 We're back to Entrepreneurship Tuesday and in this particular session we look at an interesting conversation, we're looking at Entrepreneurship Ab Broad. The studio I'm joined with Iliam Katiqo. He's Illinois Department of Human Service. He provides access to government resources including healthcare and nutrition to people who actually need them. He's also equally experienced in different fields for material design and nonprofits and pharmaceuticals. Welcome Iliam. Thank you. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me on your show. Karibu. So, where is Iliam Katiqo born and bred? Okay, so I was born here. I was born in Ukambani in Mitaboni and that's where I spent the most majority of my youth hurting cattle, you know, spending time in the countryside. But when I was about eight years old I relocated to the United States and I've lived in Chicago since. You actually did get to spend time in, is it in Tui? No, it's in Niyomachakos. Niyomachakos. Okay, so how's your life growing up? You know, they are not yet, if they are not you know still like a decade or two decades down the road that you will be a historian, a stoka philosopher. Would you believe that? No, you know I actually wanted to be a scientist when I was younger or work in finance or something like that. But when I got to university, even though I told myself I was still pursuing a finance career, I noticed that all of my courses were centered on history and philosophy. So it kind of found me and took over organically in that way. You relocated at the age of eight years, right? Okay, so did you experience cultural, but then you were very young. I don't really think you experienced any culture or shop, did you? I did, I really did because my life in Kenya was actually very rural. I spent a lot of my time in cows, spending time in the countryside and the skills that I had learned as a student in Rwai and in the rural parts of Kenya in that time didn't really apply to anything that I needed in the United States. So you know telling time with my shadow or how to get poison out from a snake bite suddenly wasn't relevant and I had to learn new skills like how to ride a bike while avoiding cars in the street or something like that. So it was a big shock, but I feel like there's a nice synergy now as an adult between the skills and the personality I developed here at home and the mindset that you develop somewhere like Chicago. Fantastic. Timmy, through your passion and interest in interior design, when did it all start and how far did you go with it? Okay, so I was looking for a job outside of college when I met this lady, her name is Sherry Bolton, who was starting an interior design company and so she invited me to sort of come in at the first level and at the beginning it was just the two of us. So I would accompany more or less her apprentice, I would accompany her on her projects and we would work in the workshop together on sort of what worked and what kind of space from commercial buildings to private homes. And the interior design aspect of it was really engaging and beautiful but the interesting part for me was assisting and building this business from the ground up. Oh, why? Do you ever get interest to further it probably on the aspect of you starting something of your own? Oh, studying design itself. Unfortunately with my background in philosophy, I think my interest sort of lay more in working in government, thinking about policy and affecting people's lives on that level but I think the sort of attention to detail that I developed while working in interior design I think I'll still carry that with me forward. Oh, why? Fantastic. So if anyone who is looking for an interior designer can check out Ian. So thank you. So take us through what you do at the Department of Human Services in Illinois so what exactly do you do there? Okay, so the majority of my work involves assessing budgets and determining sort of what government programs work best for different citizens and I'm sort of focused on citizens in the later parts of their lives. Unfortunately what I've realized is that not many people, it's very rare that people can afford to support themselves once they're no longer able to work and so thankfully in the United States there's a lot of government assistance for people after the age of 64. So I assess their estate and their finances and all of their assets and sort of decide how much and when the government should step into a system where they need long-term care or support in their home if they have their own places to stay. The country is quite different compared to us here because here is also the aspect of black tax back home whereby as a child it's a responsibility for you to take care of your parents because in the U.S. it's the other way around like your elderly parents they are taken to homes where they are taking care of and so people can take us to that perspective of what that shift would have done on difference. That's actually something that's been of great interest to me actually of great concern because the trend that I've been seeing at least in my generation and the generation coming after is that people are having fewer and fewer children. In my parents generation her mother had six children and so I have plenty of cousins and the family is very big and my grandmother is well supported because she's got all these people and this land, this home where she can go and spend her elderly years but in my mother's case she's only got me and my brother. In my case I might only have one child and so the responsibility for taking care of myself when I'm elderly is going to be much heavier for my child than it is for say my mother and so I think that's sort of what goes into the dynamic we see in the United States where the government becomes a larger player in elderly care and I'd be interested to see what the forecast is for Kenya in terms of I guess our generation when we get to that stage and we only have one or two children working, living their lives, paying rent. You're having your hands on when it comes to back when you're doing interior design and your experience there. Would you say that living and learning abroad makes you a better entrepreneur? I guess it depends. There's a certain environment in which you have to develop your skills so I'm not sure how transferable those skills are to say somewhere like Kenya that's something I've been interested in for a long time. For the aspect of opportunities. Ya, there's a sort of a mindset in the United States that's called a grind set and I know that in Kenya there's something like that called juokali you know you do what you can with what you have so ya I feel like not simply living, working abroad but managing the transition, being adaptable, learning a new way of using even the same language and a new culture being always open and attentive to sort of changes in your environment and your social dynamics that's the sort of perspective that I think a good entrepreneur needs to have. How easy is it just a transition from here and going to another country just starting something new? How acceptable will you be in terms of just starting somewhere where you were not born and bred? Well it's difficult because entrepreneurship sort of requires strong networks in support not only in terms of finances being able to get alone being trustworthy in that way but also support from your family ya know you need to have people who make it possible in case you're not earning profits for a long time or you're not able to work a normal nine to five job because you're focused on building your business and so I think that's the main difficulty that sort of comes from divorcing yourself from your support network in somewhere like Kenya and then starting over in a continent where you might only have one or two family members The spectrum is about originality and just how to study the competition both past and actually present the industry someone might be interested in Well I definitely think originality is important but I think finding a gap finding a need in a place is almost more important Ya you can take what others have done you can learn from them and see what works but if you find a place where it hasn't been applied that's sort of where you need to plug yourself in So it was about the challenges when it comes to even before you get through challenges let's talk about the cultural shock and how to actually be maneuver that we have so many entrepreneurs in terms of shifting or transitioning careers moving abroad speak to us on how you curb your cultural shock situations and moments and I'm sure you have friends who have also experienced the same there's a couple of ways to curb that situation Okay well I think one area where I failed in terms of curing my cultural shock was retaining my language because the transition that changes adaptation I think that's very natural and it's going to happen whether you want it or not I didn't choose for my accent to change and the way that I tried to change but those things sort of start the forces that act on you rather than choices that you make but one choice that you should make for your mental health and well-being is to retain what's important to you about your mother culture which unfortunately for me was my language knowledge of even the geography of where I'm from and everything like that that allows you to move back to the place that sort of grew you or built you and to still feel at home to converse in a normal way with your family Speak to us about how important it is just to build a new network just put yourself out there and go after the opportunities that you want Building new networks is definitely important but one thing to note about that is that networks that you build in that sort of artificial way I think Max Weber called them sort of weak relationships they're very useful for business useful in terms of co-dependency but those aren't networks that you can sort of fall back on when you're experiencing difficulty so I think a hybrid of networks that are sort of inbuilt that you were sort of born with or family ties and networks that you make through networking I guess for lack of a better word at fairs and in school I think integrating those two sort of networks together is what makes a really effective entrepreneur and I'm not sure about this but how important it is to just generally be interested in the country that you'll be located in starting a business that is and just generally being involved in the culture and just leaving the locals I think maybe for Kenyans for people like us it's a good thing that somewhere like America already has a large black population that's been there from the beginning and so when it comes to integrating somewhere like that you already kind of have a family in a way but if you're deciding to go somewhere where you'll truly be alone or an outsider that's really something that you have to consider how easy will it be for me to learn the language if they don't speak it there or to integrate even if I speak perfectly like them or dress like them or do all those things will I really be seen as part of this place can I really be considered a trustworthy or a full citizen here and I think that not only for your own health but also in terms of your success and how far you can go these are the most important things to consider when you're thinking about starting a business somewhere let's look at localizing the idea, they're coming from a different place and they're just in this new space so how can they localize their vision and also expectation and how important is it to get a mentor or if you're fortunate enough an angel investor as well okay, yeah I think the process of immigration and cultural adaptation will sort of make you aware of the gaps in terms of the differences between where you came from and where you are so that's a sort of inroad into understanding the local needs of the area but you also need to understand do your own due diligence in terms of understanding the differences in policy and law and how you even start and organize a business and I think that's where mentorship is really key if you have someone who lives there like I did with Sherry Bolton who can sort of walk you through the process of how many which lawyer should you talk to in terms of how to start a business and how do you file your taxes and do all these sort of indigrity things where if you had forgotten or something had slipped through the cracks you might end up in a lot of trouble with the IRS or something like that so I think that's the bulk of it and in terms of finding an angel investor I think knowing what the business looks like where you are I think is sort of the most essential thing in terms of finding investors luckily for me with Sherry Bolton she was there she had her networks and that's how we got investment into the company that we were working with so it might be a lot more difficult if you're doing it on your own and from where you sit and also your experiences how is it just to shift and just start all new in a country that you know less of it's very difficult and in fact I wouldn't recommend it you wouldn't recommend it it's very difficult I mean most people move to where they have family or move to where they have friends move to somewhere they speak the language so it's very it's not advised unfortunately I've seen a lot of Kenyans struggle and fall by the wayside when they end up you can end up being taken advantage of very badly if you go somewhere where you have no networks couple of challenges that anyone who wants to transition should expect what you actually the couple of challenges that you went through okay well the difficulty I think and I don't know if that's so much the case anymore is sort of maintaining your pride and dignity in a place where your values are not the same what you consider most important to how you treat people and how you expect to be treated these things aren't the same everywhere and you have to accept that you're going to be an outsider if you go somewhere drastically different where you grew up you might not be so much of an outsider if you go maybe to nearby Tanzania where people speak the same language and you might even have people with your same mother tongue there but the ethics the values even the religion your notions of what makes up an identity you have to sort of do some give and take when you go somewhere new and one of the methods that you just promote the business when you talk about into the design and your partner so what a couple of methods that you use to promote your business we use a lot of social media we had a social media account which I was in charge of at the very beginning when it was just the two of us where we would post our work show people the designs that we were working with and every time we had a new project we would popularize that and publicize it and there was also a brand creation sort of strategy that you can use a social media where you talk about yourself as a person and you try to reach a group of people that might want to interact with you simply on the basis of your personality and that I think a lot of business relationships in the United States I'm not sure how it is here are very informal they mimic personal friendships you speak to people with their first name you act as if you're friends even though you might just be clients or whatever so that's where the social media aspect of marketing comes in you have to be someone people want to be friends with let me take you back to now Illinois Department of Human Service what's your favorite thing about working in that particular space well it's incredibly rewarding when a family calls me to do about elderly care and they don't know how to manage the bureaucracy being able to effectively ease their stress and let them know that everything will be fine that there are resources there is a framework in place to make sure that their elderly parent has a place to stay and that they have food and they have water and they have shelter that I think is sort of why I do the work I do fantastic so I just found out that you and Ken were clasped once upon a time we met at Columbia doing philosophy actually it's a great passion we were in Masaimara arguing about the future of AI and labor and politics and all these lessons that we learned I will ask you the same question what do you do during your free time if you're not busy at work I'm a light risk taker like I said I grew up in the countryside so I'm just ranging into the wilderness off the beaten path doing my own safaris in Illinois so more adventurous person yeah so how can people reach out to you and social media if they want to know more about Ian and just catch up with Ian in particular I'm on Twitter as well I'm on at Ian Katiku on Twitter so feel free to reach out alright thank you very much Ian Katiku for creating time to be with us in this particular session looking at entrepreneurship abroad thank you very much you're welcome so guys that's our time frame remember we do this every single Monday to Friday time frame is usually 7-10 am why in the morning my social media handles that is at Misha Lashira at Y2F4 channel is where you can find us across all our social at Ramagukko is where you can find him on his social for now enjoy the rest of your program me right here on Y2F4 channel and have a lovely day