 back to why in the morning if it's Tuesday it's entrepreneurship Tuesday at Y254 channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle Ashira is where you can find me across all my social in this particular session we dive into an interview that looks at renewable energy and in studio I am joined by Mark Kinguru who is the founder of Buddy system right thank you very much for creating time to be with us thank you for having me how you doing I'm doing well so telling us of tell us more about what your business is solving in the market in the space of energy sector so our business is aimed at providing renewable energy and making it available where the grid is not present because energy is not at the energy demand is not enough in Kenya what Kenya provides is not sufficient so we look into making that energy readily available and also making it cheap okay so I like the fact that you've mentioned the fact that we need to ensure that other you know other options apart from just power they're actually cheap but when you look at solar energy it's yes it is cheap but it's quite expensive when it comes to the initial acquiring or probably the solar panel so how can you ensure that we get to use solar energy well first of all one thing that we can do is that we can introduce a system whereby the community can come together for example in a village and you know decide to contribute towards building once once centralized system that can be used by people in a certain locality okay so how did you start the business let's let's let's go back to you know the initial point how did how did the body system all began how did it start well body systems was founded in 2015 myself and a friend of mine came together and we decided to register a company and once we did we did get business ideas immediately so we stayed just with the name for a while and then later on I came to we came to identify a gap a gap in the market so we decided that maybe we can start providing energy yes that's how and what is the market so we have other companies that offer probably same services that body system does so what is the issue the market what makes you unique I would say workmanship you're very professional we are licensed we do very good work first of all when we get a customer it's not all about selling a product to the customer we go to the customer we educate the customer we do the site survey so we're sure when we are sizing the system we're giving them what is going to suit to meet their need so our site survey is both educational and also serves in you know sizing the system according to how the client needs it okay mark someone is watching this conversation and they want to get into the energy sector probably provide the same sort of services of different when it comes to renewable energy what does it take to to run this kind of a business and what educational background does we need to have well first of all I would say it requires passion passion comes first and then of course you need to have a technical background I am a strong champion for TVET because TVET is a vehicle for sustainable development and it's also a vehicle for social equity so you need to have interest for hands-on hands-on jobs you need to have a technical background and then you need to have the passion so and how does solar impact like my property value from a client and I'm looking at renewable energy solution and solar panel as one of my options well first of all there are so many advantages of solar energy one it is renewable you get it today you get it tomorrow as long as the sun is shining second it is diverse it has diverse applications you can use water solar to pump water to heat to heat water to generate electricity and then solar has very minimum maintenance cost once you install solar you only need to maybe do cleaning of panels once in a while and there are no other costs that are alright let me take a look at that we mentioned that solar energy it's it's an affordable way to to incorporate probably this renewable energy compared to Kenya powers it mentioned earlier all let's look at we said it's quite expensive when it comes to the initial acquisition so how can we go about we're even going about cheaper ways how to acquire it let's look at financial solutions are there are loans that can be are there to actually have clients or potential clients to acquire them well first of all I think you can start building a solar system they are scalable systems you don't have to to build a big system from the wardrobe you can start with a small system and you know go as an incremental plan but they are microfinance institutions that provide loans and even directed towards the growth of solar from where you seated how can you advice like a potential client who is looking forward to meeting up on a with a solar install how can you ensure that they are credible and certified and not get duped well first of all if you wish to engage someone to build a solar system for you there are people who will tell you will size the system for you even before they have seen you demand or what what you need to use a solar system for you need to conduct a site service so first of all if someone is sizing for your system that they have not seen then you know that is not a qualified person second you need even to check the academic background are they licensed what is the whole projects have they done they need to show you their previous projects and definitely you will not you will not it's it's possible to tell you someone is not qualified even when you interact with them right let's look at the services that your company offers in details because I looked at your portfolio you guys offer a couple of services it's not just solar energy and there's a couple of that so take us through the services in details well as I mentioned I come from a diverse technical background yes I have a bachelor's degree in IT and I have a diploma in electrical engineering so body systems was founded on on that foundation of diverse technical capacity so we offer renewable energy systems solutions solar home systems of grid systems energy storage systems we also offer IT solutions like for example intrusion detection systems CCTV electric fences and we are qualified in all that it's a full house all right so how do you show that the company offers quality services considering that there's a couple of in the full house there are a couple of services and products that you offer your clients so how do you show that it's quality for you guys well because it's not a one man show I ensure that we hire a qualified personnel and we go through a very rigorous training exercise before we engage someone we have to go for very several installations with someone that we decided to engage and we have to show them what it takes to give quality output and then after we have done a job we don't leave it there we follow up with a client to know how is the system responding and if there are any issues that arise then we we also ensure that we follow up okay and how are you guys in terms of marketing what's your marketing strategy to just put your name out in the space of energy sector currently social media marketing that's what we are doing most we don't have per se a marketing department but I think social media marketing is a sufficient and also even the quality of work that we do is work that speaks for itself yeah because most of even our jobs are referrals we do a job and someone likes it and they refer their friends couple of financial lessons since 2015 that's a couple of I'm so sure it has been roller coaster so I like to hear a couple of financial lessons that you plant along the way business first of all it's not easy to start a business it's very difficult to say that you're waiting for together enough capital to start a business I was employed before I decided to get into business and it never there's no time that came that I said I have enough money to start the business in fact I jumped off the cliff so they say jump jump of the cliff then you develop wings along the way so employment was not doing any any better I decided to quit maybe I'm not advising everyone to follow my model because you need at least to have capital when you started business but you'll never have enough okay that is so sure considering that with this motivational speak and also a serial entrepreneur in South Africa knows who's in the be quiet he's saying the same thing that you never have have enough capital to start just just that sure whatever you haven't just no no jump yes and how was the transition for your form being in the employment space to now just getting to your something of your own your business something that you love well it was a very difficult experience it was not easy I left employment in about October 2019 and it was not easy towards the end of that year business does doesn't just come because you need to to learn what happens in the field you need to get your hands dirty you need to learn from people who have been there and don't be choosy if someone tells you to go with them to the field and learn even sometimes you don't get a penny you just go and learn and after I quit employment about three four months then that is when COVID came and things were getting even worse luckily the fact that people now are at home they wanted to work from home there was that need for energy and in surplus because you know our Kenya power is not reliable and so many companies now had to install backup system solar backup systems for their employees who now start working from home so that is how things now started so COVID may have had a negative impact for some people but it also had a positive impact for others it was like a true so there was the side of positivity negative double soil so let's look at you mentioned something earlier on about when starting off and just be willing to learn take us through our job someone who held your hand along the way someone like a mentor who showed your way through in the space of just business aspect of it did you have a mentor yes I did have a mentor not not so much in the business aspect of it but on the technical aspect of it I was ready to learn I was ready to strip down my titles from my previous employer and that person is someone who has been in the field for quite long he's very well skilled he took me through what it takes what is needed for you to be sharpened in this field and I was I you know I I was very very willing and he's not only he's not alone the other mentors but is one who has been very pivotal yes and I understand that it is one thing to be with your mentor talking about learning a couple of things theoretical in a theory format then adding to the field to actually do the job that you guys were talking about so take us through your first project and how was the response from the market well let me start by saying I said I'm a strong champion for tivet education and this is because I did I did I took my degree first and my diploma came later even when I was employed and what I learned is that a theoretical knowledge is very different from what you find in the field nobody teaches teaches you some skills in class you only know them on paper once you get out the field it's different so I have done several projects I'm not sure I can even trace my first one but maybe I can talk about my latest my latest project was in Naivasha it was commissioned about two two days ago it was a solar water pumping project it went very well the client was happy and I can say I I I think I dedicate that project to to my mentor the one I just mentioned because we all all the the skills that I applied and what I learned what are the couple of steps or just the process you guys are putting in place to scale up the business in a couple of years no time frame giving you your space to just put on a type time frame right being a new year measures that you guys are put up to just scale up the business mainly I would say that we are looking to our words enhancing our technical capacity because we have a backlog of jobs that we are not able to sometimes even meet deadlines because the jobs are there but you don't want to give them to just anyone you want to give jobs to people who are qualified so I don't think it's much a problem of lack of jobs there but do we have the right people to to do those jobs so sometimes we force to pile them up do them slowly because that is the capacity that we have right now so what we are doing is training more people so that we have capacity to do even bigger jobs in the future a couple of challenges that you have been facing as a business well as you said renewable energy is expensive the the initial cost of setup is is quite expensive so some clients come expecting it's just something they can do and then they find you give them the actual position and they just share the idea you see now let's try that another day that is one of the challenges number two the government last year about mid last year slapped vat on solar products it was not there before so vat made it even more expensive and number three our April was making proposals to to to to try and restrict the growth of our suppress the group of solar industry because of introducing so many regulations license fees and that even though it hasn't gone through would be a major major blow how can we cut the problem when it comes to the challenge rather how can you cut the challenge of the expense like how expensive it is to initially acquire solar energy how can you cut that the challenge well first of all maybe the government can give of incentives on solar because they should try and make solar more accessible as opposed to make it inaccessible and then they can maybe even scrap beauty from solar then people can embrace the idea of sort of a community community-based approach towards having solar because if I do it alone it's very expensive if we join oh yes it is how the cost absolutely becomes a cheaper when you together make sense make sense so I can guys find your social media if they want to keep up this conversation if someone wants to get in this space or when it comes to energy solution potential clients how can people find your social media social media well I'll reach out to you well guys can reach me through Facebook and Instagram we have a page we have pages for both Instagram and and Facebook we have a website www.bodysystems.co.ke and if you if you look for body underscore systems you're gonna find it all right thank you very much Mark Kingaroo yes got it right you got it right thank you very much for creating time to be with us and talking about renewable energy and guys back at home remember you can follow this conversation across all our social media handles at Y2F4 channel at me Sheila Sheila thank you very much thank you for having me all right so make sure you don't turn that down we'll be right back with so much right here on why in the morning if it's Tuesday it's entrepreneurship Tuesday at Y2F4 channel is where you can find us across all our social media handles at Michelle Ashira is where you can find me across all my social bear right back