Late-Night Retrospection

I Should Have Known Earlier

Contrary to what one might think, I only recently figured out that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. For most of my life, I had wanted to be a scientist and/or academic. I really enjoyed abstract, brainey stuff like Calculus and Chemistry. In fact, in high school, we had a textbook colloquially known as Tranter which was notorious for containing some of the most difficult problems in Pure Mathematics. My fellow nerds and I delighted in this the same way a regular teenager fancies himself a good game of FIFA ’19 in World-Class mode. You could see our eyes light up whenever someone brought us a problem that had stumped everyone else.

However, for better or for worse, I had a change of mind. A variety of factors led to this— the two main ones being my realization that I wasn’t the embodiment of genius that I had been led to believe I was during primary school and, secondly, a job at my uncle’s bar that I held during my s6 vacation.

With regards to the former, I realized this upon enrolling at my high school which had attracted some of the brightest minds from across the country. Of course for most of my O level, I was in denial: I still believed I was incredibly bright, just that I didn’t read as much as those scoring 90’s (rumor has it that 90% of the student body used this cope). But when I almost obtained a second division in my mocks, I had to get real with myself. Believe me, coming to terms with the fact that I was not that intelligent was one of the hardest pills I’ve ever had to swallow. It was unfathomably discombobulating to have an identity you’ve carried your entire life ripped from you. But, as they say, acceptance is the first step towards healing and growth.

I must clarify, though, that I didn’t start thinking I was dumb, but I most definitely knew I was not as bright as I had earlier thought, and I would have to work for results like everyone else. But, at the same time, there were still people that were topping the entire year without much effort—the very people I was comparing myself to whenever I wouldn’t read thinking the answers would magically appear in my head. Those were the true geniuses—the ones cut out for this academia path, not me. I firmly concluded this in my A-level where, this time around I cut the crap of going “live” for papers and was studying rather aggressively. But even then, with all my hard work, things weren’t coming easy. I still struggled to understand certain concepts, and, worst of all, in things that I thought were my strong suits such as Math Contest, I barely made it to the top 100—despite rigorous studying. A quick perusal through the biographies of top scientists such as Nobel Prize winners and recipients of MacArthur Genius fellowships will show you that they were top students throughout their high schools and went on to shine even at undergraduate level, probably getting their PhD in their early 20’s.[1] I definitely did not fit that description so academia wasn’t the place for me. But what was?

Moving on to my vac job…

After walking with a friend of mine to nearly 40 offices looking for simple data entry work but without much success, my mom begged her brother to give me a job. He put me in charge of inventory management, where I had to take stock of the bar, kitchen and store, logging 10 hours shifts—6 days a week—for a salary of 200,000/= ($80) a month—transport and lunch excluded. For most of my workmates, this resulted into a take home of around 50,000/= ($14) after basic expenses like food and shelter. I, on the other hand, packed lunch and lived with my mom so my take-home was solid. The situation, however, was so desperate that whenever Bell (East African Breweries) would deliver a consignment of 400 crates, most of the daytime workers (including myself) would scurry to lift the crates for a total of 40,000/= which we would split amongst ourselves, each taking 8,000/=. And boy did we look forward to this drill every two weeks.

For context, a good number of my peers were spending what I made in 3 months in one night at the club. I even recall a time my girlfriend at the time asked me to accompany her to Blankets and Wine only for me to realize, after some back of the envelope calculations, that a ticket to the event cost half my salary (it would cost my full salary if you counted drinks, apparel and MB’s for snapchat), and that I had to work for two weeks—about 120 hours, to be able to dress eccentrically and stand in a garden listening to upcoming artists till the crack of dawn.

I knew then and there that things had to change.

So then began my obsession with the question of how I could make more money— how I could be rich.

None of my peers seemed to have answers, but my mom helped. She pointed to a woman that sold passion fruits on Sundays at Watoto Church Ntinda whose business was booming and suggested I do the same. That Friday, I was in the market with her buying “Butunda”. I bought half a sac and split it into portions I could sell for 5k and 10k. In my first week, I had profited 40,000/=. This was almost as much as my weekly salary. I felt a new fire in me come alive. From that time on, I would sign out of work at 6pm, and peddle my passion fruits till 11pm. Manager by day, hawker by night, lol. The passion fruits business grew as I got regular clients who requested me to make weekly deliveries to their homes. Eventually, they started requesting me to deliver other fruits such as pineapples, and eventually, groceries. Therein, I saw a need—a middle class that was too busy (or too lazy) to do weekly shopping and was willing to pay someone to do it on their behalf. However, school was around the corner, and my parents and grandparents would not buy any talk of putting school on hold just to see where this venture would take me. But there was no turning back. I had found my one true love.

Looking back, I took the wrong approach to my job. Rather than focusing on the money, I should have paid close attention to how a business is run. Very few people get such an opportunity to closely study the dynamics behind a small business, and if I could do it all again, I would pay closer attention to how they negotiated taxes, how they managed debt, etc.

Reminiscing further, it now seems obvious that this path was inevitable. Looking at my heritage, all I see is a pedigree of “basuubuzi”(traders/businesspersons)

My maternal grandmother was, and still is, a prolific trader of second-hand clothing, although she has since graduated to wholesale.

My father had been a prolific trader, importing books from Nairobi and supplying leading bookstores at the time. He would spend most of the semester hopping across the border and would only return to cram my mother’s notes and sit his exams (just as I, he was a part time student, full-time businessman).

My mother, after a long and unfulfilling career in URA became real with herself, ditched her job and started a fitness and wellness spa. Is she happier, or freer? I doubt: she seems to be working way more hours, with a lot more stress than before; however, at the slightest suggestion of getting a job, she scoffs at the idea.

I guess, in this life, struggle is inevitable. So we must each pick our struggle. For me (and my lineage), it’s dealing with employees who try to steal from the business and sleep with each other, while being answerable to nobody but myself. What’s yours?

#notes: [1] - It's interesting that Jeff Bezos has a very similar story recounting why he decided to get into business/industry