we do when it comes to just getting the proper eyewear or what is the the right procedure just to identify that this particular eyeglass it goes for me right so something that people really shouldn't do is buying eyeglasses of the counter we do that exactly that happens a lot especially for people who need like reading glasses they just go by the street you find some magnifying glasses this is the conversation that is there they tell this is for short sighted this is for people who cared it's short-sighted and long-sighted long-sighted so I feel like I'm short-sighted so I can see facts that it is yeah that is wrong that is wrong that is really wrong because if you end up with a prescription that is not meant for you whether it's too low or it's too high it could actually cause problems eventually with your eyes so buying glasses of the counter without actually having done a checkup and understanding the kind of prescription that you need is wrong it's not good you need to go see a doctor you see an optometrist an optician an ophthalmologist to do an eye checkup first to to assess like the kind of prescription that you need for your glasses to give you something that is perfect for you is going to help you see for without straining your eyes too much so that's something that people really shouldn't do buying prescription glasses of the counter it's not right the other thing there's a lot of misconceptions about people who wear eyeglasses there's a misconception that oh they are sick or they are old or you know there's a lot of things that go on about people who wear glasses but what I can say is that you don't have to wear glasses just because you're sick some people wear glasses for preventive measures for people who use computers for example for long hours they're exposed a lot to you know the blue light coming off the screens and so they wear glasses blue lights blocking lenses to help them be able to work comfortably on their computers for long hours yes so it's not just because you're sick you know you could have like really good vision or normal vision but you use your computer a lot or you are sensitive to light sunlight for example and so you need glasses to help you with that problem if someone is trying to just protect their eyes from dust would you go for glasses it's one way to go about it it's one way to go about it if you have a dust allergy yes there's a couple of growth that actually develop from dust allergies yes yes yeah no yeah like I said it's one way to go about but the best way again I'll go back to consult your eye care professional yes don't just sit and just assume by the way what I'm feeling is because of the dust yeah because of the sun just it could be something like there's so many you know symptoms you know that are kind of eye especially for allergies you might think it's one allergy well it's the other so the best thing is just to see an eye care professional to get proper advice I'm speaking about seeking an eye profession who is the right one because there's so many medical centers that are opened up and of course with our economy finances are also key issue but of course health should be a priority but how to identify that the right eye care to go to what are the couple things that maybe you can mention being in there in the industry that you can actually put the aspect of credibility life this is the institution what to look out for when it comes to just a surety that I am going for you know the right eye center place to just you know get me checked up get the correct eyeglasses right I believe it's about the person who is doing the test okay you know there's a lot of apprenticeship situations that happen a lot where someone who does not necessarily have background you know in eye care they kind of just get trained and they know how to do the test and they can you know they can do the test and prescribe the glasses to you you need to be able to know who's doing your checkup right is it a professionally trained optometrist an ophthalmologist like who is doing the checkup I think that's where you start because you want the person who's dealing with your eyes to be a professional and you know what they are doing and to be able to assess to you know help with whatever problems is what you have being the eyes yes so it comes to the campaign that you work with Laipia East Africa take us through in details what you guys do and the services that you provide good so Laipia group basically we have we have presents not just in East Africa but also in East Africa in about seven different countries in Africa and so what we offer because we believe everyone should be able to see well believe everyone should have access to affordable eye care and that's what we offer so we conduct free vision tests that means the eye checkup we conduct it for free and anyone who need glasses they can get them from us starting from Kenya she links that 3400 right so 3400 in this case would cover the frame and the prescription with antiglial lenses right and that is a full package so for 3400 you have yourself a full package if you're suffering before 3400 you're good you're certain another thing we offer as well is free delivery around Nairobi and we offer flexible payments one of the one of the biggest problems that people have at the moment in terms of access to eye care is that it's expensive so we take away the consultation fee by doing the free vision test and we offer the flexible payments which means someone can still have good eye care while they are paying you know in small installments for their glasses for someone who's watching this conversation and they want to let's look at the business side of it now so they want to start their own eyeglass probably a prescription business or eye eyewear business what is the ways to go around it right um you'll help you'll help LaPierre to expand for anyone who wants to get into the eyewear business probably just take the same journey that you guys are taking uh what would be the like uh on the drawing board right how would it look like the first thing you need to do is understand your target market right you need to understand who are you targeting because um as in any other industry basically there's different levels of the sort of the people you target it can be the low income anas the middle income anas high end you know you know high level income anas and so on so you have to understand the what what audience are you targeting and then from that you'll make sure that you are offering a product that is um that will interest your target audience because there's no way you're going to say that you're targeting low and middle income anas while you're offering glasses for 30 000 or 50 000 oh and it's going to buy that right exactly so you need to be able to understand your target audience and then offer them a product that they will appreciate that adds value into their life yeah what's the marketing strategy to increase in sales marketing strategy to increase in sales in this particular industry well the good thing with LaPierre is we target pretty much everyone because our glasses are really affordable so everyone over the age of 10 um is a customer to us and so uh what we do is um ensure that we're reaching out to these people our potential customers through all different channels we have very active digital um advertising um platform uh we do a lot of our you know advertising online social customers through social media through our websites um in addition to that we're also doing a lot of offline actions um we are currently in the process of organizing um community talks where we go to people groups of people uh it's more of an educative platform where we from them above their eyes uh what are some of the common eye problems what are um the symptoms how to address them and so on do you need a challenge when it comes to the young people wearing glasses because um they I feel like there's a stigma for a young person to just being recognized as person A who has eye problems and you can ruin your self-esteem do you guys do like a design uh for um there's a time that um I was having a conversation with a lady and uh I all this time uh she's a colleague all this time I thought she had uh like it was a fashion or kind of thing right yeah she ended up telling me that it's actually uh prescription prescription glasses yeah so is it a way that it can be you know different eyewear that can be designed to fit young people so that they can feel you know confident that just getting rid of the stigma of the idea right um I mean people are becoming really innovative with um the styles and the shapes of frames um and like the example that you just gave it's possible that someone has been wearing glasses someone you live has been wearing glasses um but you do not know whether they're prescription glasses because of the the type of frame that they have the shape of the frame that they have so it's becoming more and more fashionable as time goes by so um and we we have a wide collection of you know frames at La Pea some of the frames uh you know like you say you might wear them and you won't know if this person is actually wearing them for fashion or actually suffers from eye problems so um all I can say is that yeah the the designs of the frames are growing um there is that stigma that you mentioned earlier among young people but I think as time goes by people are also learning um and and being informed more about eyes and understanding that this person is not not wearing that just to show off or something like that is actually because they have an actual problem for students for example in high school in colleges uh universities they might um it actually affects your studies if your vision is not good like you could actually see as a student who is performing lower not because they're not getting what's happening in class but that's because their vision is reduced and therefore it's affecting um their learning all right so what kind of lens is cut into should one go for lens cutting yeah so there's different types of lens cuttings and usually depends on the kind of problem that someone has the first lens cutting is anti-glare um it's an anti-glare cutting so with anti-glare basically it helps reduce um reflections on surfaces um and usually for people who use computers not for long periods of time um but they can help with reducing that glare from your computer screen and makes it a bit comfortable for people to use um their computer another another one that I saw isn't necessarily a cutting um but it's an addition on the lens is called photochromic uh photochromatic lenses and what it does is that um it usually tints when you're outside you know during the day and then when you're indoors it's clear so that uh it really tints because of the exposure from um uh UV rays from the sun and it's meant to help people with photosensitivity people who are affected a lot by light um to just make it a bit easier for them so that's why it tints when you're outside and then it's clear when you're indoors and then we have uh blue light blocking lenses that are supposed to help filter out the blue light that is emitted by screens, phones, TVs, computers um again for people who are not using computers for like long hours um in a day uh it filters out that blue light and makes it more comfortable to use the computer. All right how do I know that like the uh which lens material to choose or to go for? That one now is according to the advice given you by your ikea professional. Oh so I'll see you all to uh over the counter to a channel over the counter so when you look at the let's go back let me take you back to now the business aspect of it now okay so here I am I am ready to get into the eyewear industry so I have my finances in order and I know my target audience as well so where to start from when it comes to getting your products right um this is basically me giving a little secret I feel like okay and so you have to identify your suppliers right so the suppliers that you need in this case you need someone to supply you with the frames and you need someone to supply you with the lenses okay right I am not going to name names I'm not going to name names but you need somewhere you need to find a place where you can source your frames and your lenses um if you're lucky you might actually find a place where you can source both both frames and the lenses which is a bit rare um but yeah so that's where you start um and then uh of course you you compare between several suppliers depending on your target audience and how much you want to charge for your for your glasses but that's basically where you start what would you say how did you guys cut a niche for yourselves um when we started at at Lapea we were doing a mobile clinic um so that was our thing like we would go to companies we'd go to schools anywhere where there was a gathering of people and we would conduct the free vision test on site and uh we used to move around with the machines that we're using with the frames that people could select from and that was it so we would test people uh make the glasses for them and deliver back to where we tested them that's how we started off um but then of course that model of doing business had its own challenges so we moved on to the drive to store model which is where we are at the moment and uh you know we that's why we're opening more in more stores to be able to to reach different people to come closer to the people um so that they don't have to go more than 30 minutes to get the eye care that they need for how long have you been in existence and how many are where you guys located right um Lapea was formed in 2018 yeah so we're turning uh for this year yay um and then uh the locations that we have in Kenya in Nairobi currently we have uh three branches we have a branch in westlands on Raptor Road we have another branch in um uh CBD on Banda Street just opposite nation center and then we have another branch in Reisambu um along Kamitiro just near TRM all right yes okay you know on a broader spectrum now when it comes to any business from different industry uh from where you're seated at what particular point as a business owner or someone is running a business I identify that it's time for for growth for us to expand and open different branches because I feel like it can also be a uh a sort of fear of the unknown there could be a fear of unknown for any person who's running a business because you don't know what will happen things are going well right now where we are but I feel it's time for expansion I am not sure so at what particular point do we know that it's time to move and actually uh expand on our weeks they just grow right yeah I mean there's always that fear you know the fear of the unknown because you don't know if you open all these branches actually going to perform well but at some point you have to take a risk you have to take a risk and decide on what you want um do you want to maintain your one store where you're seeing you know uh I don't know like 30 customers a day and or something like that or do you want to go for something more and it also depends on sort of the the the mission of the company as well of course the finances have to back it up like you need to make sure that you have the finances that you need to be able to expand right um but like I said it also depends on the the core mission of the company and for us is to make eyeglasses accessible to everyone um in Africa um and that's why we decided on expanding and because we know um that the kind of product that we're offering is a product that is desperately needed by the people um and so yeah that's that's sort of where we started we started on uh understanding first of all what we want to offer uh backed it up with the finances and then uh we took the risk yes what a couple of challenges that one should expect when starting off challenges yes right awareness especially in the eye care industry um there is uh there's a lot that needs to be done in terms of awareness on eyes on vision on sight on all that um that is currently not enough they still those you know misconceptions about eye care people not wanting uh intentional not wanting to seek eye care because they think uh if I go there they're just going to prescribe me glasses but maybe that's what you need maybe you need glasses to be able to help you see better so at the moment I would say it's uh it's awareness on eye care okay more what about the brand awareness perspective uh I mean yeah for sure that is also part of it yeah it's also part of it uh and when you start especially starting up in an industry that is uh as saturated as the eye care industry in Kenya there's so many optical shops so many uh different brands that are offering pretty much the same service that we're offering so to penetrate that market and become known and for people to feel your customers to actually trust you enough that they can refer other people and they can come back uh it takes a lot all right just a run up now yeah so what are the costs involved in opening let's say uh like a glasses store now yes I already found I found my my person who's going to give me the the lens my right yeah so my suppliers I already got him so let's run the cost of every day like what are the costs involved in opening like now a glass store now uh now a store yeah right so of course you have to find the perfect location um somewhere where your customers will be able to see uh to access you so you have to find the perfect location and then identify a shop so uh it starts with of course paying the rent uh it starts with paying the rent and then um you have your uh the machines that you're using for the checkup um those are very important because they are the core of the business um and then after that now you have to measure that you have a team you have an optometrist someone who's going to be doing the checkups in your store uh you have a few sales people customer service representatives um and then yeah you start setting up your shop you buy your furniture of course depending on the kind of you know aesthetics you want for your shop um yeah so you get uh you get your location you get your team you get your machines you set up the shop yeah so um let's look at different ways you can make the business more profitable I know we've looked into the aspect of marketing and they're also from an angle of awareness okay so um just to increase on the leads now that results into sales right so what are the couple of ways that we can take up just to to be more profitable okay um I think I mentioned this earlier uh about digital advertising um yeah exactly it's something that is uh well quite popular now in Kenya um and uh there's a lot of people using social media and they're exposed to our kinds of information so why not throw yourself in there you know um inform people about what you're doing try to boost some of your posts that you do online to be able to reach even a wider audience um that's the first thing the other thing um is of course offering a good service because when you offer a good service then you get repeat customers you get uh customers referring you um to their friends and family members exactly referrals yeah word of mouth referrals very very helpful in any business um exactly and then yeah other than that the other thing is uh forming partnerships um partnerships are you know a very core a very important uh you know aspect of business because um then uh if you consider the perfect partnership of a sort of um a win-win situation um with companies with NGOs with schools uh where they send their people to you uh and then you know you offer something in return yes and that's why you get most of your leads pretty much yes no you've got to give us a secret i'm afraid so i'm afraid so uh let's look at uh so you can actually show us that you know the eye uh the eyewear venture sector it's actually profitable it is just depends on how you run your business but it is profitable okay so let's look at a couple of financial lessons that you've learned along the way when working with uh lapia estafica uh right some of the financial lessons this is very interesting um give us top let's go with top three top three yes wow i thought i only had to give the one right uh when it comes to finance oh boy i'm i'm really trying my best here to come up with like something but let's go with whatever comes whatever comes to mind okay well when it comes to finance it's very good to have a budget and try as much as possible to stick to your budget um you always um is anyone you always tempted to go big um if you have the money or if you don't have the money try to compromise on a few things but it's important not to compromise when it comes to finance to not to compromise on the things that are important you understand um it's important to make sure that uh you're not compromising on the service that you're offering to your customers just because of the finances i think that's probably what i can say about finance yeah so quality is also quite important it's really important it's really important all as you wind up do you believe in uh any person who wants to start a business to have a business plan i've had a conversation with a couple of uh uh entrepreneurs who say that they started they didn't have a business plan but things just you know uh flowed along the way for them so i just wanted to get it from your perspective right hey look it's good to have a business plan it's good to have a business plan um you can really plan all you want but personally i just believe in diving in and learning as you go but that's me there's a lot of uh you know evidence that would back up business plans so i'm not saying that they're not good they're definitely good so do a business plan understand what you're offering uh but for for me i kind of just dive in and uh and i learn as i move on all right yes so i was laying earlier on you mentioned one of the ways that you uh you can increase uh uh the aspect of leads and profitability in a business through collaboration right yeah give us one tip when it comes to negotiation make sure you're winning make sure you're winning yes exactly that's that's what i was expecting a lot something super detailed what i had mentioned earlier is the the kind of partnership so anyone who's getting into a partnership they want to have the upper hand they want to make sure that they're they're getting something out of it right um and there's a lot there's a lot of compromise of course but at the end of the day you don't want to enter into something that is going to be profitable for you you want something that is um actually has potential and is going to to benefit your business and that's why i said make sure that you're winning make sure that you're winning yes yeah so it falls back on to you and i to go back to the strategy and come up with a strategy pretty much yes make sure that you're winning yes thank you very much Rosalind for creating time to be with us thank you all right and if anyone who is watching this conversation and they want to reach out to you to work with you in any way just to get further information how can they reach out to you right um you can reach out to me through my phone number which is uh 0701 311786 0701 311786 um through that uh we'll be able to talk okay website social media right so uh the Lapea social media uh instagram facebook twitter it's Lapea.ke Lapea.ke you'll be able to go there see the kind of services that we're offering and chat with that representative from Lapea um our website is www.lapeaglasses.com Lapea is spelled L-A-P-A-I-R-E because i know people usually have a problem with spelling um the the word okay and the location is i think that is also important exactly yeah so uh locations um in Nairobi we are based in uh we have a branch in westlands on Raptor Road SK offices um and then we have another branch um in Nairobi CBD just um opposite nation center on Bandar street and the third location um is on committee road royal plaza um just near the quick mat in Rissambu all right thank you very much Roselyn for creating time to be with us once again thank you all right so that's Roselyn Killon so she's the expansion manager for Lapea East Africa we were looking at what it takes when it comes to running an eyewear venture remember to keep the conversation going at Y2P for channel is where you can find us across all our social at michelle as she writes where you can find me across my social be right back with so much for your