I am a strong believer of the seven year cycle. Every seven years
things change and looking back at my life from aged 0-7, nursery to primary 7,
secondary school and university to that first job, it is not unfounded to suggest
that life happens in a seven year cycle. This blog post focuses on the last
seven years of my life and how certain events might change the next seven years
to come.
Glasgow, Scotland 2007. I was a graduate developer caught up in the rat race, paddling that hamster wheel at full speed. The
harder I worked and racked up more billable hours, the harder I was taxed. To
what end? It was then that I asked a question that set me on a journey across
the world, ending up in Kacyiru, Kigali, Rwanda in 2013. The question that
haunted me during those nights and days and even a few Crimbos (Christmas Day and
Boxing Day) was this: when should I go back to Uganda? You see, even after 8
years in the UK I still was not sure when the appropriate time would be.
After reading "Losing Your Virginity" by Sir Richard
Branson, I decided to take a leap of faith and off I was to Kampala, my home
city. I had dreams of starting a technology business, one that could grow and
compete with the Oracle`s and SAP`s of this world. It might sound rather delusional
but I could see it clearly in my mind: the happy customer walking out of my
office block, smiling and tossing a bouquet of flowers in the air, the support
teams` glass boards scribbled with algorithms, the on-call techies working late
hours to solve client problems. The picture was clear, but I wasn't even partly
prepared for the road that lay ahead of me. Nevertheless, I made the move armed
with a Software Engineering degree, extreme enthusiasm, confidence and super
naivety, although that last one on the list only became clear about a year ago.
It was December 31st 2008 and it seemed as though
things could not get any better.
Coming to Uganda had been very refreshing: the cityscape had
changed, the town was buzzing with ideas and I was graced with the familiar
sound of the morning birds singing, a sound that I had listened to for the
first 19 blissful years of my life.
After the New Year, it was time to get my hands dirty so I quickly
made head way in the technology business circles, met a few like-minded
business people and set up a venture with no business plan, financial plan or
marketing strategy. I mean, confidence is capital, right? Wrong. Six months
later, that business had dived into the ground faster than a diving seabird hunting
for fish. I was not fazed; I knew it was going to take me a few attempts to get
this right.
Everyday around me, I could see city hawkers selling nuts at the
same spot and knew that business was working for them. If it wasn't, they would
not return the next day. I decided to venture out of technology and look at
other industries. I relentlessly pushed on, and began again with a food
business. After a few meetings with some food entrepreneurs, we decided to
re-invent the Ugandan lunch by adding Scottish Haggis onto a Uganda menu,
create an online portfolio of all our menu and offer delivery services to
client sites. It was a great idea, so much so that our company bagged a
contract with an international telecoms company that had set up in Uganda. I
could hardly contain my excitement.
Fast forward six months, I was banned from stepping foot on the
company’s grounds and was not allowed to get within 100 meters of the company
gate. It was that bad.
What happened was due to the lack of planning; our first months
were heavily burdened with a demand that we could not satisfy, logistical
problems, quality inconsistency and, worst of all, poor damage control with the
client. They got so mad that when they fired us, we were escorted off the premises
and I could not even pack my company tent and take it with me.
It was at this point that I asked myself whether I was the best
chef in town anyway and the obvious answer provided the impetus to get out of
the food business. I decided to join the oil and gas industry for a five month
stint but, with no luck in this field either, I then moved to an import export
business selling hands-free Bluetooth devices. How did this go? Yes, you
guessed it: no happy ending here for me either!
Then I hit a niche market. Sexy lingerie for oversized women! It
sounds funny but I was selling more lingerie in Kampala than I could find plus
the confidence exuded by my oversized clients was very addictive and something
I could feed off. Things were going well but, like before, I asked myself the
question: am I the best “over-sized-lingerie-selling salesman” ever? With that
answer I decided to close shop and stop for a second. At this point, I was
running out of enthusiasm. I had spent my last ounce of confidence and I badly
needed a positive gesture in business and life generally.
It wasn't long before my journey to the bottom began and all I can
share with you is the interior design at the bottom of the pyramid. Most people
consider it a dark place riddled with rats, garbage and lots of spiders, but I
can tell you that it is the absolute opposite. Everything is normal, with
laughter, family and friends but with a certain sense of limbo, that last dream
state in inception and a place where the concept of time becomes blurry. It
took an unfathomable amount of will power to get back out of that place and
back to entrepreneurship and this time, I had to get it right. Searching deep
into my Zen, I realized that technology is what truly excited me, memories of
editing documents on word perfect 5.1, using spreadsheet in lotus 123, dbase
and playing dos, mega drive and Atari games came flashing back as though to
remind me that I had one last card. Afraid and beaten, I decided to give it
another short. Besides, there was only one way to go from there: UP!
I met with a team of technology experts again and started my
current company though this time, I was taking things more slowly. Finally, after
two years, it seemed I was getting the hang of it: our client base was growing
and progress and revenues were slow but increasing.
And then something happened. I met a professor from a world
leading university in the US who was in Kampala recruiting brilliant minds to
join their program. Totally uninterested, I engaged the professor who dropped
words like ‘unlimited opportunity’, ‘limitless reach’, ‘word class Masters’, ‘state
of the art technology’, ‘business leadership’ as well as a few other heavy hitters.
I decided to ask only four very specific questions. Can I develop tools using
the latest technologies that can complete my business` core product? Can I
learn the necessary business language required to engage Silicon Valley venture
capitalist and have them scrambling for my business? Can I attain the knowledge
required to compete at an international stage? Can I afford your fees? All the
answers were yes and I did not waste another minute.
Eight months later, I am a full-time student at Carnegie MellonUniversity in Rwanda and I can tell you that everything the professor said
was true. I can now see that picture again, the happy customers tossing flowers
in the air as they leave my office block. That picture is clearer and brighter
now and only because the quality of education I am getting is truly world
class. International organizations are not better than others only because they
are bank rolled by some deep pocketed capitalist, but because they use business
models that adapt to change.
If I listed all the things I learnt from the business
strategy course here at Carnegie Mellon, I would need another post. When you
are placed in an environment with over 100 years of history and whose notable
alumni include personalities such as Vinod Khosla, Cofounder Sun
Microsystems; John Nash, Nobel Laureate and subject of the Hollywood movie
‘A Beautiful Mind’; Yoshiaki Fujimori President and CEO of JS Group
Corporation; Dina Dublon, CFO JP Morgan Chase (Retired); Andy Warhol, artist
and pop culture icon, my own Hollywood icon Zachary Quinto, whom I loved from the
‘Heroes’ series, ‘Star Trek’ and many more, it is hard not to comprehend the
plethora of opportunities that are available, especially after paying rent at
the bottom of the pyramid. The best picture I can paint is similar to that
ending in ‘Shawshank Redemption’; after crawling through a dark long pipe, here
I stand with my hands wide open, soaking up the rain-drops of opportunity and
wondering where the next seven years are going to take me. I cannot wait to
see.....
