Items by Kelvin

Like Chapaa

  • Google Brings NFC To Kenya

    Posted: May 7, 2012, 1:25 pm by Kelvin

    I was aboard a CitiHoppa yesterday when the person seated next to me asked the conducter if he could pay via his Beba card. I didn’t really pay much attention to what followed but later on, I googled about it and found Beba.co.ke.

    In their own words, The Beba card is a smart card that makes it easy to pay for bus fare and helps you save money. It’s convenient because you don’t have to worry about getting change.

    1. To use your Beba card, you just tap your card on the card reader to pay.
    2. You can get a Beba card for yourself, family members or coworkers.

    What really got my attention, though, was their Terms of Service. Beba.co.ke is a product offered locally by Google that utilises the much talked about Near Field Communications (NFC) technology.

    NFC is not new. It is based on technologies that have been around for nearly two decades. NFC allows two devices to communicate when they are placed near each other (or when they touch each other). NFC technology is already big in Japan – you can use your NFC-enabled phone to buy train tickets in Tokyo or as a contactless payment system.

    My guess is that the Beba card is an experiment by Google to try and determine whether this technology can actually work locally. If successful, in theory we could all get similar cards and use them not only for bus tickets but to pay for meals, for shopping at supermarkets, and anything else, really. Exciting, eh?

    Learn more: What is NFC, and why do we care?

    What do you think of this?

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

  • Learn Programming – The New Literacy

    Posted: March 8, 2012, 6:52 am by Kelvin

    A while back, I had written this:

    In case you have not realised it yet, computer programming skills are as necessary for success today as reading and writing have been for the past few centuries.

    In fact, “You’re a second-class citizen if you don’t know how to read and write today, and in twenty or thirty years the same will be true for people who don’t have basic computer programming skills. Those who don’t understand–at the very least–the concepts of order-of-execution, variables, data structures and recursion will be as socially and economically disadvantaged as the illiterate are now.

    I have been taking CS 101: BUILDING A SEARCH ENGINE from Udacity for a few weeks now. I must be honest and say that the course represents one of the very best learning experiences I have ever had. The course instructor, Professor David Evans, is naturally gifted at teaching complex ideas in simple terms.

    If you have ever wanted to learn how to program, you have the most golden opportunity to do it now. Have you ever been frustrated when you hired a “techie” who played around with you? This is your opportunity to make sure it does not happen again. Are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Learning to code is never a wrong move. Especially in today’s world.

    Just to show you how accessible a good ICT education is today, following the CS101 class, Udacity are introducing the following (among others):

    CS253 – WEB APPLICATION ENGINEERING
    Description: Web applications have the power to provide useful services to millions of people worldwide. In this class, you will learn how to build your own blog application starting from the basics of how the web works and how to set up a web application and process user input, to how to use databases, manage user accounts, interact with other web services, and make your application scale to support large numbers of users.

    CS262 – PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
    Description: This class will give you an introduction to fundamentals of programming languages. In seven weeks, you will build your own simple web browser complete with the ability to parse and understand HTML and JavaScript. You will learn key concepts such as how to specify and process valid strings, sentences and program structures. Then, you will design and build an interpreter – a program that simulates other programs.

    Yes, you read right. In about 14 weeks you can go to a complete and utter beginner to someone who can create their own simple web browser. How cool is that?

    Personally, I think this is a godsend for us in the “developing world”. In my opinion, our tertiary education systems are not at an acceptable level of quality, especially for computer science and similar disciplines. Udacity and others like it represent a great, great opportunity for us.

    Nicolas Pottier of Nyaruka puts it best:

    Suddenly, the very best education is available to everyone. Suddenly it doesn’t matter if you live in America or Rwanda, the opportunity is yours. And that’s why I think the greatest effect of Udacity will be felt not in America, not in Europe, but in developing countries like Rwanda. Because the improvement in quality over what is offered here is astronomical.

    I fully expect that everybody who finishes the eight week Udacity course will be better prepared than those who finish four year university programs in Rwanda. And that’s not unique to Rwanda. Every developing country suddenly got a world class computer science school donated to them. [Read More]

    Are you as excited as I am?

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  • How To Make Money From Nothing But Numbers!

    Posted: March 6, 2012, 7:43 pm by Kelvin

    This is a free online course about Cryptography. In the video below, the course instructor mentions that he will teach you how to use cryptography to “make money from nothing but numbers”! Sounds great, ama?

    Cryptography means “secret writing”. It is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties.

    Udacity will be offering a course on Applied Cryptography starting April 16th 2012. The course is free and open to everyone.

    I do not know about you, but I would love to learn how to make money from “nothing but numbers”!

    See you in class?

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  • Aroma Cafe

    Posted: February 23, 2012, 11:26 pm by Kelvin

    The brilliant, curious, story of how one establishment in Mombasa has used the on-going debate on “husband battering” in Kenya to do some brilliant marketing:

    From NTV Kenya:

    The upsurge in the number of husband battering cases continue to dominate debates in various parts of the country but in Mombasa the issue has been captured in a different way. One café in the coastal city has chosen to put it in black and white. Aroma Café has written pro-men messages for anyone to see and the management say it is their way of discouraging the vice that has given Central Kenya a bad name. The high-class restaurant has even gone to the extent of preparing cookies labeled “Love Men” in their effort to condemn husband beating.

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  • Disrupting The Kenyan Movies Industry

    Posted: February 8, 2012, 9:03 am by Kelvin

    I just read a very well written and thought-provoking article on how piracy affects the Kenyan movie industry: Secrets About Piracy Revealed By Jitu Films Director. It seems that a very interesting problem plagues our industry:

    • Piracy is apparently illegal in Kenya.
    • However, all those “DVD for 50 bob” shops in town sell nothing but illegal pirated stuff. But they sell foreign films and so no one bothers to go after them. (An instance of how the law fails local film makers).
    • Those shops in town can never dare try to sell Kenyan movies because they need a special license to do so and because if they did, the city council will be on top of them quickly.
    • This presents an interesting problem for local film makers: they cannot hope to compete on price with foreign films. Would you buy “The Rugged Priest” at 100/- when “Avatar” is available at 50 bob?
    • To add to that, there is no local DVD factory hence local film makers have to import these and pay import taxes on top of all the other ‘normal’ taxes int heir industry. Essentially, they are unable to sell their movies at 50 bob and remain financially viable. The illegal shops in town selling pirated stuff pay no taxes.
    • This creates a situation where locally made movies are more expensive than foreign movies. They are also harder to find because to sell them you need a special licence which the 50 bob shops typically do not get.

    Of course this creates an industry in which it is difficult to make much good money. What do you think can be done to overcome these problems?

    IN my mind, piracy is a problem that can be best solved by offering a more convenient alternative. However, I am not to sure what, exactly, can be done to bring up such an alternative.

    Through my brief work with Space Yangu, I read numerous emails from people asking us where they could buy Kenyan movies. I believe there’s demand here and money to be made – someone just needs to figure out the logistics. I can think of two approaches to a solution:

    1. Someone to open a chain of little shops in Nairobi (and eventually elsewhere) to sell Kenyan movies. (this was suggested in the linked article)
    2. Someone could open up a huge online shop that sells and delivers a wide selection of Kenyan movies. Perhaps it could eventually lead to a Netflix like service.

    What do you think can be done?

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  • Where to Get Content For Your Website

    Posted: February 6, 2012, 11:25 am by Kelvin

    When you build your website, or when you launch an online business, a problem that you may have not anticipated becomes apparent. Where do you get content to put in your new website? We all know that good compelling content is what makes or breaks a site, right? So where can you get it?

    1. Steal it
    This is easy. Just Google any random topic and you will find thousands of places where you can steal from. Copy-paste and you’re done. Easy peasy. Except it does not work and is a little stupid in this day and age.

    Sadly, it is worth noting that a significant number of clients who I have worked with before think this is what they need.

    2. User-generated content
    The idea here is that you hope people will come to your website and entertain themselves while at the same time filling your website with content. This approach has worked for many websites out there but it probably will not work for you. Sawa?

    Sturgeon’s Law says that 90% of everything is garbage. This is even more true when you try to deal with user generated content.

    Traditionally in Kenya, sites that depend on user generated content do not fair well at all. This is how zuqka died despite being backed by a whole lot of money. Mgangagenge expounds on this:

    …UGC needs 24-hour surveillance of user behaviour to monitor usage trends, offensive content, and most of all, SPAM. Once you neglect a UGC site, it either degenerates into a flame war a la mashada, a porn site a la KenyanList/eastafricantube, or a SPAM farm a la Zuqka.

    3. Mass Semi-Amateur Content
    You know www.e-how.com? This is their content generation strategy of choice. Basically what you do is pay an army of underpaid freelancers to write articles for your website in mass. Learn more.

    Of course the quality of content will be higher than user generated content but I personally do not feel that the difference in quality is very pronounced. I would not recommend this for your website.

    Besides, Google is clamping down hard on this. Be warned.

    4. Using Talented Expert Writers
    In theory, this sounds really good. You can hire expert “artists” to write beautiful stuff, polishing every little bit to perfection. If you can do this consistently, your site will be known for its quality, well researched content. I would recommend this, but I feel it may be too expensive for almost everybody. I am tempted to call this the “New York Times” (NYT) approach.

    Speaking of which, have you had a look at the NYT financial performance lately? If the NYT brand cannot make this method work, what makes you think it will be sustainable for your relatively small brand? Pole.

    5. Scalable Content Creation
    If you are going to be able to generate content that is high quality yet affordable and which advances your business goals then you will have to get creative.

    A while back Ok Cupid published an article titled “How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get“. Please have a look at that article again – they received thousands of comments and no doubt many other websites talked about it.

    Ok Cupid did something very smart. They used a kawaida user survey to publish an interesting, easily consumable, easily share-able piece of content. Brilliant! And you know what? Ok Cupid can do this over and over again because they already have the tools in place. All they need to do is come at it from a different angle and be the at the top of the social news sites again.

    What’s the lesson here?

    As a business you should strive to collect (or to be privy to) unique information. In almost every business imaginable, you can collect unique information and with just a bit of creativity whip it into amazing content for your website.

    Are you a wedding planner? Whats the most comment color themes at your weddings?; Do you sell spare parts? What item breaks down the most? How can people take care of it better?; Do you sell cakes? Why not share unique recipes? What is bought most often? etc etc

    The idea is that if you run any business, stuff that you do every day can be turned into simple and interesting content for your website.

    If you have not yet started collection interesting data, you can start analyzing existing data. The recent Open Data movement should get you started! Keep in mind that anyone else can do this, though, so use it as a temporary solution while you build your own unique stuff.

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • New Pet Project: Sales & Discounts in Nairobi

    Posted: February 2, 2012, 10:09 am by Kelvin

    One of my goals this year was to launch a “soft” start-up business. Something easy to run on the side without taking up too much on my time or resources. Some may argue that this is not the right approach when running a new business. That’s true.

    However, this is something I want to do in my free time without worrying about budgets and deadlines and all of the other things that make life hectic at ‘normal’ start-ups.

    After some thought, I decided my ideal soft start-up would be:

    • Powered by WordPress (and DukaPress if need be). Because it would then be super easy to launch.
    • Something that would take less than an hour of my time everyday
    • Something in which I could easily outsource the “kazi ya mkono”.
    • Something through which I could experiment any way I like. For example, I want to test new marleting ideas, site optimization, SEO methods etc.

    I had all the above down by the beginning of the year. Now I just had to find a damn start-up idea. An idea presented itself one day when I had to kill two hours in the Nairobi CBD. I’m not known to love shopping but I found myself wandering the streets looking at shop windows. I noticed that almost every second shop had some sort of special discount on their products or some sort of sales offer.

    And thus, Funua was born. Basically, Funua is a website which is where you want to go if you want to know about sweet discounts and sales offers in Nairobi. You want to go out shopping? Why don’t you open up Funua.com and see if you can save some money? Uchumi ni mbaya and if you can save something then you should. Funua is your friend.

    What did it take to make?

    • WordPress
    • Genesis Themes
    • A bunch of WordPress plugins to help with SEO and other things
    • I hired someone to walk the mean streets of Nairobi lookin’ for deals-you-cannot-refuse.

    The website development cost a grand total of Zero shillings. Though I wonder how much it would have cost if I did not do it for myself.

    What do I think I will achieve with this?
    No delusions of grandeur here! I am very alive to the fact that it could be dead in a month or two. But I’m hoping to:

    • See it grow to a respectable level of traffic
    • Maybe – and that’s a big maybe – a high level of traffic will mean that we can charge businesses to be “featured”
    • Primary method of monetization will be Google Adsense so that it can, at least, pay for its own expenses
    • Perhaps most importantly, it will be a test-bed for all my socal media, SEO and other ideas. I’m looking forward to this!

    So, if you want the scoop on the latest and greatest sales and discounts in Nairobi, you know where you want to go.

Jayanoris

  • New Pet Project: Sales & Discounts in Nairobi

    Posted: February 2, 2012, 10:09 am by Kelvin

    One of my goals this year was to launch a “soft” start-up business. Something easy to run on the side without taking up too much on my time or resources. Some may argue that this is not the right approach when running a new business. That’s true.

    However, this is something I want to do in my free time without worrying about budgets and deadlines and all of the other things that make life hectic at ‘normal’ start-ups.

    After some thought, I decided my ideal soft start-up would be:

    • Powered by WordPress (and DukaPress if need be). Because it would then be super easy to launch.
    • Something that would take less than an hour of my time everyday
    • Something in which I could easily outsource the “kazi ya mkono”.
    • Something through which I could experiment any way I like. For example, I want to test new marleting ideas, site optimization, SEO methods etc.

    I had all the above down by the beginning of the year. Now I just had to find a damn start-up idea. An idea presented itself one day when I had to kill two hours in the Nairobi CBD. I’m not known to love shopping but I found myself wandering the streets looking at shop windows. I noticed that almost every second shop had some sort of special discount on their products or some sort of sales offer.

    And thus, Funua was born. Basically, Funua is a website which is where you want to go if you want to know about sweet discounts and sales offers in Nairobi. You want to go out shopping? Why don’t you open up Funua.com and see if you can save some money? Uchumi ni mbaya and if you can save something then you should. Funua is your friend.

    What did it take to make?

    • WordPress
    • Genesis Themes
    • A bunch of WordPress plugins to help with SEO and other things
    • I hired someone to walk the mean streets of Nairobi lookin’ for deals-you-cannot-refuse.

    The website development cost a grand total of Zero shillings. Though I wonder how much it would have cost if I did not do it for myself.

    What do I think I will achieve with this?
    No delusions of grandeur here! I am very alive to the fact that it could be dead in a month or two. But I’m hoping to:

    • See it grow to a respectable level of traffic
    • Maybe – and that’s a big maybe – a high level of traffic will mean that we can charge businesses to be “featured”
    • Primary method of monetization will be Google Adsense so that it can, at least, pay for its own expenses
    • Perhaps most importantly, it will be a test-bed for all my socal media, SEO and other ideas. I’m looking forward to this!

    So, if you want the scoop on the latest and greatest sales and discounts in Nairobi, you know where you want to go.

Like Chapaa

  • Lazy African Scum

    Posted: January 30, 2012, 6:59 am by Kelvin

    This, my friend, is what is wrong with Africa Kenya:

    They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

    “It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

    More: You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!Similar Posts:


  • ePay-Kenya: A Tried and Proven Way to Withdraw From PayPal in Kenya

    Posted: January 28, 2012, 12:04 pm by Kelvin

    The lack of a good and reliable way to withdraw money from PayPal in Kenya is one of the factors which hinder the average Kenyan’s potential to earn online most significantly. On Like Chapaa, we have had a long and hard struggle to try to find and identify the best way to withdraw from PayPal in Kenya. I believe that we have a contender for this title in e-Pay Kenya.

    e-Pay Kenya opened its doors in January 2009 as e-pesa then rebranded in 2010 to ePAY-KENYA. Esther Kimani of e-Pay Kenya reached out to us to provide more information on what e-Pay does. This article is based on her information to us, and on good reports their customers.

    e-Pay Kenya offers two ways to withdraw your hard-earned money:


    1. Moneybookers
    “We have an Merchant Agreement with Moneybookers allowing us to officially run a Money transfer website using their services. This explains why the moneybookers fee is lower (11%) than Paypal. We therefore do not operate under any fear of account limitation as we operate with blessings from Moneybookers. We deliver within the hour but often less,” says Esther Kimani of e-Pay Kenya.

    2. Paypal
    Esther continues, “We use a third-party gateway to avoid the direct interface with Paypal because we have experienced the danger of doing so (when we operated as e-pesa). This explains why the transaction charges are higher (14%) than Moneybookers but then our users enjoy the following benefits:

    1. Peace of mind when dealing with us as there is no possibility of our users’ accounts being limited by PayPal
    2. Our third-party gateway does fraud tests on our behalf to minimize fraudulent transactions.
    3. We have a strict KYC (Know Your Customer) policy. All our users have to send Identification Documents in order to have their accounts verified, thus allowing them to make transactions.
    4. We demand that users forward their Paypal Transaction Confirmation emails before they can cash their money. We use this document to authenticate the bona fide account holders. We have caught up with fraudsters who hack into unsuspecting paypal account holders’ accounts.
    5. Delivery within 24 hours but often less.”

    Charges
    The bulk of the fees are charged when you deposit money from Moneybookers/PayPal into e-Pay Kenya. Their charges at this time are as follows:

    Moneybookers:

    • Deposit 11%
    • Withdrawal USD 3 irrespective of the amount

    Paypal:

    • Deposit 14%
    • Withdraw USD 3 irrespective of the amount

    Conclusion
    It seems to me that e-Pay Kenya has a very well thought-out service. It is the best of all such businesses that I have come across so far. It is a bit pricey, but as we wait for PayPal to open itself up, e-Pay Kenya remains a good and reliable alternative.

    What do you think of e-Pay Kenya?

    ALERT
    As far as I know, the REAL e-Pay Kenya is at: www.epay-kenya.com

    NOT: www.epaykenya.com

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  • No Sir, Don’t Get A Website!

    Posted: January 25, 2012, 10:51 am by Kelvin

    Hands up if you are a “web designer” in Kenya. These days it seems that every other person on the streets does ‘websites’. Good for you, good for you (us?) all! It seems that it is boom time in Kenya as far as websites go. As many web designers as there are, there seems to be even more people who want websites….

    So this year I have come across many people who want websites and are willing to pay good money to get one. trouble is, most seem to have LITTLE idea of how to use a website for their business. For the web designers in the room, I am sure you have met that guy who wants a quick website up in a week. They send you their company profile and bam! one week later you have them up and running. They then ask you to create a few email accounts based on their domain name and every thing goes well. Or so it seems. One year later, when it is time to renew the domain name, the guy is:
    A. shutting down the website (what does this even mean?); or
    B. renewing the domain name (for the email addresses) but does not care much about the website (and will try to get away with not paying for the web hosting); or
    C. ignoring your emails and calls

    So what happened?
    Simple. Most people and businesses in Kenya get a website because it is the “in” thing. It is just what people do – you “have to get” a website dammit! But once they actually have their website, they have no idea what to do with it. It will forever remain an expensive “brochure” lost in a sea of millions of other websites and the hefty amount paid to the web designer will be a painful reminder.

    You think I am over-generalizing things? Want a quick test to prove my theory? Good, because I have one. Ask three random people who recently had websites made for their business if they ever earned a single shilling from their website. How many of these websites even get more than 20 “hits” a day consistently?

    Sadly, in Kenya, we build websites and then we forget about them and get busy “running the business”. The website was just something we knew we had to do.

    Think about your business. Do you have a website? What, exactly, does your business gain from it? Is having your website address on your business card enough return on investment for you? If yes, then good, I am happy for you.

    If the answer is no. Well, then, you’re in trouble. A website, in my humble opinion, is meant to sell your products and/or your business. You should have a reliable way to measure how much of your revenues were directly or indirectly attributable to your website.

    Otherwise, you should not have paid so much for that flashy beautiful site. Maybe next time you should get a picture of your business card as your homepage and leave it at that!

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  • Learn to Code

    Posted: January 24, 2012, 9:30 am by Kelvin

    In case you have not realised it yet, computer programming skills are as necessary for success today as reading and writing have been for the past few centuries.

    In fact, “You’re a second-class citizen if you don’t know how to read and write today, and in twenty or thirty years the same will be true for people who don’t have basic computer programming skills. Those who don’t understand–at the very least–the concepts of order-of-execution, variables, data structures and recursion will be as socially and economically disadvantaged as the illiterate are now.

    There was a time when literacy and basic arithmetic were skills reserved only to intellectuals and monks. Today our monks are programmers who know how to wield magic and illuminate scrolls of code. If you don’t understand what an array is today, or how to loop over it, then you’d better learn or you’ll be screwed tomorrow. The reasons unfold below.” – The Future of IT (click to read more)

    Do you know the basics of programming? Are you ‘literate‘?

    In case you want to learn the basics of computer programming, then you are in luck. Renown Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun is going to be running a free online course that promises to teach you the basics of computer programming in just seven weeks.

    The course is:

    CS 101: BUILDING A SEARCH ENGINE
    Learn programming in seven weeks. We’ll teach you enough about computer science that you can build a web search engine like Google or Yahoo!

    You can sign up for free here: www.udacity.com

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  • TrINC Money : MPESA-PayPal Service [Updated]

    Posted: January 20, 2012, 1:08 pm by Kelvin

    I was a bit hesitant to write about this new service after the rise and fall of PayMPESA, but here goes:

    Trinc Money seems to be a new service that allows you to transfer money to and from PayPal via MPESA. yes, this means that it lets you both withdraw and deposit money into PayPal using MPESA. Sounds good, eh?


    Costs
    Apart from the usual PayPal and MPESA fees, Trinc Money charges what seems to be a used to charge a standard flat Kshs 1000 transaction fee. Depending on how much you send, this can work out to be extremely cheap. But is it sustainable?

    They have since updated their fees to 6.9% + KES.250

    Sustainability
    I worry about this service. Does it have the required blessing from PayPal? As far as I know, PayPal does not allow this kind of money transfer service. If your remember correctly, other services got around this issue by packaging themselves as selling “vouchers” which could be redeemed for money. This seems not to be the case with Trinc Money.

    Additionally, PayPal is rumored to be very very close to launching fully in Kenya. Would this not outright kill TrincMoney?

    I have reached out to Trinc Money for comment on both of the above.

    I am sorry if I feel overly critical of TrINC Money, I am just being prudent. I am aware that PayPal frowns upon this kind of “money transfer” business working through PayPal and I would not want the readers of Like Chapaa to suffer any loss as a result of reading this article.

    So, dear readers, what do you think of this? Has anyone tried to use Trinc Money?

    Response from TrINC Money:

    Trincmoney is neither a money transfer service nor a currency exchange service. What we do provide is a platform for registered PayPal users to send electronic PayPal value to the Trincmoney PayPal account. These funds are not withdrawn and are valid PayPal transactions initiated by registered PayPal users.

    Upon a customer’s request, our service sends our customers electronic monetary value depicted in ones M-PESA Account representing an equal amount of Cash held by the MPESA Holding Company Limited and which may be redeemed through an M-PESA Agent for an equal amount of legal tender in the Republic of Kenya, to their MPESA registered mobile numbers. Note that MPESA electronic value is NOT legal tender.

    With regard to money laundering, Trincmoney carries out the required due diligence on customers who send us money and who receive money from us.

    If PayPal were to open up shop on Kenya it would be a blessing to a lot of people who use the Internet to send and receive money. Trincmoney will survive simply because a PayPal withdrawal takes 4 working days to effect while our service is effected within the hour. Also chances are that the charges will be higher.

    I hope I have answered your queries. I have also read your blog on our service. Please note that we changed our rates and are now charging 6.9% + KES.250. Check out our Facebook Page and Twitter handle and sample some of our customer reviews.

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  • Strategic SEO

    Posted: January 20, 2012, 12:44 pm by Kelvin

    We all want our names, companies and products to come up when you search for them on Google, right? This is what SEO.; Search Engine Optimization – the art and science of making sure you are found when people search on Google and other search engines.

    I get clients asking me for this everyday. The problem is, of course, no one knows how this works. A while back an angry client was up in arms for making their brand seem “cheap”. They could not understand why their brand did not come up when you searched for certain words on Google. (In fact, they went on to call Google Kenya so as to make a complaint). But I digress…

    How do you make you site pop up first in the search engine results pages? You can click here to read a detailed answer. Basically, what you need to do is to prove to Google that your website is relevant to the topic being searched and important relative to other websites.

    If you company is ABC Ltd and your main competitor is XYZ Ltd, it is fair to assume that you’d both get pretty good websites. After a (hopefully short) while you would both realise that it is important to be found on Google and you would start investigating this. The first thing you’ll likely come across is that you have to optimize your websites. This is sometimes called “on page” SEO. Everyone does it perfectly (or they should!).

    Going back to our example, the CEOs of XYZ and ABC would both ensure that their on page SEO is done perfectly if they are reasonably good as CEOs. What next? How does one get an advantage over the other as far as SEO goes? If you ask me, gains from on page SEO are marginal because everyone does it well. The important part of SEO is what you do after you have optimized your website.

    Invariably, the other part of SEO can be boiled down to one thing: making sure that as many other websites as possible point a link to your own website. This works this way: when example.com publishes a link to your company’s website, it is taken to mean that example.com is voting for your site’s importance. The more such links you can get, the better!

    The problem is that getting these links is expensive and/or time-consuming.

    So how do you do this in a scalable way?

    Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you are notified as soon as we publish part 2 of this article.

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  • The Most Popular Browser & Operating System in Kenya

    Posted: January 17, 2012, 10:29 am by Kelvin

    This post is based on statistics of visitors to www.likechapaaa.com of the period January 2011 to January 2012. The data represents the operating systems and browsers used by the people who visited Like Chapaa in the year 2011. Here’s a nice little graph for you:

    Like Chapaa 2011 Website Statistics (click for larger image)

    PC Operating systems
    Of course it is no surprise that Windows is far and away the most popular operating system in Kenya. But it was VERY surprising to me that there seems to be more Mac users than there are Linux users. Does this seem strange to you?

    1. Windows – 74.31%
    2. Macintosh – 3.88%
    3. Linux – 1.76%

    I haven’t taken mobile into account above, see blow.

    Mobile Operating systems
    As you can see in the graphs, the leading mobile operating system is “not set”. I will assume that this can be attributed to the “kawa” phones such as your Nokias, Samsungs and whatnot – i.e. “feature phones”. These feature phones contribute a whopping 11.46% of the visitors to Like Chapaa.

    It is interesting to note that the Android operating system is at a respectable 2.71%

    1. Feature phones – 11.46%
    2. Android – 2.71%

    According to this data set, the most popular mobile operating system in Kenya:

    1. Symbian OS
    2. Unknown
    3. Android
    4. Samsung
    5. Sony Ericsson
    6. iOS
    7. Blackberry
    8. Windows mobile

    Most Popular Browser
    Firefox is the most popular browser with Internet Explorer coming in second and Google Chrome third. Interestingly, the lead that Firefox has is huge, being more than double its nearest competitor. Another interesting thing is that Google Chrome is almost at par with Internet explorer.

    To be honest, these stats are very much unexpected. Globally, the most popular browser by a huge margin is Internet explorer. Perhaps this means that visitors to Like Chapaa are more ‘sophisticated’ when compared to the average Internet user.

    1. Firefox – 40.68%
    2. Internet Explorer – 17.20%
    3. Chrome – 16.28%
    4. Safari – 2.70%
    5. Opera – 1.91%

    Mobile Vs Desktop
    It is interesting to note that Mobile visits were at 14.17% only. I’m sure we have all heard that “mobile is the future of Africa”. I agree with that statement to some extent, but the data just does not seem to back it up, does it?

    Like Chapaa is an “information/”news” type of website and I attribute the relatively high number of mobile visitors to this fact. I would argue that if you look at the visitor stats of a normal company website, you would get much fewer numbers of mobile visitors.

    What does this mean? I am not sure, but, to me, clearly personal computers are still the dominant Internet device among Kenyans. Further to this, if you are building your company website do not put a significant amount of resources into developing a “mobile” version (unless you can afford it).

    What do you think of all this?

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • The C Word

    Posted: January 6, 2012, 11:27 pm by Kelvin

    Send a short message to your friends encouraging them to man up and use contraceptives … a LITTLE step that can go a LONG way in lowering the number of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Do your part now!

    Learn more.

Jayanoris

  • The C Word

    Posted: January 6, 2012, 11:27 pm by Kelvin

    Send a short message to your friends encouraging them to man up and use contraceptives … a LITTLE step that can go a LONG way in lowering the number of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Do your part now!

    Learn more.

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • The Fall of Rome?

    Posted: December 19, 2011, 6:46 pm by Kelvin

    This was recently on Reddit.

    People in The Netherlands have always looked up to the USA. It won’t be long before that stops, I guess. These are

    stories I read, watched and heard in the mainstream media over here:

    • your political system is one of the most corrupt systems in the world
    • your politicians represent companies instead of people
    • your government will probably censor the internet
    • your government detains without trial
    • your government tortures people
    • your government hires mercenaries
    • your government does nothing to improve education
    • your president doesn’t have any real influence over what happens
    • your presidential candidates are stupid beyond belief
    • your presidential candidates promote stupidity
    • your presidential candidates are not taking seriously over here
    • your elections are a joke
    • your media outlets cannot be trusted
    • your media outlets focus on distractions instead of main issues
    • your people are fucked when they’re uninsured
    • your infrastructure is collapsing
    • your economy will soon be top 3 instead of #1
    • your economy will probably collapse a second time

    So it’s not only Reddit or The Daily Show that is covering these issues. Other countries are watching and passing the popcorn while your country is collapsing. And I think it will get worse, not better. I am 29 years old and looking back at the world’s history I don’t think the problems above will be solved during my lifetime. It will probably have to get a lot worse before a movement arises that’s big enough to demand real change.

    Now you’ll probably read this, take one small point out of my story and comment on that. That’s okay, but please notice the trend of what’s going on in your country. Do something about it. We need our big brother to act like role model. Right now he’s high as a kite.

Jayanoris

  • The Fall of Rome?

    Posted: December 19, 2011, 6:46 pm by Kelvin

    This was recently on Reddit.

    People in The Netherlands have always looked up to the USA. It won’t be long before that stops, I guess. These are

    stories I read, watched and heard in the mainstream media over here:

    • your political system is one of the most corrupt systems in the world
    • your politicians represent companies instead of people
    • your government will probably censor the internet
    • your government detains without trial
    • your government tortures people
    • your government hires mercenaries
    • your government does nothing to improve education
    • your president doesn’t have any real influence over what happens
    • your presidential candidates are stupid beyond belief
    • your presidential candidates promote stupidity
    • your presidential candidates are not taking seriously over here
    • your elections are a joke
    • your media outlets cannot be trusted
    • your media outlets focus on distractions instead of main issues
    • your people are fucked when they’re uninsured
    • your infrastructure is collapsing
    • your economy will soon be top 3 instead of #1
    • your economy will probably collapse a second time

    So it’s not only Reddit or The Daily Show that is covering these issues. Other countries are watching and passing the popcorn while your country is collapsing. And I think it will get worse, not better. I am 29 years old and looking back at the world’s history I don’t think the problems above will be solved during my lifetime. It will probably have to get a lot worse before a movement arises that’s big enough to demand real change.

    Now you’ll probably read this, take one small point out of my story and comment on that. That’s okay, but please notice the trend of what’s going on in your country. Do something about it. We need our big brother to act like role model. Right now he’s high as a kite.

Like Chapaa

  • StarCraft 2 Taking Root in Kenya

    Posted: December 16, 2011, 12:53 pm by Kelvin

    Something exciting: the most professional-looking and run StarCraft 2 tournaments in Kenya just came to a close, the Safari Cup #3.

    We take this opportunity to all the players and the organisers of that tournament. Kudos to them all. We hope that everyone who took part had a lot of great fun.

    For those who have no clue what StarCraft is:

    StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 March 1998. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide as of February 2009, it is one of the best-selling games for the personal computer in history.

    Many of the video game industry’s journalists have praised StarCraft as one of the best and most important video games of all time, and for having raised the bar for developing real-time strategy games. StarCraft’s multiplayer is particularly popular in South Korea, where players and teams participate in professional competitions, earn sponsorships, and compete in televised tournaments.

    Right now in the developed world, StarCraft is very very hot and is helping to grow the worldwide competitive computer gaming scene. It has seen the scene grow immensely in the last year, with huge tournaments being held monthly and extremely large corporations taking part as sponsors (think Intel, AMD, Nvidia, CocaCola etc).

    This is why I feel that the growth of StarCraft in Kenya is important for several reasons:

    1. It puts Kenya at the forefront amongst ‘developing’ nations. We are among the first of these nations to have professional competitive StarCraft.
    2. Our youth are able to engage in a positive activity that may lead them to earning quite the living (the highest earning players worldwide this year clocked in more than $200,000 and this is only going to rise)
    3. It markets our country: as a tourist destination; and as a tech-savvy place ideal for outsourcing IT services to. Both of these are things that our government is trying very hard to market Kenya as.

    I do hope to see StarCraft grow bigger and bigger in the country.

    Unrelated interesting fact
    The Naivasha Jaza Resort was one of the sponsors of the Safari Cup #3. Through this modest sponsorship, they got unparalleled international exposure and have reported that they got quite a number of international inquiries when the Safari Cup was noticed prominently in the StarCraft community. Is this something that your business may like to experience? Talk to kalongo.com!

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  • BorderLinx Stops Working For Kenya

    Posted: December 8, 2011, 12:51 pm by Kelvin

    BorderLinx is a service which allows you to create a US or UK shipping address. You can then shop online and have the items delivered to your BorderLinx-created address.

    Later on, you can consolidate all your items in one package and have it shipped to your home country. It is a nice service that allows you to access US/UK online shops that do not deliver outside their own countries. It also allows one to save on shipping by consolidating all their items into one package.

    Sadly, BorderLinx recently announced that they will no longer be supporting Kenya. (Just like PayPal!).

    Cessation Of Cross-border Delivery Service To Kenya
    Dear ,

    After several months of investigation and attempting to reduce the incidence of fraud, we have found ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to cease providing cross-border delivery services to Kenya with immediate effect. We have considered a number of options to avoid this action, but the incidence and risk of fraud for Kenyan transactions is too great for our business to absorb.

    Regrettably, we will be closing the accounts of all Kenya customers. If you have any packages which are still in one of our export facilities, please give us your instructions to release the shipments no later than Friday, 16 December 2011.

    For those customers who have used our services for legal and honest purposes, we are truly sorry that we have been forced to take this difficult decision. If you have any questions, please contact our live chat service via the website.

    Yours sincerely
    The Borderlinx Team

    Visit www.borderlinx.com

    Kwani how prevalent is fraud in Kenya, jameni? If this goes on, we shall not be able to do any online business.

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  • Niche it down!

    Posted: December 8, 2011, 8:51 am by Kelvin

    I got an interesting email from Ramit Sethi that I’d like to share with you. Here it comes:

    “Today, a quick story on niching it down.

    As you know, most people try to appeal to EVERYONE. They can’t fathom the idea of choosing a specific audience, and focusing deeply on them, which often means repelling others.

    Yet when they try to appeal to everyone, they end up with products/services like “Personal Finance For Serious Investors” or “Unisex Salons” — which ironically appeal to nobody.

    So let me share another example I recently found.

    • To start, I’ll first tell you that Indian people have very specific things we like. For example:
    • Food with tons of flavors
    • Long, flowy clothes (kurta pajama for men, salwar kameez for women)
    • Most importantly, LONG HAIR ON WOMEN

    The vast majority of men would agree with me that long hair is hotter than short hair.

    Yet there are women who have short hair. And although I cannot understand them whatsoever, there is a group that can: A publication called Short Hair.

    There is an entire magazine devoted just to short hair. It’s called Short Hair, and it turns out it’s been around for many years. While it sounds silly, one of it’s main selling points is that if you see a cut in there you like you can buy the glossy and show it to your stylist.

    Some things to consider:

    1. I seriously hate short hair on women
    2. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to appeal to “everyone.” But the tighter your niche is, the more of that audience you will attract. For women with short hair, this is almost as tight of a niche as you can possibly create — while repelling people like me
    3. For example, I will never buy this magazine. But the creators of Short Hair magazine don’t care about people who aren’t going to buy like me. They deliberately engineered their product and marketing to appeal to people who WILL buy.
    4. This is why the “Unisex Salon” I walked past last week might as well rename their shop to “Men’s Barber.” After all, what woman would go in a unisex salon? Why not simply acknowledge who you’re going after and tailor/target them?

    Hope this was useful.”

    More: I will teach you to be rich.

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  • 16 Types of Websites You Can Create to Make Money

    Posted: December 6, 2011, 6:37 am by Kelvin

    Every website idea or type is a potential winner. None of them can be ruled out definitively because a big part of any site’s profit potential depends on how well you market the site and grow it from the ground up. If you are an excellent marketer and strategic CEO, it’s not difficult to make even the most common ideas a success.

    What sites are worth developing? Most sites are, if you have time and are willing to invest time/funds and energy on growing the sites aggressively. Being an optimistic webmaster, I would say that you can turn a profit on anything if you really work at it.

    The Sitepoint marketplace and Digital Point marketplace are probably two of the more popular places to buy websites of all sorts. Monitor them if you’re interested in expanding your virtual estate. You’ll find all of the site ideas below in both forums:

    1. Affiliate Review Website. Create a website that reviews affiliate products like make money online programs, web hosting services etc. Run it on WordPress and update it everyday with affiliate feeds or articles. How much you’ll make depends on how thick (amount of content) the website is.
    2. Product Fan Blog. Create a WordPress blog around a popular product and update everyday with news about the product. The iPhone is a good example of a hot product to choose. Traffic will be quite decent over time if the product/s have longevity.
    3. Auction websites. Create a website that is similar to eBay to allow users to sell and buy products from each other. You will generate income by monetizing through ads and drawing a commission through each sale. You might get some steady revenue if you sell high ticket products or go niche enough to get a loyal user base.
    4. Dating Websites. Dating websites are communities which allow users to register, chat with and meet other interested users. They can be easily setup with turnkey scripts although you’ll really need a customized template and some coding work done to make it competitive or attractive enough to get some users. Markus Frind is currently the biggest individual Adsense publisher and makes well over $10K a day from his free dating site, Plenty of Fish.
    5. Made for Adsense Websites. These are websites with a keyword domain and they come with a bunch of pre written articles around a specific topic. Examples of common topics include acne, cancer, health and finance. These are generally boring, low maintenance sites that are plastered with contextual ads. Incredibly easy to create using the WordPress platform.
    6. Affiliate Product Website. This is a salespage which sells an electronic product like an eBook. Create the product, buy an existing one or just get someone to do it. The main way to make money is to drive or buy traffic to your salespage and make money when they buy your eBook or opt into your email list. This is an easy way to generate some real income, especially if you are have a great niche product or am skilled in promoting your personal brand and salespage.
    7. Online Games/Arcade Sites. Get someone to develop an online game that is for members only and earn money by selling points, which allow users to unlock extra options within the game. Arcade sites are simply sites with a collection of flash or online games. They are monetized through display ads. Games can spread quickly if they are very well designed and appealing.
    8. Forums or Social Network. Pick a topic that is able to attract a decent amount of users and create a forum or social network. Income will not come quickly and a lot of work is needed to build the community. Create a blog on the same domain and use for promotional purposes. There is a potential to earn a good amount of money when the forum gets big or popular.
    9. Specialized Search Engines. Build a search tool that allows visitors find media of specific types. Include your adsense ads within the search pages. This sort of tools usually don’t do very well unless you provide additional value on top of search. Examples of things to add include ajax search, folksonomy and recommendation engines.
    10. Paid Membership Site. These are membership sites which provide ongoing educational lessons on a specific topic or offer a large archive of resources, along with a forum. An example of this is the Teaching Sells website. Members will pay a fixed fee every month to maintain their membership.
    11. Design/Coding Service Site. Create a website that offers customized logo or website design, alongside coding for PSD to XHTML, WordPress and Joomla. Hire freelance coders and designers and manage them. Pay them a portion of each sale and promote your website through blogs and webmaster forums.
    12. File Hosting Website. Set up a file host which allows users to upload and share their files online with other users. There’s a tremendous amount of competition in this niche so its very difficult to make some real money unless you innovate on features or market it well.
    13. Web Directories. A web directory provides listings for websites and makes money from both display advertising and sale of premium listings. Most of the work needs to be focused on marketing and branding the site. Niche directories with a good reputation might find it easier to make money.
    14. Online Web tool. This includes URL shorteners, spell checkers, picture editors, file converters and various webmaster tools (keyword volume, link popularity). Visitors will often return to your site to use these tools if they are comprehensive enough or if your site is well designed and genuinely useful.
    15. Proxies. Proxies are websites which allow a websurfer to not only surf anonymously but bypass certain filters which prevent one from viewing a site. They are popular with the Myspace crowd and will often require a dedicated server. There are many proxies on the market but they may be worth exploring. Income is largely passive.
    16. Commercial Template Sites. Basically this involves the creation of readymade website templates for sale. They can be bundled up into sales packages and traffic can be obtained through PPC advertising. If you’re not interested in producing original templates, you can run the site using affiliate feeds from the other more established template websites like Template Monster.

    The ideas mentioned can all be created by yourself using an existing script or you can set up your own by hiring a coder and designer. It’s more or less DIY, although you will need to some research on the market and have some basic webmaster skills

    Now for your opinion. I imagine that some readers might want to start purchasing or building up some of these websites. What do you personally think has the most potential for profit and which idea would you recommend?

    Source: DoshDosh.

    Interesting in investing in websites? If you want to get into this but have no idea how to search for, value, evaluate and manage a website, give us a call. We’ll work something out.

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  • Six questions for analyzing a website

    Posted: November 27, 2011, 1:02 pm by Kelvin

    Seth Godin brings us this gem of an article that is very useful when you want to analyse whether a website is a good investment.

    It’s tempting to believe that any website can become a perpetual motion machine of profit. But before you start one, invest in one or go to work for one, a few things to ask:

    1. What’s the revenue per visit? (RPM). For every thousand visitors, how much money does the site make (in ads or sales)?
    2. What’s the cost of getting a visit? Does the site use PR or online ads or affiliate deals to get traffic? If so, what’s the yield?
    3. Is there a viral co-efficient? Existing visitors can lead to new visitors as a result of word of mouth or the network effect. How many new visitors does each existing user bring in? (Hint: it’s less than 1. If it were more than 1, then every person on the planet would be a user soon.) This number rarely stays steady. For example, at the beginning, Twitter’s co-efficient was tiny. Then it scaled to be one of the largest ever (Oprah!) and now has started to come back down to Earth.
    4. What’s the cost of a visitor? Does the site need to add customer service or servers or other expenses as it scales?
    5. Are there members/users? There’s a big difference between drive-by visits and registered users. Do these members pay a fee, show up more often, have something to lose by switching?
    6. What’s the permission base and how is it changing? The only asset that can be reliably built and measured online is still permission. Attention is scarce, and permission is the privilege to deliver anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them. Permission is easy to measure and hard to grow.

    Do the math on successful companies online and compare it to those that are struggling and these six metrics will help you understand the difference. For example, if the RPM is less than the cost of getting a new visitor, you’ve got trouble. If the site is relying on fads and occasional PR but isn’t building a permission base, that’s trouble too.

    The good news is that each of them can be changed if you’re alert and willing to do surgery on the business model and structure of the site.

    The ideal structure is a business that’s a platform, not merely a place to stop by. Once people move in and become members, they’re hesitant to leave, they share permission over time, they tell their friends, their RPM goes up and the cost of acquiring and hosting members goes down. The real question is: are you on that path?

    Interesting in investing in websites? If you want to get into this but have no idea how to search for, value, evaluate and manage a website, give us a call. We’ll work something out.

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  • Do You Know About This Amazing Investment Opportunity?

    Posted: November 25, 2011, 12:59 pm by Kelvin

    In this economy, where do you invest your money? What gives the best returns? We still believe that one of the best, least-known investment opportunities is investing in websites.

    In fact, over the last few months, we have been quietly purchasing websites both for ourselves and some clients. Why do we think this represents a good investment? Here’s a quote from an earlier article:

    A little-known way of making money online is that of investing in virtual real estate i.e. buying websites.

    I know you are conversant with the idea of buying land or houses so I will use that as an example to make a point. If you buy a house at Kshs 5 million and then rent it out, the monthly rent that you can charge is usually 1% of the buying price (this sometimes varies but it is the average). Therefore, the expected rent of a house worth 5 million would be Kshs 50,000 a month or Kshs 600,000 a year. To get back your 5 million investment, it would take 8.3 years. This is considered a good investment.

    A better one would be to buy a small business. The average rate of return on a small business is about 20% – i.e. if you buy a business at 5 million, you should expect to make 1 million a year. This means that it would take you 5 years to get back your investment.

    What about buying a website? The strange thing is that the value of a website is usually only about 12 – 24 times its money income. That is, if a website makes Kshs 10,000/- a month, the selling price should be a maximum of 240,000/-. This means that it only takes you two years to get back your initial investment.

    Sounds like a good investment to you? (Read More)

    Think about that. If you spend Kshs 5,000,000 on a website you should expect to make up to Kshs 500,000 every month. And, guess what? Some types of websites require NO input from you. Can you imagine making a passive 500k every month? I don’t know what to say – I simply cannot think of a better investment in this economy! Can you?

    Let me share with you a snapshot of recently sold websites to further drive the point home:

    Recently sold websites

    From the above, the average cost of purchasing a website is about 10.7 times its expected monthly revenues.

    This means that if a website makes $100 (about Kshs 10,000 currently) every month, then its expected purchase price would be $1,070 (about Kshs 100,000 currently).

    A website that cost you $1,070 (about Kshs 100,000 currently) will earn $1,200 (about Kshs 120,000 currently) in one year.

    Sijui if this makes any sense to you. Personally, though, at Nickel Pro we have been aggressively investing in websites to the point where now a significant part of our revenues is on “autopilot” (it comes whether we work or not). Hakuna pesa tamu kama hiyo, let me tell you!

    So, as you are thinking of where to invest your money. Spare a thought for websites. In my opinion it is one of the best investments out there. If you want to get into this but have no idea how to search for, value, evaluate and manage a website, give us a call. We’ll work something out.

    Cheers!

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

  • An Opportunity to Make Money as a Developer in Kenya

    Posted: November 13, 2011, 7:51 am by Kelvin

    I’m writing this blog post cuddled up in a tent in Naivasha’s Crayfish Camp while attending the 2011 Kenya WordCamp.

    WordCamp Kenya is a conference about the world’s most popular blogging software WordPress. Developers, designers and users will come together for talks and workshops related to WordPress and to publishing on the web, and to network.

    WordPress, of course, is the rockstar of online web publishing. It is so good that it is used to power 14.7% of the top one million world’s biggest websites. In the USA, WordPress has been used to create and manage 22% of all new websites in the year 2011. It is used in 8% of the websites on the entire web. Clearly, WordPress is the one of the biggest and most widely used CMS.

    I’m here primarily because I am one of the speakers at this conference. I had an interesting presentation on DukaPress yesterday. If you are not attending this event, well, pole kwako.

    I would say the majority of the people who made it are bloggers from Kenya – very prominent Kenyan bloggers. It has been wonderful meeting some of the people I look up to. It is very good to see that Kenya has a very strong and thriving blogosphere.

    However, I am disappointed in that I found that the number of WordPress developers here is relatively small. In fact, my observation is that in Kenya, generally, WordPress developers are few and far between. For example at DukaPress last year we wanted to hire a number of WordPress developers but could not find more than one or two who actually had experience with WordPress from all those who applied for the jobs.

    I feel that this represents a massive opportunity for developers in Kenya. WordPress is HUGE. In fact, on almost all of the “freelancer” websites (like freelancer.com, guru.com, elance.com etc) the vast majority of all programming/web development jobs are related to WordPress. If as a developer you know how to work well with WordPress, you can easily make money online, offline or both. Just look at what our small team has been able to do with DukaPress.

    Think about it. Can you take advantage of this opportunity?

    PS: You can get more information on WordCamp Kenya here. You can follow the event live on Twitter by following @WordCampKE or #WCKE which is the official hashtag.

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

  • Your Cannot Afford To Miss WordCamp Kenya 2011

    Posted: October 18, 2011, 3:30 pm by Kelvin

    What is WordPress? WordPress is a content management system (CMS). In simpler terms, WordPress is software that is used to create websites and manage them. Such software makes both the creation and management of a website simpler and better.

    WordPress, in particular, is so good that it is used to power 14.7% of the top one million world’s biggest websites. In the USA, WordPress has been used to create and manage 22% of all new websites in the year 2011. Clearly, WordPress is the one of the biggest and most widely used CMS. (Source of statistics).

    Are you using WordPress for your own website? Why not? If the very very biggest websites use it, it means it is world-class, right? Well, you can use the same world-class software for free right now: www.wordpress.org

    Our own DukaPress is an e-commerce engine for WordPress. i.e. we enable you to quickly and easily create an online shop using WordPress and DukaPress.

    This year, Kenya will host East Africa’s first WordCamp: WordCamp Kenya 2011. This will be an informal conference about WordPress. It is your golden opportunity to learn why WordPress is used to power nearly one-fifth of all the websites in the world.

    It is your opportunity to meet bloggers, developers and businesses who thrive on WordPress.

    Come and learn about blogging, online content publishing and how to make money from your WordPress blog/site or from WordPress itself.

    Whatever you do, do not miss this.

    More info: WordCamp Kenya 2011Similar Posts:


For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • The Destiny That We All Share

    Posted: October 12, 2011, 3:33 pm by Kelvin

    ‎

    “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

    ~Steve Jobs

Jayanoris

  • The Destiny That We All Share

    Posted: October 12, 2011, 3:33 pm by Kelvin

    ‎

    “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

    ~Steve Jobs

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • TV

    Posted: October 7, 2011, 10:45 am by Kelvin

    Being on TV felt surreal. It didn’t even feel like me.

Jayanoris

  • TV

    Posted: October 7, 2011, 10:45 am by Kelvin

    Being on TV felt surreal. It didn’t even feel like me.

Like Chapaa

  • Lethargy in The Kenyan Newspaper Industry

    Posted: October 6, 2011, 3:20 pm by Kelvin

    Let’s start with the words of Donnacha who wrote the following in a discussion of the choice of Newspapers’ publishing software on the Internet:

    This is why local newspapers are dying, not because technology was inevitably going to wipe them out but because journalists are so used to superficially skimming the details and coming to trite conclusions rather than bothering to actually understand things – decades of poor journalism echoed in bad business decisions.

    The Internet isn’t killing newspapers, it could have been a huge boon to them, they are committing suicide.

    Obviously, I don’t have access to the backend of The Concord Monitor but, seriously, I could whip up something more stylish, easier to maintain and with a better publishing work-flow in one day by simply building upon a good Genesis theme, Justin Tadlock’s Members plugin, Gravity Forms, Yoast’s SEO and a few other old reliables. I have seen the “professional” tools that cost crazy amounts and they are way behind the best of WordPress.

    The problem, and I come across this all the time, is that companies have experienced such horrific abuse from their previous CMSes that they simply can’t believe this stuff can actually be easy and, of course, there’s usually some lazy IT guy in the background, worried that his cover will be blown, persuading them that they need to pay fifty grand for a “professional solution” – this is why the “WordPress is for blogging” meme refuses to die, because a lot of people are making a living from it. When clients are clueless – and print journalists tend to be surprisingly technophobic – such manipulation becomes standard practise, it’s an industry-wide Stockholm Syndrome.

    Unfortuantely, this makes me immediately think of Kenya’s very own Financial Post.

    Proudly broken - www.financialpost.co.ke

    The Financial Post’s website, in my humble opinion is woeful. It is broken. It is a shame. Sadly, for as long as I can remember they have had that same exact website up. If the Financial post has any “IT” staff, one wonders why they exist. I also know for a fact that the Financial Post has received quite a number of proposals for their website’s improvement (including one from me years ago).

    Why would any sensible organisation keep their website in such a state? To make matters worse, The Financial Post is a news organisation. They can earn significant amounts if only they had a stable, working website. Add to this the fact that there is no other major Kenyan news site offering the same kind of ‘financial news’ and you are left to wonder why they let this opportunity go.

    In other countries, it is said that the newspaper and print industries may die. Perhaps it is not so in our Kenya. But is this really an excuse to sit back and do nothing? The Internet is relatively small in Kenya, but it is getting bigger. Soon enough, our own ‘print industry’ will be in real trouble. Is that the time when organisations like the “Financial Post” wake up?

    I am sure that The Financial Post is just one of the many lethargic organisations in our newspaper industry. Apart from the big names – Daily Nation, Standard, etc – the rest are not doing anything significant online, are they? Donnacha’s words above come to mind, “The Internet isn’t killing newspapers, it could have been a huge boon to them, they are committing suicide“.

    PS. The absolutely saddest thing is that any good web developer can turn www.financialpost.co.ke into a classy, beautiful website that earns money in about a week!!

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  • R.I.P. Steve Jobs

    Posted: October 6, 2011, 1:11 pm by Kelvin

    Join us on a journey through the ups and downs of a career that has changed both the tech industry and our culture at large.

    Click here to view the embedded video.

    Words of wisdom from Steve Jobs:

    Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

    Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

    Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

    Thank you Steve, for making a dent in the universe.

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  • The Power of ‘Organic’

    Posted: October 1, 2011, 2:54 pm by Kelvin

    One of the most important business concepts is captured by the word “organic”. I actually use this word quite a bit in conversations and in talks and it’s not really because I’m into organic food.

    No, when I use the word “organic” I’m talking about what happens when you get any slice of real nature in all its richness, in any sphere of life.”Vitamin C” is a substance called ascorbic acid, something you can make in the lab. You want pure vitamins? No problem, somebody can always sell you some, it’s 100% pure from textbook chemistry.

    But everybody knows you can’t live on laboratory vitamins. Plus we all know deep down that vitamins + junk food = self deception. But… if you eat a spinach salad, you get something entirely different. Whether you know what’s in it or not, you know it’s good for you. Why? Because it’s real. You don’t have to go to a health food store to get that; you don’t even need to know what vitamins are. All you have to do is eat real food.

    The business version of this might be… Let’s say you’re thinking about investing in a company, or even getting a job there – which would provide you with more information about how healthy they are?

    A) Reading all the press releases in their website
    B) Sitting in their lunch room for 30 minutes, just listening to the conversations around you

    Fact is (B) is probably the better way to go. You’d quickly develop a sense of the morale, the spirit of the company that a piece of ‘official’ communication deliberately attempts to hide.

    Malcolm Gladwell refers to this in his book “Blink”, where he discusses our remarkable human ability to make snap judgments based on quickly sizing up this sort of organic information. He calls the process of forming accurate first impressions “thin slicing.” “Blink” is a great read and makes many valuable points. John Fox and I talk about this organic cultural factor in our interview.

    I’ve defined marketing as ‘helping people who need each other find each other’ and that is best accomplished by clearly and effectively communicating who you are.Which of course requires that you know who you are in the first place.

    If you know that and communicate it effectively, you attract not just the right customers, but the right employees, vendors, partners and investors. The consistency and believability of your message is contagious.

    The whole of this article is based on an email received from Perry Marshal

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  • Things Stronger Than The Kenyan Shilling

    Posted: September 27, 2011, 5:41 pm by Kelvin

    Perhaps as a shock, #ThingsStrongerThanTheKenyaShilling is currently trending GLOBALLY on Twitter!!!

    A trending topic is a word, phrase or topic that is posted (tweeted) multiple times on the social networking and microblogging service Twitter.

    #thingsstrongerthanthkenyanshilling

    I think this points to Kenya being an important part of the Internet, ama aje? Sure, the trending topic is for the wrong reasons but still nice to see. Here are a few interesting tweets:

    Ok, ok, I know we are in interesting economic times, but a global Twitter trends for #ThingsStrongerThanTheKenyaShilling Really?
    @reutersJeremyG

    #ThingsStrongerThanTheKenyaShilling What? I don’t care about Kenya,there’s nothing there… Except Paul Tergat and other athletes I guess.
    @KingNurk

    #ThingsStrongerThanTheKenyaShilling Strong tea ya mluhya
    @massakku

    #ThingsStrongerThanTheKenyaShilling Mike Sonkos intelligence
    @mailumailu

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  • Write A Business Plan That Is Not Boring

    Posted: September 20, 2011, 10:54 am by Kelvin

    A business plan is any plan that works for a business to look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for problems and opportunities.

    Here’s how to write one without boring the life out of its readers: Don’t Make My Eyes BleedSimilar Posts:


  • MedAfrica

    Posted: September 19, 2011, 5:38 pm by Kelvin

    Here’s a very interesting presentation on MedAfrica which a very ambitious Kenyan company seeking to solve very real and appropriate healthcare related problems.

    Click here to view the embedded video.

    They look pretty good, don’t they?

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

  • The Long Grind Before You Become an Overnight Success

    Posted: September 12, 2011, 9:50 pm by Kelvin

    I read Seth Godin’s “The Dip: The Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit and When to Stick” over the weekend.

    It has some interesting approaches to life and work. Let me paraphrase:

    If you (or your company) want to be “the best in the world” at something…you need to work through the beginning phase of development and be able to hang on and evolve through the long development phase, which he calls “the dip”…and you need to drop any distracting investments of time and money for which you do not have adequate advantage to make it through “the dip” — this is called “intelligent quitting”.

    The long development phase, which can get progressively more difficult, might be a “dip” with success at the end of the tunnel, or a “cul-de-sac”—a place where you can work forever and never get the rainbow. And you have to learn to discern the difference…

    There are big advantages that accrue to those who are “best in the world”.

    The Dip is a very interesting and inspiring book which I encourage everyone to read. You can take a lot of meaning from its pages but to me, the book’s main idea is that usually “overnight success” is not actually overnight. For you to become really, really successful you often have to go through an extended period of time where you work VERY hard yet you don’t actually feel like you are making any progress.

    This article describes this situation perfectly: The Long Grind Before You Become an Overnight Success.

    The lesson here is that if you are working on a new idea, a new business, a new product…a new anything then you should be prepared for the long and hard-fought “dip” which you very probably will go through on your way to success.

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  • Refreshing Like Chapaa

    Posted: September 9, 2011, 11:41 am by Kelvin

    Well, in keeping with our tradition of changing the look and feel of likechapaa.com every year or so, we are very pleased to announce that Like Chapaa now wears a new look.

    We think (and hope) that this is better than the old one and that it is easier on the eyes and that it makes it easier for you to get around the site.

    What do you think of our new look?

    PS: The new look is courtesy of Nickel Pro.

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  • The Rise and Rise of “E-sports”

    Posted: September 7, 2011, 1:21 pm by Kelvin

    Starcraft II

    Video games have come a long way in the last 15 years. No longer is it a pastime of the those locked away in their bedrooms. Now there is a whole world of video gamers playing with friends, and play against others.

    Electronic sports, “e-sports“, is used as a general term to describe the play of video games competitively. Nowadays, professional video gaming is quickly becoming a legitimate sport. A few years ago, poker took the limelight, blurring the line between professional gaming and non-athletic sports. Now, Major League Gaming and dozens of other leagues have popped up around competitive games like StarCraft and Halo: Reach.

    In the nation of South Korea, StarCraft is literally a national sport and is equally as popular (if not more) as sports like basketball or baseball. StarCraft 2, in particular is currently leading a resurgence of e-sports which tournaments organised online on a daily basis. In fact, the major tournaments attract prizes of up to $50,000 for the winner. That’s Ksh 4.75 MILLION.

    Opportunity for our youth
    Locally, e-sports is nowhere near the level it is at in more developed countries but the good thing is that there does exist a strong local gaming community and there are efforts to make gaming popular in Kenya led by NexGen and, to a lesser degree Kalongo. This is a good thing and such efforts need to be encouraged for three reasons (among others):

    • Competitive gaming can actually easily become a legitimate source of income for at least some of our country’s unemployed youth. if people are winning Kshs 4.75 million just for playing a game, why can’t Kenyans get in on some of that?
    • People who are busy get up to less mischief. Again, this helps tackle our country’s problem of having a large number of unemployed, essentially idle, young people.
    • It is always good to see Kenyans out there conquering the world and making our country proud!

    A couple of years ago, some Kenyan gamers qualified for the WCG (which is like the world cup of competitive gaming). The tournament was to be held in China. Unfortunately, our gamers did not have the funds to travel to China so they approached the government of Kenya through the ministry of sports. Sadly, they were not welcome – “esports” was not recognised as a legitimate sports. This needs to change, fast, lest the great and proud nation of Kenya be left behind.

    Opportunity for businesses
    Over the last year or so, the number of Kenyan businesses seeking to market themselves online has grown in leaps and bounds. It seems any business that is “serious” needs to be on Facebook or Twitter and it is not uncommon for the big boys to spend lavishly on Google Adwords.

    To all the “serious” businesses out there: e-sports represents a massive opportunity to market yourselves online!!

    As stated above, e-sports is currently becoming very popular. Very large professional tournaments are beign set up and millions of people are already avid fans of various players and teams. At the very roots of the current resurgence in esports is the Internet. Unlike in the past, e-sports events can now be transmitted “live” to millions worlwide and sites like Youtube make it possible for anyone to be a fan. In fact, popular matches on Youtube are regularly watched by hundreds of thousands of people (see this guy with over 500,000 followers).

    Imagine this: what if a nice and lovely Kenyan company sponsored a Kenyan player or Kenyan gaming event on condition that it be publicized massively online? As long as the said Kenyan company chose to work with the right people, this could be a very cost-effective way to reach hundreds of thousands of people online. The best thing is that this would probably be very affordable at the moment due to the idea being so new.

    In my mind, businesses in the tourism industry especially need to embrace this unique opportunity as soon as possible. What cheaper way would a tourism firm have of reaching 100,000 potential tourists?

    E-sports is here, and it is serious business!

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  • The Complete Guide To Freemium Business Models

    Posted: September 5, 2011, 9:14 am by Kelvin

    Freemium is a business model that works by offering core services or products for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features.

    Go here to learn all about The Freemium business model.Similar Posts:


  • Come Meet A Kenyan Business Warrior – Kamal Budhabatti

    Posted: August 22, 2011, 10:54 am by Kelvin

    Kamal Budhabatti is a name you should probably register in your mind for posterity reasons. This is a man who is set to conquer the world. The unassuming Indian-Kenyan entrepreneur is working relentlessly towards putting African software on the global map, and he is succeeding. Kamal is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Craft Silicon, a Kenya-based global software development and services company worth around Ksh 1.7 billion and with an annual income of over Ksh 500 million, sources more than 85% of its business from without Kenya offering software solutions in different languages including French, English, Arabic and Spanish across Africa, Asia, Europe and America.

    The League of Young Professionals warmly invites you for an Entrepreneurship Forum:
    Date – Thursday 25th of August, 2011.
    Time – 6:00pm to 8:00pm.
    Venue – Marble Arch Hotel (Behind Fire Station, Next to Akamba)
    Charge – Kshs 500/-

    Our Guest Speaker will be Kamal Budhabatti – Founder and CEO Craft Silicon. He will share with us his Entrepreneurial Journey and the Secrets of the Success of Craft Silicon.

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  • Cyber Crime in Kenya

    Posted: August 16, 2011, 3:07 pm by Kelvin

    www.bettersms.net hacked!


    A couple of days ago I was at my local – by local I mean not one of those fancy places in Westlands – barber shop when suddenly two policeman came in and arrested one of the barbers. The crime? Cyber crime (their words). The barber shop offers phone charging services and , apparently, this one barber had figured out how to get into people’s phones when they were charging. He then accessed their Safaricom Bonga points and sent them to himself.

    Now, I know the guy pretty well. He hasn’t been to any college or university …. if a guy such as him is into cyber crime, then what of those educated to the highest levels of computer science?

    Just recently, I cam across this. Yes. Someone somehow accessed Classic FM’s text messages system and leaked some (very sensitive) text messages to the public. If you have ever sent a text message to Classic FM then you better check if your message has been ‘leaked’. Otherwise you may be surprised to find that your husband figured out what you have been telling Classic about him.

    The state of cyber security in Kenya is simply woeful. It seems everyone wants to get online, build fancy websites and all sorts of ‘apps’ but no one wants to invest in basic security. Take the case of the screenshot above which is from www.bettersms.net – they got violated publicly and embarrassed. Just recently, Idd Salim talked about the shockingly lacking security in our local online banking sites.

    What’s all this leading to? If it hasn’t happened yet, someone will end up losing a lot of money that will affect a lot of people. Don’t let that be you, sawa?


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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • My New (And First) Office

    Posted: July 28, 2011, 9:07 pm by Kelvin

    Earlier this month, I moved into my new offices. I’ve never had “offices” which I could call mine before. Big step for me.

Jayanoris

  • My New (And First) Office

    Posted: July 28, 2011, 9:07 pm by Kelvin

    Earlier this month, I moved into my new offices. I’ve never had “offices” which I could call mine before. Big step for me.

Like Chapaa

  • Are You Becoming Cheap Labour?

    Posted: July 27, 2011, 11:50 am by Kelvin

    I bet you have heard about websites like Freelancer.com, Fiverr and GigBucks. These are websites in which anyone can sign up and start making money online almost instantly. Basically, on these websites you can sell your services for a small fee. The good thing about them is that they are very popular and as long as you are skilled in something it is very difficult NOT to make money online on these sites.

    Indeed, there are literally millions of people who are trying to make money using these websites (and other similar ones). Of all these millions of people, many actually do make money! Sounds nice, eh? You want to go try it out? Go ahead. But before you do, please take a moment to think it through. These websites are loved by people by me because I can get really talented people to offer their services to me really cheap. The people doing jobs on these sites are certainly happy to take my money. And I’m certainly happy to pay them… you know why? Because it is crazy cheap labour!! I can literally hire a graphic designer for $5 (Kshs 450) to create a logo for me then go ahead and sell that logo to someone else for Kshs 5,000/- Pesa taslimu.

    Do you get my point? Sites like Freelancer.com and Fiverr represent hundreds of thousands of people willing and able to work for you at the cheapest rates imaginable. Is the smartest thing you can do to join these hundreds of thousands of people and to compete with them? Really?

    WAKE up!! Find a way to make some money off this insanely cheap labour. Do not BECOME the cheap labour.

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • Ongeri Must Go Day 132

    Posted: July 25, 2011, 9:03 pm by Kelvin

    Sam Ongeri and his minions at the ministry of Education stole Kshs 4.2 Billion that was meant to fund free primary school education in Kenya. In this picture a group of people sit outside his offices demanding that he resign, or be fired.

    This is a gallery of pictures taken when I stumbled across a group of protesters outside the offices of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC). They were demanding that the KACC director, PLO Lumbumba, should investigate and prosecute Sam Ongeri (who lacks any sort of “Honour”) immediately.

Jayanoris

  • Ongeri Must Go Day 132

    Posted: July 25, 2011, 9:03 pm by Kelvin

    Sam Ongeri and his minions at the ministry of Education stole Kshs 4.2 Billion that was meant to fund free primary school education in Kenya. In this picture a group of people sit outside his offices demanding that he resign, or be fired.

    This is a gallery of pictures taken when I stumbled across a group of protesters outside the offices of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC). They were demanding that the KACC director, PLO Lumbumba, should investigate and prosecute Sam Ongeri (who lacks any sort of “Honour”) immediately.

Like Chapaa

  • Don’t Punish Everyone

    Posted: July 24, 2011, 6:37 pm by Kelvin

    Click here to view the embedded video.

    Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake.

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  • PayMPESA Helps Withdraw Your PayPal Funds to MPESA

    Posted: July 11, 2011, 8:04 pm by Kelvin

    There finally seems to be a legitimate, trustworthy way for Kenyans in Kenya to access their PayPal money quickly and easily: PayMPESA.


    In case you are new here, some time last year PayPal did us a favour and made it possible to maintain a PayPal balance with a “Kenyan” PayPal account. This meant that we could finally receive money via PayPal in Kenya. However, withdrawing that money turned out to be a whole other story. Why? Because PayPal has no relationship (currently) with local banks. They need this in order to allow “Kenyan” PayPal accounts the ability to withdraw to a local, Kenyan, bank account. In plain English, this means that you can have money in PayPal but you cannot take it out.

    The only way to take it out – and this is what PayPal themselves recommend – is to withdraw to a US bank account. Unfortunately, not many Kenyans have one so this is a very real and very serious problem when it comes to dealing with PayPal from Kenya.

    Until now. With PayMPESA, all you have to do is to deposit your PayPal funds with them, and they will send it to you in Kenya via MPESA. Nice, eh? I think they are onto something very, very lucrative here and I wish them massive success.

    Have you tried it yet? What do you think?

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  • Online Strategy Vs Websites

    Posted: July 8, 2011, 10:50 am by Kelvin

    I know you know, by now, that very many businesses in Kenya is thinking or has thought about getting online. Unfortunately, a lot of them simply just get an expensive website and fail to achieve anything significant via their internet efforts. Why is it so? This happens because many people think that once they have a website, things will suddenly magically happen.

    Let’s take the example of a coffee farmers co-operative union who want to try and sell their coffee at better prices by using a website to reach customers directly. Nice strategy, ama? So what do the farmers do? They hire a ‘web designer’ who charges them Kshs 25,000/- for a nice flashy website (sadly most so called ‘web designers’ will not even make you a nice website). The farmers receive their website with glee and sit back and wait. Three months later, they are still sitting, and waiting. A while later still, they are still waiting, and waiting…

    A website will not work for you untill you understand why you are getting it. Before you even get the website, you should think about:

    • Who is your target customer?
    • Is he/she online?
    • How can you reach him online?
    • Is it possible to get other customers (who may not be initially people that you target) using the Internet?
    • How else can being online help the business?

    Once you answer these or similar questions comprehensively, you will be in a better position to make a successful website. You will understand that a website is just a tool in your overall internet strategy.

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  • Have a Good Business Idea? Tell Everyone!

    Posted: July 8, 2011, 8:02 am by Kelvin

    A frequent question entrepreneurs have when they are just starting their company is: how secretive should I be about my idea? My answer: you should talk about it to almost anyone who will listen. This includes investors, entrepreneurs, people who work in similar areas, friends, people on the street, the bartender, etc.

    There are lots of benefits to talking to people. You’ll get suggestions for improvements. You’ll discover flaws and hopefully correct them. You’ll learn a lot more about the sector/industry. You’ll learn about competitive products that exist or are being built. You’ll gauge people’s excitement level for the product and for various features. You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. You might even discover your idea is a bad idea and save yourself years of hitting your head against the wall. – Chris Dixon

    Unfortunately, when people think they have a good idea, they almost always want to be super-secretive about it to ‘protect it’. What are they afraid of? That someone will steal their idea and bring it to life? The fact of the matter is this: people do not copy ideas, they copy success. If your fabulous business idea is so simple that someone can understand it to the point of executing it in a matter of a few minutes, then the idea is probable not that fabulous. A successful business takes a lot more than just brilliant ideas. The key is in persistent tuning of the initial idea after a lot of rounds of feedback.

    Related: Share your ideas liberally

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  • Daily Nation’s “e paper”

    Posted: July 5, 2011, 10:21 am by Kelvin

    I’m sure that by now you have seen or heard about The Nation‘s “e paper” initiative. Well, in case you haven’t, it is a new-ish project by the Daily Nation where they sell access to their paper for as low as $2.5 a week (about 220 why did they not quote in Kshs??).

    Think about that – Kshs 220 a week. Right now we pay Kshs 40 a day so this fee of 220 for the epaper is about the same. Why would the Nation do this when they already essentially publish eveything in their paper at nation.co.ke? In my opinion, this is an experiment to try and see whether they can actually make reasonable sales of their content online. To understand why this is important, let’s step back in time to something Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape, said a while ago:

    If you were running the New York Times, what would you do?
    “Shut off the print edition right now. You’ve got to play offense. You’ve got to do what Intel did in ’85 when it was getting killed by the Japanese in memory chips, which was its dominant business. And it famously killed the business—shut it off and focused on its much smaller business, microprocessors, because that was going to be the market of the future. And the minute Intel got out of playing defense and into playing offense, its future was secure. The newspaper companies have to do exactly the same thing.

    The financial markets have discounted forward to the terminal conclusion for newspapers, which is basically bankruptcy. So at this point, if you’re one of these major newspapers and you shut off the printing press, your stock price would probably go up, despite the fact that you would lose 90 percent of your revenue. Then you play offense. And guess what? You’re an internet company.” – Marc Andreessen

    As Marc Andreessen points out, newspapers are in trouble. The problem is not merely that they’ve been slow to adapt to the web. It’s more serious than that: their problems are due to deep structural flaws that are exposed now that they have competitors. When the only sources of news were the wire services and a few big papers, it was enough to keep writing stories about how the president met with someone and they each said conventional things written in advance by their staffs. Readers were never that interested, but they were willing to consider this news when there were no alternatives. (Source: Y Combinator)

    I must say that the newspaper business in Kenya is not as threatened as it is elsewhere but the Nation seem to be preparing for the inevitable in advance. This is always good to see, right?

    Will the e paper be a success? That remains to be seen. Good luck to the Nation!

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  • Zuqka Shuts Down

    Posted: July 4, 2011, 6:06 pm by Kelvin

    A while back, we had written that Zuqka was in terrible trouble. Zuqka is a portal site for weekend entertainment around Nairobi, but with a social networking component as well as video, audio and blogs. Sadly, even though it was backed by the powerful Daily Nation, Zuqka had been infested by spammers who had turned it into a lonely spam farm.

    The good news – depending on how you look at it – is that Zuqka was shut down recently. Here’s the message you get when you visit www.zuqka.com:

    Hi everyone,
    We are looking forward to the new zuqka.com coming soon. But this does not mean the good times are over. Our e-mag is still available here: E-Mag and it will be available while we prepare the new zuqka.com for you.
    Hope we keep seeing you here.
    Zuqka Team

    Normally, when one wants to upgrade a web service, they prepare the ‘new version’ and then switch over to it over a night or a weekend; or sometimes they run both old and new as users switch to the new. When the old version is shut down completely and users are made to wait for the new, then you know something went horribly wrong. In this case, the ‘old zuqka’ simply died a horrible spam death. That’s why it had to be shut down and taken offline completely.

    Spammers 1 Zuqka 0

    Let’s hope Zuqka comes back stronger than before.

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  • How to Get An Online Job

    Posted: July 4, 2011, 11:29 am by Kelvin

    We get so many emails about online jobs that we decided to do somethign about it and try to solve this problem permanently!

    We’re pleased to announce that today we’re releasing our newest, and only, book: Dummies Guide to Getting an Online Job.

    Have you ever thought about getting an online job? Imagine a job which you can do from your own bedroom, in your pyjamas. Imagine a job which you can do at your own time (you can wake up late everyday and spend the afternoons on Thursday playing tennis). Could this lifestyle be for you?

    Have you looked long and hard and struggled to find legitimate online jobs? We wrote this book for you. Many people go out looking for online jobs without doing the basic preparations. They end up as an online scam statistic. Do not let this be your story. Our book guides you through the things that a beginners should know and we suggest several places where you can find well paying legitimate online jobs. We even go as far as guiding you through the use of one very popular online jobs website/service.

    Buy this. Now.Similar Posts:


  • How to Start a Business without Money

    Posted: July 4, 2011, 9:13 am by Kelvin

    Here’s an interesting article:

    Several decades ago, before I got interested in starting businesses, I met a friend who went from being penniless to becoming quite wealthy in a breathtakingly short amount of time. I asked him what the secret of getting rich was.

    He said that you should find something that interests you and become an expert. For some reason, he became interested in turquoise and went from knowing nothing to becoming quite knowledgeable about the gem, the various sources, the market, and the players. One thing led to another, opportunities presented themselves and, presto change-o, my friend was showered with dough.

    When I started my first business, which was an ice cream company, I had no money, I had no business experience, and I had absolutely no idea how to make ice cream. Five years later, my ice cream was judged to be the best in America by People Magazine. (See April and May 2005 archives of this blog for the whole delicious story.)

    What drove the growth of my business was the growth of my knowledge of ice cream. And what drove the growth of my knowledge of ice cream was my love for the stuff.

    When you start a business, what must lead the way should be your own interest in or love for whatever it is you want to do. Loving what you do miraculously attracts all the necessary resources, people and opportunities. You definitely don’t need money to start. Bootstrapping will stimulate your creativity and that is worth much more than money anyway.

    Besides, money is overrated. I have found through bitter experience that there is always baggage that comes with investors’ money. You take their money and you get their karma too. What may seem like easy money is frequently filled with major headaches and not worth it in the long run. I vastly prefer the freedom and the control that comes with bootstrapping.

    Source: [lazyway.blogs.com]

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

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  • Teenage Girls Making Thousands of Dollars Online

    Posted: June 28, 2011, 9:16 am by Kelvin

    Like most 16-year-olds, Renee’s world is in her bedroom. She hangs out here with her friends, and spends hours on her computer. But Renee isn’t just sending e-mails or surfing the web aimlessly. She’s running a highly profitable Internet business from here, one she says has earned her as much as $2,000 a month. But what’s she’s doing in her bedroom would make a lot of mothers blush. Renee is a “Cam Girl” – just one of hundreds of young girls who compete for attention on the Web by putting webcam photos and videos of themselves online. – Odd Line

    This is the true story of girls, teenage girls who make much more money than many people in Kenya to do “teen modelling”. Basically, you have young pretty girls whose pictures and videos of themselves in various places and in various outfits (sometimes near pornographic) can be found on some website. Then, people pay $15 – $25 per month for access to these pictures and videos. Interesting?

    Click here to read all about it. Can you imagine a teenage girl making Kshs 180,000/- a month for just ‘teen modelling’?? Keep in mind that there is nothing explicitly pornographic. How much money do you make a month?

    If American and European girls can do this. can Kenyan girls achieve the same success? More importantly, is this kind of work ethically correct? What do you think, dear readers?

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • Ongeri Must Go

    Posted: June 25, 2011, 8:02 am by Kelvin

    Sam Ongeri and his minions at the ministry of Education stole Kshs 4.2 Billion that was meant to fund free primary school education in Kenya. In this picture a group of people sit outside his offices demanding that he resign, or be fired.

Jayanoris

  • Ongeri Must Go

    Posted: June 25, 2011, 8:02 am by Kelvin

    Sam Ongeri and his minions at the ministry of Education stole Kshs 4.2 Billion that was meant to fund free primary school education in Kenya. In this picture a group of people sit outside his offices demanding that he resign, or be fired.

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

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  • Introducing BitCoin

    Posted: June 9, 2011, 11:51 am by Kelvin

    Bitcoin is a virtual currency, designed to allow people to buy and sell without centralized control by banks or governments, and it allows for pseudonymous transactions which aren’t tied to a real identity. Bitcoin, an open-source project created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, is the world’s first distributed and anonymous digital currency.

    Click here to view the embedded video.

    As a currency, Bitcoin is revolutionary for a few reasons:

    • Artificial currency inflation is impossible with Bitcoin. In most countries, a central bank controls the money supply, and sometimes it may decide to inject more money into an economy. A central bank does this essentially by printing more money. More cash in the system, however, means that the cash you already hold will be worth less. By contrast, because Bitcoin has no central authority, no one can decide to increase the money supply.
    • Cash has features like anonymity and eminent portability, but also comes with the downside that you have to physically move it from place to place to use it. Credit cards and other trust-based electronic currencies can be used instantly over any distance, but you have to attach your real identity to the purchase. Bitcoins combine the advantages of the two methods. Using Bitcoins, I can buy a racy t-shirt from Tibet and computer time from China without either merchant knowing who I am, or my bank knowing what I bought. This is useful not just for those purchasing questionable items (the downside of anonymous currency flows), but also for those who don’t want merchants, banks, or card companies to be able to build up detailed profiles of their life, likes, and habits.

    What do you think of this new currency? Do you think it has a place in the world Kenya?

    PS In just a few weeks, the value of one Bitcoin has risen rapidly to $22 for 1 Bitcoin. This probably means that if you buy a Bitcoin today, you may have much more tomorrow.

    Sources:

    1. Bitcoin: inside the encrypted, peer-to-peer digital currency
    2. Online Cash Bitcoin Could Challenge Governments, Banks
    3. Can Bitcoin Really Succeed Long Term?

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  • Another Look at Group Buying

    Posted: June 8, 2011, 10:42 am by Kelvin

    I’m sure many people have heard about Groupon by now. If you haven’t, Groupon reportedly holds the record for the fastest growing company by revenue in history. It is a service that promises business massive exposure and many new customers if they use Groupon to offer ‘deals’.

    Groupon is so successful that it has been copied tens of times all over the world. Even here in our Kenya, we have Rupu, Zetu and Sokopal.

    Recentlyu, Groupon filed for an IPO (Initial Public Offering) in the US stock markets. This meant that, for the first time, anyone would be able to take a look at Groupon’s books. What people found was shocking. Basically, despite its very high sales revenues, Groupon is losing a whole lot of money and is nearly insolvent. But guess what? They continue to pay their initial investors hundreds of millions of dollars despite making losses.

    This sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it? Just for reference: A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going.

    That aside, Groupon is also reportedly not doing very well in its oldest markets, like Boston.

    No one can tell what will happen to Groupon, but it seems the once bright star may be fading. At the very least, the business seems a bit ‘troubled’.

    What about the Groupon look-alikes in Kenya? How are they faring? I cannot say with any amount of certainty how these businesses are doing. However, I feel that the amount of talk about these companies has gone down, and so has their visibility in the market. But this tells us nothing about their performance. Another sign may be that MyShillings and Sokopal seem to be ailing. Regardless, until we get our hands on solid financial records, we cannot say how these companies are doing. But if Groupon is in trouble, will our local copies come to face it too? Is the business model fundamentally flawed? No one knows.

    Thinking Bigger
    Let’s leave the doom and gloom for a minute and talk about something exciting: 123Cars. This is a website that enables people to buy cars cheaply. Here’s how it works, if you go alone to buy a car from a seller, you may get a price X but if you come with 10 of your friends and you all want to buy the same car, the seller is likely to give you significant discounts. 123Cars enables people to save thousands of dollars when purchasing a car.

    If you think about it, this is a variation of the Groupon model. But I think it is better. Groupon focuses on forcing a business to give massive discounts (usually 75%) to give them hundreds of customers at one go. There a few problems with this model:

    1. The discounts are too high for the business to afford
    2. The business may get so many customers that it cannot serve them with their usual standards of quality
    3. The kind of clients attracted by these deals are often ‘deal hunting’ and do not become loyal customers

    In contrast, 123cars:

    1. targets a niche industry where bulk discounts really do work
    2. brings highly targeted customers – the customers are all interested in cars whereas the people buying Groupons are diverse and just in it for the discount

    I feel that the 123cars variant of the Group Buying model offers more value to businesses.

    Instead of simply coping Groupon (or even 123cars!), local entrepreneurs should think about what would make more sense in our market.

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  • Masaa!

    Posted: June 4, 2011, 8:11 am by Kelvin

    Have you ever been in a situation where you need to verify whether your ISP is really charging you fairly?

    What is Masaa?
    Masaa is a tool that tracks your internet usage, whether on per Minute or per MB billing and keeps a history of the data for future reference. Also provide are optional reminders based on cost or time preferences. Masaa is designed for non-technical users and is not appropriate for those who run a home network for file sharing, or as a print server.

    Why do I need to track my data usage?
    Data Modems are the most popular way of accessing the internet, unfortunately data providers such as Safaricom , Airtel or Orange Kenya do not provide regular usage data to their clients making it difficult to verify whether you are billed correctly. Also given the different billing packages such as per Minute billing offered by the providers Masaa will come in handy.

    You can download Masaa by clicking here.

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

  • Updates on Receiving Payments Online in Kenya

    Posted: May 17, 2011, 6:10 pm by Kelvin


    We recently wrote about two new ways to convert money in your PayPal account into money in your hands in Kenya. These were:

    But there is bad news. It seems the currency exchange method may be risky in that you can get scammed. As for Babawatoto.com, at least on Like Chapaa reader has complained that babawatoto.com do not accept requests originating from within Kenya.

    We reached out to babawatoto.com for their views on this issue and this is the response that we got:

    Kevin,

    Thanks for your email.Due to past and current fraud concerns,we dont process any orders originating from Kenya or with a Kenyan paypal address.

    Regards,

    Customer Support,
    Babawatoto Online
    Email: Info@babawatoto.com
    Web link:http://babawatoto.com

    SO there you have it. If you live in Kenya then babawatoto.com will not help you and, indeed, there are literally no ways to withdraw your PayPal money from within Kenya. How sad.

    As far as receiving payments online from within Kenya, here is the situation thus far (thanks to yeronly):

    1. Paypal – there’s a comprehensive review about this in this (likechapaa) website. The best we have come to withdrawing in kenya without minimal hustles, from reviews of products offered, is babawatoto (sending money to ones mobile) whose advantages are those of mobile money transfer, and disadvantages include a bit expensive and quite low limit (upper limit is ksh. 20,000 for which the charge, at current exchange rate of ksh. 82/dollar is around ksh. 2,300 ). However, babawatoto.com has confirmed that they do not serve requests originating from Kenya.
    2. Moneybookers – Allows wire transfers to local banks; could get challenges being paid by US clients from this. some (entities) will deduct as much as 5% if this is the mode of payment. With your P. O box number, they send a confirmation code to P. O box (received one within a month’s time), once confirmed, your transfer limit is increased.
    3. Alertpay – allows wire transfers; main undoing, as is for moneybookers, is that most clients in the US will prefer Paypal.
    4. Payoneer – this is a mastercard that is issued via partner websites (e.g. Elance, freelancer.com, etc; one must be a member at one of such partner sites to apply). one applies via a street address (e.g. Ngong road, Mombasa road, Kikuyu; then one provides ones post office box – via email – for shipping purposes). Waiting time varies, but received their card within a month. Withdraws in any mastercard supported ATMs (recently since barclays never charges for ATM withdraws, it is the best bet). Card activation $ 12. Standard loading i.e. depositing money to card (2 days) they charge $ 2; some other premium loading – immediate loading i.e within 2hrs they charge $5. monthly maintenance $ 3 Paypal does not allow withdrawing to this card unless you create a virtual US account at Payoneer which attracts additional charges.
    5. Wire transfer – used only one bank for this and it charged ksh. 600 and exchanged at lower-than-market rates. The best option here: create a dollar (foreign currency) account, withdraw money once in, exchange in a forex bureau (their rates are a bit high than banks’), deposit your ksh back if you please.

    And that’s how it is! Currently.

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • 9 to 5

    Posted: May 11, 2011, 9:37 pm by Kelvin

    Workin’ 9 to 5
    What a way to make a livin’
    Barely gettin’ by
    It’s all takin’
    And no givin’
    They just use your mind
    And they never give you credit
    It’s enough to drive you
    Crazy if you let it

    Have you started your own business yet?

Jayanoris

  • 9 to 5

    Posted: May 11, 2011, 9:37 pm by Kelvin

    Workin’ 9 to 5
    What a way to make a livin’
    Barely gettin’ by
    It’s all takin’
    And no givin’
    They just use your mind
    And they never give you credit
    It’s enough to drive you
    Crazy if you let it

    Have you started your own business yet?

Like Chapaa

  • The Content Business in Kenya

    Posted: May 9, 2011, 6:08 pm by Kelvin

    By ‘content’, this post refers to movies/videos, music, computer games and other similar media but NOT “text-based” content.*

    Now, the question is: can a ‘content based’ business thrive survive in Kenya? The sad truth may very well be a big NO.

    Case in point: Silverbird Kenya. This once vibrant cimena company looks like it is shutting down in Kenya! If you look at the image below, you will see that their website has been suspended adn their Twitter account (@silverbirdkenya) lies dormant. What could have happened? What may have caused this company’s downfall.

    Silverbird Kenya Offline


    Well, there is this court case.

    Additionally, I believe it is very difficult to run a content-based business successfully in Kenya. Here, piracy is rampant – you can get DVDs of brand new movies at Kshs 40/- in town!! How can you compete with that? Indeed there is a thread over at Skunkworks Kenya that makes this very point. It would seem that “competing” with piracy is one of the reasons of Silverbird’s failure in Kenya. How sad.

    But can any other content based business survive in this market? Music and games are equally well-pirated in Kenya. I would estimate hardly anyone in Kenya ever buys an original game or music album. Although we must note that this is the case not just in Kenya but pretty much everywhere.

    However, local music seems to be doing ‘okay’ and I would attribute that ‘success’ to the very strict attitude towards the piracy of local music. It is sad that this same attitude is not extended to cover other forms of content. I believe this shines some light on what needs to be done for ‘content’ businesses to thrive in Kenya. Very strict anti-piracy laws have to be introduced and enforced in this market or the producers and legitimate distributors of the content we consume so voraciously will continue to suffers.

    However, even as we talk about anti-piracy measures, we must face the truth: it is much, much easier to get your hands on pirated stuff than to buy it legitimately. This means that the type of content that consumers will get will be the one that is easier to find i.e. the pirated stuff. This is not a “Kenyan thing”. It is the same everywhere. Even so, in the face of overwhelming piracy worldwide some content producers have found ways to survive and maybe even thrive. Surely we can learn from this?

    The main idea here is that we’re in a new era – one in which it is easier to get pirated stuff than to get the legitimate content. This means that the old rules of the content business are changing or have changed. It is time for the players to change how they play. You can stand and shout all day waiting for the government to intervene to save your business but there are better ways to spend your energy – you can build your content business in a way that is is as immune to piracy as possible. It requires that you change they way you think about how to run a content business.

    For example, a music band in the US realised that their album sales were plummeting because people could just download their music for free. What did they do? They started giving away their music for free online. More often than not, people who download your music actually like you and if you give them a way to access your content as easily as through piracy, they will pick the legitimate way. This particular music band’s strategy let them build a huge online fanbase. But how did they make their money? Well, now that they had so many fans, whenever they performed at concerts they almost always had the tickets sold out. I would call that “thinking outside the box”.

    Another example is Netflix. In the USA, piracy also thrives. Netflix is a company that allows very easy access to legitimate (i.e. not pirated) movies. Well, guess what? Now that one can get movies easily and legitimately through Netflix, online movie piracy rates are going down in the USA. Interesting, eh?

    While I believe that piracy is wrong, I also believe that it is not going away any time soon. Content producers should realise this. We’re in a new age that requires new ways of doing business.

    The only way to decrease piracy is to compete with it and offer products that are superior to their pirated counterparts.

    Something to ponder: the introduction of strict anti piracy law in Kenya will definitely lead to the immediate bankruptcy of hundreds of people who make their living by selling pirated content. Is this a good thing?

    *In my view, the ‘textual content’ business is very different and deserves to be treated as such.

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  • Two Kinds of People in The World

    Posted: May 4, 2011, 6:22 pm by Kelvin

    Just read an amazing article by Chris Dixon:

    You’ve either started a company or you haven’t. ”Started” doesn’t mean joining as an early employee, or investing or advising or helping out. It means starting with no money, no help, no one who believes in you (except perhaps your closest friends and family), and building an organization from a borrowed cubicle with credit card debt and nowhere to sleep except the office. It almost invariably means being dismissed by arrogant investors who show up a half hour late, totally unprepared and then instead of saying “no” give you non-committal rejections like “we invest at later stage companies.” It means looking prospective employees in the eyes and convincing them to leave safe jobs, quit everything and throw their lot in with you. It means having pundits in the press and blogs who’ve never built anything criticize you and armchair quarterback your every mistake. It means lying awake at night worrying about running out of cash and having a constant knot in your stomach during the day fearing you’ll disappoint the few people who believed in you and validate your smug doubters.

    I don’t care if you succeed or fail, if you are Bill Gates or an unknown entrepreneur who gave everything to make it work but didn’t manage to pull through. The important distinction is whether you risked everything, put your life on the line, made commitments to investors, employees, customers and friends, and tried – against all the forces in the world that try to keep new ideas down – to make something new.

    Which kind are you?

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  • Strategy & Marketing

    Posted: April 30, 2011, 3:45 pm by Kelvin

    In this video, Joe Hayashi covers mobile app product strategy and marketing from a business perspective. The video is a lecture given at Stanford University. Although the video is supposed to be about marketing and strategy as regards mobile applications, it has enough goodness to be generally applicable to any business. Many, many lessons in strategy and marketing. Watch:

    Click here to view the embedded video.

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  • Another Way to Withdraw Money From PayPal in Kenya

    Posted: April 28, 2011, 4:36 pm by Kelvin

    Following our recent article on how to withdraw cash from PayPal via Liberty Reserve, we found another much easier way. This is thanks to bonchisdecha.


    Babawatoto.com
    BabaWatoto.com have an innovative service which they call “Tuma Pesa“. This is tailored for Kenyans in the diaspora who want to send money back home. However, nothing restricts you from using the service to send money to yourself – ama?

    Babawatoto.com will let you send money to anyone in Kenya and he will receive it on his mobile phone. The useful thing is that Babawatoto.com will let you pay via PayPal. This means one could easily send, say Kshs 20,000/-, through Babawatoto.com to his own mobile number and pay via PayPal. This will effectively mean that you have transferred money from your PayPal account into your mobile phone – ready to use locally!

    You just need to visit this page to get started.

    Kudos to Babawatoto.com for providing such a needed service.

    Update 17 May 2011 – The above method does NOT work from within Kenya. Learn more. Similar Posts:


  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #23

    Posted: April 17, 2011, 9:57 pm by Kelvin

    Ni Kuhama – of course this site is by Airtel as a way to market themselves. The thing that really makes it interesting for me is the quickness of execution in purchasing a whole other domain (nikuhama.com) instead of using something like airtel.com/nikuhama. Kudos.

    mamamealsonwheels a website that lets you order meals from a number of restaurants and then they deliver to your home or office; they also allow you to send shopping lists to them and they can do your shopping for you. First off, I must say that the design is spot on! Really well done. The business idea here is a good one and I hope and pray that these guys get the success they deserve.

    natakanyumba – as the name says, these guys assist you in finding the nyumba that you want. It is often said that a website to help Kenya find real estate online is a massive opportunity that has not been adequately addressed. I personally do not like natakanyumba.com’s choice of colours but that is just an opinion. All in all the website is pretty well done. Let’s hope the execution to capture this market is just as good.

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  • The “Kenyan App” Market?

    Posted: April 11, 2011, 2:36 pm by Kelvin

    It seems that the Android operating system is getting to be really popular in Kenya. Reportedly, over 60,000 Huwaei IDEOS phones have been sold in Kenya in just a few months. The Huwaei IDEOS is the primary Android-powered device in Kenya. It is rumoured that Safaricom has ordered for 200,000 of these phones.

    Think about it. That is 60,000 people and may rise to over 250,000 if Safaricom have its way.

    In other countries, one of the”side effects” of the widespread use of Smart Phones has been the business of selling applications (“apps”) for these smart phones. This business is set to grow into a $12 billion industry by next year. That is, an industry that generates Kshs 1,020 Billion every year.

    Obviously, Kenyan entrepreneurs should think hard about making apps and try to cut a niche for themselves in this huge, huge market.

    What about the local “app industry”? How large is it? I would argue that it is nearly insignificant at this moment in time. But, as I said earlier, we shall soon have a quarter of a million Kenyans owning Smart Phones. Let’s analyse this:

    • Most, if not all of the people will be using apps made elsewhere and targetted at other markets, not Kenyans
    • The mobile phone is still the primary method through which the vast majority of Kenyans “use a computer“, or access the web
    • We are a distinct market and while we may appreciate and use apps made for other markets, we undoubtedly have needs that cannot be met by apps made for other markets

    What does this mean? Well, if you ask me, there is an opportunity for smart Kenyan entrepreneurs to pioneer an industry that shall grow to be significantly large. Yes, I am saying that an opportunity exists for someone to make and sell “Kenyan apps” in the local market.

    What do you think?

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  • Using PR to Attract Customers

    Posted: April 7, 2011, 9:07 am by Kelvin

    The following is a very interesting video of how the founder of inDinero.com used PR to get 6,000 customers.

    Are you launching a new business? How about more customers? You can learn from this:

    Click here to view the embedded video.


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  • Is Your Business Failing?

    Posted: March 17, 2011, 4:41 pm by Kelvin

    “1. Is the site live yet?

    Yes: you’re likely failing, but at least you’ve got a chance of getting some feedback from real, live users, which may, if you’re smart and perceptive, decrease your chance of failure a little bit.

    No: you’re failing.

    2. Do you have free customers yet?

    Yes: well, now you have a shot to establish relationships. And if you listen carefully and not pridefully, you just may have a tiny chance of hearing them correctly and improving your customer experience from awful to plausibly bearable.

    No: you’re failing.

    3. Do you have paying customers yet?

    Yes: congratulations! You have reduced your chances of failing from 100% to 99%. There are many more chances to fail along the way, but you have graduated to some of the more interesting ones. Good show!

    No: you’re failing.

    If, when you wake up in the morning, the answer to any of the above questions is “no”, then you’re failing. Not failing tomorrow, or next month, or next year, but failing right now, today. As you read this…. Now.

    And what you need to do, what you must do, is to spend your entire day focused on changing the answers to yes. Desperately, immediately, fully.”

    The above is taken from How can I tell if I am failing at my entrepreneurial venture or start-up? Which is a very inspiring article on how to tell if your online business is failing.

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  • Starting an Online Business – Deciding What To Do

    Posted: March 17, 2011, 1:19 pm by Kelvin

    So you want to make money online but have no idea what you can do? This post is for you. We shall look at a number of ways through which real (Kenyan) people make money online.

    This is Part 2 of How To Start a Simple Online Business in Kenya.

    Last year we published a report on the most common ways of making money online. If you haven’t read it, here is the link: How to make money online in Kenya, 2010. The good thing about that report, in my view, is that it not only discusses how to make money but it gives examples of Kenyans who are using those methods.

    So, how do other Kenyan make money online?

    1. Selling adverts on your site – basically, you set up a website and make it popular, and then sell advertisements.
    2. Consulting – whereby you work to be seen as an ‘expert’ in some field. People then pay you for consultancy.
    3. Selling other people’s stuff (affiliate marketing) – where you sell goods on behalf of other people and get paid a commission.
    4. E-commerce (selling your own things) – simple put, find some things to sell, and sell them online.
    5. Freelancing – also known as ‘getting an online job’. You basically get paid to do something for other people.

    What you choose to do is up to you but you have to realise that “making money online” is not something that will take a short time. When thinking about making money online, you should think long term. You know those stories of people making millions online? Yeah, it usually takes years and extremely hard work. be prepared.

    The purpose of this series of articles is to learn how to start an online business and therefore we’re going to pick “e-commerce” as the example that we will use for the rest of the series. Why?

    1. We believe it is very easy to understand for people with no prior experience online – it is very much like starting a little shop anywhere else.
    2. We believe it is relatively easy to start and straight-forward to run
    3. We can set up a sample e-commerce business as an example to go with this series of articles

    In the next article in this series, we shall be taking a closer look at how to plan for, and start your own online shop. Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you do not miss any updates on this!

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  • Kenya’s Tertiary Education is Broken

    Posted: March 17, 2011, 10:58 am by Kelvin

    I just read a very disturbing article on The Standard titled: Board rejects 47 degree courses.

    A few years back, I was a student at JKUAT. My room-mate was doing a course named “Bachelor of Science in Mining and Mineral Engineering”. This course, like any other engineering course at JKUAT, takes five gruelling years to complete and is in now way ‘easy’. My friend struggled through five years of his life and should be completing his course around June of this year. Nice, eh?

    As it turns out, his course is one of the 47 engineering courses that the Engineering Registration Board (ERB) has rejected and will not be recognised.

    To put it simply, my room-mate and countless others have wasted five years of their life. They will have nothing to show for it. Can you imagine that? How much money wasted? How much time gone forever? How do you even start to recover from this?

    The ERB took this drastic action because the universities were offering very low quality engineering courses. For experience, I can say that this is true. Many of the engineering courses in our country are shamefully sub-par. Our universities and colleges focus too much on making money than on providing quality education.

    Of course the ERB’s action is loathsome and painful to many but the real blame lies at the feet of our “institutions of education”. Ours is a broken system.

    How can we fix it?

    A parting shot:

    From “The Loss of the University,” in Home Economics: “The thing being made in a university is humanity. given the current influence of universities, this is merely inevitable. But what universities, at least the public-supported ones, are mandated to make or to help to make is human beings in the fullest sense of those words — not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens but responsible heirs and members of human culture. If the proper work of the university is only to equip people to fulfill private ambitions, then how do we justify public support? If it is only to prepare citizens to fulfill public responsibilities, then how do we justify the teaching of arts and sciences? The common denominator has to be larger than either career preparation or preparation for citizenship. Underlying the idea of a university — the bringing together, the combining into one, of all the disciplines — is the idea that good work and good citizenship are the inevitable by-products of the making of a good — that is, a fully developed — human being. This, as I understand it, is the definition of the name university.”

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  • How Does a Business Work?

    Posted: March 14, 2011, 2:05 pm by Kelvin

    The secret to a successful business is the law of supply and demand. Never, ever, forget that.

    As a business person, your job is to supply something that is in demand. That is, your job is to find something that people want and to give it to them, and then take their money. This is the heart of every business, whether it is simple or complex.

    Btw, this is Part 2 of How to Start An Online Business in Kenya.

    Now, I know you can get generic business advice absolutely everywhere so since I do not want to just repeat stuff and because I cannot even begin to cover this topic in totality, I will keep this article short and simple. Basically, I want to speak to that person who is very new to business in an attempt to show the reality of things while not shattering your self belief.

    So as I said, doing business means supplying people with something that they need or want and then charging them. I will be straight and point out what I consider to be your biggest weakness: you! The biggest challenge that a new business faces is its founders/owners. Most new business people that I encounter can’t even see how poor of an entrepreneur they are (if you can even begin calling them that – a person with just an idea and some attempt is hardly an entrepreneur). They don’t realize what they lack or that their internal biases and opinions are creating problems in why they can or can’t succeed. My advice to you as a new business owner is try and get the most knowledge possible about running a business and about your chosen industry. Do not be complacent. Keep in mind that most new businesses fail. From Day 1 it is a full out war to make sure that your business succeeds.

    Secondly, a new business is usually very short on resources. You often do not have enough money or enough time. You need more money than you have – you see all the places your business can go and you want to try and go in all directions at the same time…

    Which leads to focus. New businesses usually have more time constraints than any other business – the new business needs to get its products to the market to prove its worth after all. Unfortunately, new business owners typically fail to focus on what, exactly, they want to sell and thus they therefore take the business in many directions at once – which leads to more time constraints…

    Do you know that focusing on a particular niche of an industry has been proven to be more successful, on average, than trying to attack the whole market all at once? The best advice I can give you is to focus on one small part of the industry you want to do business in. You can always grow to all the rest later. This has several advantages:

    • It is cheaper
    • It is easier
    • You face less competition from other businesses
    • You have higher chances of success

    Remember how Facebook started? There were already many social networks back then, including the then giant MySpace. Facebook started by focusing only on university students – there was a time you simply could not get a Facebook account unless you were in university/college. By doing this they were able to craft an niche in a huge market while at the same time sowing the seeds that would later lead them to becoming the biggest social network on the Internet.

    Think big. But Start small.

    Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you do not miss any updates on this!

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  • How To Start a Simple Online Business in Kenya – Part 1

    Posted: March 14, 2011, 9:13 am by Kelvin

    So I just got off the phone with a Like Chapaa reader who was pleading with me to show her how to start a simple online business. I personally do not think it is something that is simple enough to explain on the phone – is it? I believe that doing business is a personal journey that you must take on your own. But then again, I also believe that everyone should be doing their own business – enough with this employment maneno. You know?

    I talked the reader into letting me sit down and send her an email with a very basic guide on what to do but as I was doing that email I thought, “Hey other people might like this too”. So here I am, readying myself for mission impossible. Basically, this week – on this very website – we are going to write a series of articles that attempt to show you how to start an online business from scratch. Sounds fun?

    The idea is to write a very simple guide that anyone can follow to set up a small, extremely simple online business in ONE WEEK. To make it easier to understand, and follow, we shall be attempting to start an online business in this one week and show you everything that we did. In other words, as we try and show you how to start an online business, we shall be applying what we talk about on an actual real life business* that we will be starting up this week. I think that will work. You?

    So this is what we hope to cover:

    1. How does a business work?
    2. Online business Vs Offline business
    3. Deciding what to do
    4. Building a simple website for your online business (a.k.a. web design 101)
    5. How to get customers (a.k.a. how to do this ‘internet marketing’ thing)
    6. Legal & tax issues
    7. Final thoughts & conclusion

    The list may change as we go along because right now it is all coming off the top of my head.

    Finally, I must say that I, and the Like Chapaa team, have some experience doing online business. We have had some satisfying successes and many failures. While I am very proud of what we have achieved, you are advised to take what we say with a pinch of salt! We do not pretend to be experts on anything.

    Also, this series of articles is meant to give the basic bare-bones ideas on doing online business. To achieve real, long lasting success you must do much more than what we shall be talking about.

    Anyway! So who’s up for this? Please comment below, click the “Like” button and tell all your friends. Cheers!

    *The ‘actual, real life, business’ we shall be starting as part of this series has not been thought-up yet. We’re currently putting our heads together for an idea that won’t embarrass us.

    Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you do not miss any updates on this!

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  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #21

    Posted: March 13, 2011, 5:43 pm by Kelvin

    Mutahi.info – Mutahi (I presume that’s the site owner’s name) created a simple website to sell his car. I think it is an innovative and brilliant idea. Gone are the days when a “For Sale” sticker on your car will suffice.

    Zebu Mob – a site that is a bit like Groupon, the difference being that Zebumob seems to be focused only on advertising instead of selling discount coupons. Interesting approach, eh? Their website is brilliantly done – but it must be said that the Zebumob Facebook app could be made better, considering that much of what Zebumob offers is inside Facebook.

    Wadawida – nice simple, clean website that tells you all about the Taita people (of Kenya). I, for one, wish to see more similar sites celebrating our country’s diversity. [Disclosure: I hail from this community. Partly.]

    Kenya Memorials – did you recently lose a loved one? Well, now you can immortalise him/her on Kenyamemorials. They also offer a directory of funeral service providers. it may not be a “happy” line of business but the site is well done and it looks like they are doing pretty well. Kudos.

    Flops
    Newsupdate.co.ke – this site promises to bring you ‘daily Kenyan news updates’. The only problem is that, at a glance, the overwhelming majority of news (‘featured’ news, specifically) on this website is… well, it is not ‘Kenyan news’. Also, at the moment, seems like images on the site are broken. Though to give them credit, the site does have local news that feels like it is from mashinani.

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  • Social Media For Small Businesses

    Posted: March 9, 2011, 3:47 pm by Kelvin

    I just came across a very interesting question on Quora:

    Q. Social media is quite popular. However can a small business really make good use of it with limited time and resources?

    Michael answers:

    Having done business online as my sole occupation for over twenty years, never with more than three employees, I can speak to this subject with the advantage of a long-term perspective. Also, since my previous career was ten years as a Senior Vice President of a multi-billion dollar, multi-national corporation, I have witnessed the marketing realm from the opposite extreme. With this as backdrop I can say, with some certainty, that social media is the most important and powerful innovation in online business history.

    Here’s why:

    • The key to success online is the ability to be both effective and efficient. That is to get the right job done and the job done right. With social media it is possible to target your market with rifle-shot accuracy, engage with potential customers on a mass scale, provide workable solutions, and to perform these tasks without the huge capital outlay normally required.
    • Large companies are like Battleships on the open ocean. To make a change in strategy or tactics requires a long and cumbersome mid-course correction. Being small allows you to be nimble. Instead of mounting an expensive marketing campaign in a vacuum and waiting for long-term results, social media gives instantaneous feedback. An entire strategy can be reconfigured at a moments notice, and appropriate changes can be made with little delay and minor expense.
    • The technology tools are in constant transition. Today’s best solution (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) can and will change tomorrow. As a dedicated and small entrepreneur, it is possible to remain at the vanguard of technology from one day to the next, without a large employee base or stodgy corporate culture in your wake like an anchor.

    Here’s how:

    • Engage, don’t sell. I won’t belabor this point, as it has been said by experts for a while now. Be creative and forget what you think you know about marketing. View your potential customer as a collaborator not a sales target. Follow the lead of thought-leaders like Scott Monty at Ford Motor Company and engage your customers from the beginning of the product-development cycle. Ask their opinions on how best to serve them, gain their trust and eventually the sales will occur naturally with little motivation from you.
    • Spend time improving your service and expertise, and while you are building a future receptive audience make your expertise available at no cost. Cultivate a long view of the process. Demonstrate leadership, not salesmanship.
    • Do something that matters. Care as much about the quality of the relationships, and your place as a member of the human family, as you do about your product and profits. Who you are is more important than what you sell.
    • Work hard. Be prepared for a period of sustained effort. Social media is simple, but it isn’t easy.

    Follow these simple guidelines and success will catch up with your efforts before you know it. And once it overtakes you, it will be sustainable.

    See the rest on Quora.

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  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #20

    Posted: March 8, 2011, 7:41 am by Kelvin

    Chukua.com – yet another directory-type website. Lots of these are being built, it seems. The thing that sets Chukua.com apart is that it is not only a directory but a marketplace – whereby you can set up an online “shop” on chukua.com. The site is very well designed and thought out. Good luck to the creators!

    Nairobi Living – well, it is another directory-type website. Though I must say that Nairobi Living looks to be elegant and well done.

    Samosa Queen – a website that represents a business based in Dallas, Texas, USA whereby you can order samosas, mandazi or chapati online. The design is a bit “dated” but it does the job – nice and simple!

    50-50
    Maridadi.co.ke – is an online clothing store. The design is beautifully done. Kudos to the developers on that front. However, the checkout process is not so intuitive – when you click “buy now” the page refreshes, but it is not immediately apparent what happened. Could be improved.

    Flops
    Jambo News Pot – this is supposed to be a website which aggregates local news. Unfortunately, the site’s design does it no favours at all and makes the site look haphazard and unorganised. The excessive adverts near the top are also an eyesore (though perhaps they indicate the site is earning the owners a pretty penny). Could be better!Similar Posts:


  • The Housing Bubble in Kenya

    Posted: March 1, 2011, 4:13 pm by Kelvin

    It is often said that housing/land prices in Kenya always go up and can never go down. You just cannot fail if you invest in real estate in Kenya. But is this really so?

    According to The Standard, a report by the Central Bank of Kenya and the World Bank indicates that only 1 in 10 Kenyans can afford to buy the home they live in, even if they get a mortgage (assuming they even qualify to get it).

    I think the question must be posed: What is a bubble? According to Wikipedia, An economic bubble (sometimes referred to as a speculative bubble, a market bubble, a price bubble, a financial bubble, a speculative mania or a balloon) is “trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values”. It could also be described as a trade in products or assets with inflated values.

    Specifically regarding housing/real estate bubbles, Wikipedia further says: A real estate bubble or property bubble (or housing bubble for residential markets) is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets. It is characterized by rapid increases in valuations of real property such as housing until they reach unsustainable levels relative to incomes and other economic elements, followed by a reduction in price levels.

    Now, back to the Central Bank report. Here are a few selected excerpts from the report:

    • only eight per cent of Kenyans — 320, 000 households — can afford a mortgage was shocking
    • for one to buy a house worth Sh2 million, for example, one must have a net salary of Sh100,000, and service the loan at Sh42,000 a month for a period of 15 years at an interest rate of 14.5 per cent. Those earning less have no place in the mortgage industry and must find another way of owning their dream house
    • The shocking revelations also indicate that the total mortgage loan book in the country is only 16,000 accounts, while the total value of mortgage loans, as at the end of December last year was Sh133.6 billion. This means that, technically, only 16,000 people/organisations in the whole of Kenya have taken up mortgages
    • It is also an indication that buying property in Kenya is predominantly for the rich, who opt for cash sales as opposed to mortgages.
    • Professionals in the housing sector say the findings reflect the high level of speculation on land that has pushed property prices through the roof

    Only 1 in 10 Kenyans can afford to buy the home that they live in, and even fewer Kenyan can afford to take up mortgages. In my mind, this report clearly indicates that the Kenyan real estate market is in the middle of a bubble. Real estate prices have gotten to be so high that the great majority of Kenyans just cannot afford real estate.

    Sooner or later, this bubble will burst and prices will come crashing down. Many of the “me too” real estate developers and investors will lose vast sums of money. It is just a matter of time…

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  • How to Make Money in 6 Easy Steps

    Posted: February 28, 2011, 10:26 pm by Kelvin

    There’s a great article on Inc.com written by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37 Signals. He gives valuable insights on how to make money and breaks it down into 6 easy steps:

    1. Understanding the buyer is the key to being a strong seller
    2. Sell only things you’d want to buy for yourself
    3. How, and why, to charge real money for real products
    4. There are different pathways to the same dollar
    5. The true value of bootstrapping
    6. Try, Try Again

    Go read the article here: How to Make Money in 6 Easy Steps

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  • How To Make Money Online – For Absolute Beginners

    Posted: February 25, 2011, 3:22 pm by Kelvin

    When we set up this website, one of our primary goals was to teach people what we knew about making money online. This continues to be our goal – we would love to teach as many of our fellow Kenyans as possible. Over the years (its now been tow years!), by and large, we have achieved this goal. We’ve helped grow many business and shared our thoughts and ideas with even more.

    However, we feel that even this is not enough. We have not been able to adequately address the needs of a person who is very new to the whole idea of earning online. What is the easiest way to start? How do you start? What do you do? Where do you go? We would love to answer these questions for everyone. we would love even more to take every one of these people by the hand and show them what to do, and how.

    Alas, things have changed since the time when we started this website. We now get mountains of email daily and it is just too much work to be able to address everyone individually. And as you are aware, our previous efforts largely failed. Yes, I am talking about Biashara 30.

    But we have a plan!
    We have been secretly developing a resource – you may even call it an online course – that is targeted at absolute beginners. The aim of this resource would be to act as something of guide that will teach what we feel is the easiest and fastest way to make money online if you are a beginner. Sounds interesting? Here is what it will cover:

    First, I must say that we believe the easiest and fastest way for absolute beginners to make a significant amount of money online is to get an “online job”. This is what will be the focal point of the guide, specifically:

    1. Getting Started : Understanding the freelance world – international business hours, worldwide clients, international currencies, language problems, range of clients (professional and personal), working at home (separating your home and work lives)…
    2. Preparation for working online: Study yourself, your abilities, what you will/can and won’t/can’t do (working hours/days, combining skills, price range). Are you more specialised in languages, programming, graphics, marketing, media… Several sectors or specialised. Qualifications, experience, references… Skills requested online – a few examples of sectors.
    3. Your Presentation: Photo, logo, profile, message presentation, website…How to write, what to write (and what not to write!)
    4. Where to work
    5. Employer relations: Clarity, efficiency and cordiality (explaining relations and approach, the employer’s point of view)
    6. Getting paid : Payment (online payment methods, payment through freelancer websites and withdrawals)
    7. Protection and Security: Escrow, feedback, work samples, privacy policy
    8. Copyright issues
    9. Etc

    Why did we chose for this guide to be about getting an online job? If you go any site that deals with only jobs – freelancer.com, or guru.com, or elance.com, or anything else – then you will find that these sites are vibrant markets and that people make significant amounts of money through them. We believe that when you are getting started, making money through such sites is the easiest way that you can go. It also opens your eyes to see what can be done online and you will be able to later transition to doing something else.

    What do you think? Interested? Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you can up to date on developments regarding this project.

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  • Topless Meetings

    Posted: February 23, 2011, 4:10 pm by Kelvin

    I think this is a great idea, something that surely came from a smart business mind – topless meetings. What better way to be more productive and have meetings less – ban laptops. What did you think I meant?

    Nothing grates me more than long, pointless meetings. I almost avoid them to a fault. Too often, they are someone’s forum to get their own work done and it doesn’t benefit me to help them with their work. So I do everything I can to keep meetings short.

    If you’re working and meeting in a physical location, I strongly suggest this rule. It’ll guarantee people get to the point quickly and time isn’t wasted.

    Japanese-Style Meetings
    When I was still employed (a.k.a working for someone else and not me), there was one guy I used to work with who scheduled Japanese-style meetings. The meetings were held while everyone stood (usually in some common area). The idea was that people wouldn’t waste time if they were standing around. It worked great as we got a ton done in about 10 minutes. I don’t know if this is the real name for this type of meeting but I strongly suggest this type of meeting as well. Force those long-talkers to cut it short.

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

  • Local Websites That Use DukaPress

    Posted: February 22, 2011, 8:31 am by Kelvin

    For those who don’t know, DukaPress is a freely available piece of software that you, or anyone can use to set up an online shop easily and quickly.

    screenshot of a DukaPress shop


    When we released DukaPress, we primarily thought that its main users would be local. As it turns out, the vast majority of people who use DukaPress are not from Africa. While this is good, we have been hoping to come across some well done local sites powered by DukaPress. In this post, we showcase a few of them.

    1. Black Malaika – a really well done website from Tanzania that sells arts and crafts from East Africa. I must say that DukaPress has been very well implemented here.
    2. Pamoja Shops – an online community/marketplace focused on the Maasai Market concept. Pamoja Shops offers vendors the opportunity to sign up and open up their own online stores to sell African handicrafts.
    3. Rusha Ndege – RushaNdege is an online community of aviation enthusiasts in Kenya. They use DukaPress to power an online shop that sells pilot equipment and accessories.
    4. DJ Kalonje – it was a personal pleasure to learn that DJ Kalonje himself uses DukaPress. (DJ Kalonje is an award winning Kenyan DJ.) Kalonje uses DukaPress to sell services. Although I must admit that DukaPress itsels is not well implemented on hist site…
    5. Drip n Dry Kenya – describing themselves as “Nairobi’s ultimate dry cleaning services”, Drip n Dry use DukaPress to enable customers to submit inquiries regarding their cleaning services.

    So, have you ever wanted to have an online shop? As of this moment, DukaPress has been downloaded 8,972 times and here is a list of some of the most beautiful sites made using DukaPress. All those people cannot be wrong, can they?

    Get your own shop today: www.dukapress.org

    DukaPress is proudly Kenyan!

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • Week 2: Graphics, color and fonts

    Posted: February 17, 2011, 12:50 am by Kelvin

    I’m taking an online course on design and usability from P2PU.

    Discussion point 1: Give an example of a site that has translated badly to mobile format.

    [www.sensisoft.com] – because it is fully made in flash which is not supported by almost all mobile browsers.

    Discussion points 2: Pick two websites, one as a good and one as a bad example. How do graphics affect your usage of these sites? Are they obtrusive? Do they have “ad-like” graphic elements that you have ignored? If yes, were they intended as content? How do you think that affects your experience?

    Bad example: [www.mmiarch.com]
    I find this website to be poorly designed. It is not easy to figure out what the site is about. All the images look like ads and that I tend to ignore yet these images represent important menu elements. This makes me feel lost and confused.

    Good example: [www.nairobiliving.net]
    I find the site to be well designed. Most of the images on the site are definitely ads and I tend to ignore them but this does not affect my usage of the site because I can easily find what I am looking for.

    Discussion points 3: Pick two websites, one as a good and one as a bad example. How do the colors affect your usage of these sites? Run each through a color blindness test (#10 in the reading list has several linked). How did they do?

    Good example: [www.kenyanlistings.com] I find the colour combinations to be attractive and well contrasted. The site did well on the colour blindness test – it was still somewhat attractive and one could find information relatively easily.

    Bad example: [www.mikemunga4makadara.com]
    This website is a sad green. I feel that the colour green (and bad shades of it) have been overused. I can easily get around the site but the colours are off-putting. When ran through a color blindness test, the site is seen as a dull green, making it worse.

    Discussion points 4: Pick two websites, one as a good and one as a bad example. How do fonts affect your usage of these sites? Are they obtrusive? Do they use graphics for text? How do you think that affects your experience?

    Bad example: [www.africanscifi.com] This iste uses images instead of text. I do not think that this is a good design decision – the site feels rigid and unfamiliar and is difficult to work or move around one.

    Good example: [www.lakelandgroup.net] the choice of font is superb. The sizes and colours are finely tuned to make the site easy to read.

Jayanoris

  • Week 2: Graphics, color and fonts

    Posted: February 17, 2011, 12:50 am by Kelvin

    I’m taking an online course on design and usability from P2PU.

    Discussion point 1: Give an example of a site that has translated badly to mobile format.

    [www.sensisoft.com] – because it is fully made in flash which is not supported by almost all mobile browsers.

    Discussion points 2: Pick two websites, one as a good and one as a bad example. How do graphics affect your usage of these sites? Are they obtrusive? Do they have “ad-like” graphic elements that you have ignored? If yes, were they intended as content? How do you think that affects your experience?

    Bad example: [www.mmiarch.com]
    I find this website to be poorly designed. It is not easy to figure out what the site is about. All the images look like ads and that I tend to ignore yet these images represent important menu elements. This makes me feel lost and confused.

    Good example: [www.nairobiliving.net]
    I find the site to be well designed. Most of the images on the site are definitely ads and I tend to ignore them but this does not affect my usage of the site because I can easily find what I am looking for.

    Discussion points 3: Pick two websites, one as a good and one as a bad example. How do the colors affect your usage of these sites? Run each through a color blindness test (#10 in the reading list has several linked). How did they do?

    Good example: [www.kenyanlistings.com] I find the colour combinations to be attractive and well contrasted. The site did well on the colour blindness test – it was still somewhat attractive and one could find information relatively easily.

    Bad example: [www.mikemunga4makadara.com]
    This website is a sad green. I feel that the colour green (and bad shades of it) have been overused. I can easily get around the site but the colours are off-putting. When ran through a color blindness test, the site is seen as a dull green, making it worse.

    Discussion points 4: Pick two websites, one as a good and one as a bad example. How do fonts affect your usage of these sites? Are they obtrusive? Do they use graphics for text? How do you think that affects your experience?

    Bad example: [www.africanscifi.com] This iste uses images instead of text. I do not think that this is a good design decision – the site feels rigid and unfamiliar and is difficult to work or move around one.

    Good example: [www.lakelandgroup.net] the choice of font is superb. The sizes and colours are finely tuned to make the site easy to read.

Like Chapaa

  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #19

    Posted: February 14, 2011, 2:05 pm by Kelvin

    Love.Me – this is an online flower shop. The site’s creators must be commended for a job well done. The design is nice, clean and crisp and the buying process is simple and understandable. Kudos for a job well done!

    Sandstorm Kenya – the website for Sandstorm Kenya, which makes hand crafted items. We find the website and online shop to be extremely well designed. Kudos!

    50-50
    Ask a Doc – this is an interesting site that promises answers to all your medical questions. The answers are provided by real doctors. I have not actually received a question to my answer yet (something for them to work on), but the site seems like it can go places. Good job.

    UrbanSlice – is a website that is to provide a personal shopping service i.e. you can use UrbanSlice to order from your favourite stores and have them delivered to you, no hassle. The problem is that, currently, it looks like just another online shop and the whole idea of “personal shopping service” seems to be lost. Let’s hope that someone is working on this. otherwise, the site looks good.

    State House Girls – the website of State House Girls’ high school. While the web design could certainly do with a little sprucing up – mainly balancing out the page elements and making it look neater – I think the site is pretty good. Someone is certainly working hard to make this site a success. However, perhaps they have overdone it with the ads on the side (I would think that the main purpose of such a site is not to sell ads) and the links for Free and Bulk SMS on the main menu (would high school students really be interested in these?).

    Cute & Cuddly an online shop for baby clothing. I like the idea, and the design. However, a few improvements need to be made: 1) the shopping and checking out process needs to be made more intuitive; and 2) for users with screen resoltions of 1024 (width) and below, the site design seems broken.

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  • How Great Entrepreneurs Think

    Posted: February 10, 2011, 9:48 am by Kelvin

    “I always live by the motto of ‘Ready, fire, aim.’ I think if you spend too much time doing ‘Ready, aim, aim, aim,’ you’re never going to see all the good things that would happen if you actually started doing it. I think business plans are interesting, but they have no real meaning, because you can’t put in all the positive things that will occur…If you know intrinsically that this is possible, you just have to find out how to make it possible, which you can’t do ahead of time.” – advice from an expert entrepreneur

    What distinguishes great entrepreneurs? Click here to read about an academic study whose goal was to get inside the mind of great entrepreneurs and determine how they think.

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  • Tandaa Symposium on Growing Your Brand Online

    Posted: February 9, 2011, 10:31 am by Kelvin

    The content of this post is courtesy of Tandaa.

    Delivering your brand promise in an increasingly digital world requires a whole new marketing strategy.

    A recent TNS study* indicates that internet usage in Kenya has more than doubled in the last two years. An estimated 4 million Kenyans have access to the internet and according to TNS, 76% of Kenyan internet users are on Facebook. With increasing access to laptops, broadband internet and web enable mobile phones, Kenyan consumers are changing the way they interact with their favorite brands.

    So should your brand be on Facebook? How should you manage your Twitter handle? The first Tandaa Symposium of the year will explore the opportunities and risks the Internet and social media offer Kenyan brands today.

    The internet may seem like an overcrowded platform in which to compete. With real-time news, celebrity gossip and millions of intriguing web pages to browse–not to mention engaging and all consuming social media sites–attracting and holding consumer’s attention may seem like an uphill task. But today’s savvy marketing or brand manager must find innovative ways to maximize online spend in a crowded and competitive platform.

    Beyond offering a platform to communicate your brand promise, the Internet, especially social networks, also offer the unique opportunity to better understand your customer. The data and insight from online social interaction with consumers can contribute significantly to how your company designs new products and campaigns.

    Understanding how to effectively grow your brand online is therefore crucial for every marketing or brand manager. The Tandaa Symposium will give you insights on how to update your marketing strategy to make the most of today’s digital world.

    Register Here.

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  • How to Open a US Bank Account

    Posted: February 8, 2011, 7:10 am by Kelvin

    This post was made possible by sobbayi.

    There are many reasons why one may want to open a US bank account, including wanting to withdraw money from PayPal. Now to open a US based bank account as a none US resident is still possible.

    The only catch is that you cannot open it online, you have to physically go into the bank with your passport and a second form of identification eg your DL (no need for social security number if you tell them you are not a resident).

    You then fill the forms AT THE BANK and you set up you internet banking details right there as thats where all your transaction Bank transfers etc will take place.

    Once you are done you must deposit some money into the account immediately and you will walk out with you temporary ATM card. You then need a Kenyan address and a US address. The US address is where they will send the permanent ATM card within 10 days and other documentation whenever they need to as they wont send it out of the country. Once you have your ATM card and are going back to Kenya there is a number you will need to call to activate your card to work in Kenya. Make sure you get that number before you leave the bank.

    This information is based on Bank of America. (Not all banks offer accounts to non residents living abroad). Their ATM cards work just fine in Kenya but it will cost you 5 bucks ($5) per use so be careful.

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  • EVERYONE Can Be An Entrepreneur!

    Posted: February 7, 2011, 9:22 am by Kelvin

    In his article 8 Alternatives to College, James Altucher brilliantly tackles one of the largest myths about entrepreneurship: “not everyone can be an entrepreneur”. This is a myth, and this is why it is wrong to say that not everyone can be an entrepreneur:

    First off, there’s no law against being an entrepreneur. In fact, everyone can be an entrepreneur. So what they really mean is: “not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur”. And as far as I know, there’s no law against failure either. When someone loses a tennis match or a chess game. how do they improve? They study their loss. As anyone who has mastered any field in life knows: studying your losses is infinitely more valuable than studying your wins. I failed at my first three attempts at being an entrepreneur before I finally learned how to spell it and I finally had a success (i.e. a company with profits that I was then able to sell).

    Failure is a part of life. Better to learn it at 18 than at 23 or older when you’ve been coddled by ivory blankets and hypnotized into thinking success was yours for the taking. Get baptized in the river of failure as a youth so you can blossom in entrepreneurial blessings as an adult.

    What do you learn when you are young and start a business (regardless of success or failure):

    1. you learn how to come up with ideas that will be accepted by other people
    2. you begin to build your bullshit detector (something that definitely does not happen in college)
    3. you learn how to sell your idea
    4. you learn how to build and execute on an idea
    5. you meet and socialize with other people in your space. They might not all be the same age but, lets face it, thats life as an adult. You just spent 18 years with kids your age. Grow up!
    6. you might learn how to delegate and manage people
    7. you learn how to eat what you kill, a skill also not learned by college-goers

    Source: 8 Alternatives to College

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  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #18

    Posted: February 4, 2011, 11:45 am by Kelvin

    Nairobi Living – is a local search and business directory. I find the site to be well thought out and nicely designed. Kudos to the makers! Though one is tempted to say “….yet another local directory?”.

    Shameless Clones
    Tokea Online – it seems to be an East African social network (like facebook, but for EA). it looks brand new and so it is “sparse” as far as content goes. But the design, I must say, is well done. Let’s wish them luck!

    Update 7/2/2011: it seems that TokeaOnline is a shameless clone of a site design and setup freely available all over the net. Another site using the same setup is FunKenya. it is good to try and build an online business, but one could surely do better…

    Flops
    mmiarch – this seems to be the website of “mmi architects”. Even by the presumably low Kenyan standards, this website is particularly poorly done. One wonders what the hell the “web designer” was doing…

    beckyzshoes – an online shops selling men’s shoes. Except that it is run on a .blogspot blog. FAIL. I cannot believe that these guys actually advertised on Facebook!! if you want to sell anythign online, 1) do not do it from a free website and 2) use professional e-commerce software (like DukaPress which is 100% free).

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  • Turning Your Critics Into Evangelists

    Posted: February 4, 2011, 10:31 am by Kelvin

    As a business owner, you have undoubtedly come across customers or potential customers who speak so badly of you that you wonder where they get all the venom from. What do you do with these people?

    I am of the school of thought that a business should choose its customers i.e. do not go against your convictions, beliefs, morality and better judgement just because someone is paying you money. However, I also believe that all businesses exist solely to serve their customers. As a business, you should strive to delight everyone that you deal with.

    From my experience, your worst critics can be turned into assets – into evangelists who will spread the good news about your business far and wide. You know why? Because if someone is very critical of you as a business, it automatically means they care enough to form opinions about you and communicate them to you. I see this as an opportunity to turn your worst critics into people who speak exceedingly well about you.

    Now, as it turns out, many of your critics criticize you from points of little information. All it takes to show them that you are not as bad as they think is to be patient, to listen to them and to address their queries step by step in a clear and respectful manner.

    For example, the guys over at DukaPress once received a very harsh email from a potential customer. They could have responded with equal venom or just ignored the critic. However, they chose to engage him in a conversation and address his concerns. Less than five emails later, the critic had made his first purchase at the DukaPress shop! Since then, he has made more purchases and even referred people to DukaPress. Imagine that…

    So the next time you get a call or an email from a venomous critic, seize the opportunity to acquire an evangelist!

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  • KBC Interactive Game Show Fraud (with pics)

    Posted: January 20, 2011, 7:37 am by Kelvin

    This article was generously contributed by Mutwiri.

    Earlier this month there was a huge debate on this forum about an error KTN had made on their interactive game show. The issue was with the simple arithmetic – 11 x 2 + 32 – 21 + 5 x 3 + 5 x 1 The answer that won cash was 120, which off course was WAY off.

    Well, yesterday KBC ran something similar on their show.

    23 – 12 x 5 + 112 – 20 + 3 x 8 + 12

    The choices were -125, -170 and 250

    I took screen shots:

    The Question (click for larger)


    The answer that won Kshs.50,000 was 250

    So how did they arrive at 250? Here’s their calculation:

    The Fraudulent answer (click for larger)

    If you look at the pictures closely, KBC actually changed the question and then awarded 50,000/- to….”the winner”. Theft in broad daylight!

    What are your thoughts on this? Where can a complaint be made?

    Update
    Even the fraudulent answer does NOT add up to 250!!!!

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  • Safaricom FUD Strategy

    Posted: January 19, 2011, 8:00 am by Kelvin

    FUD means Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

    Safaricom’s new CEO, Bob Collymore was on the news the other day furious at Airtel for their new price cuts. His main point was that these prices were not sustainable and may lead to the collapse of the mobile phone industry in Kenya. Mr. Collymore went as far as saying that the government would lose revenue because Safaricom would not make as much of a profit as in recent years.

    A day later, Dr. Ndemo (the permanent secretary) was reported by the Daily Nation saying that the mobile phone price wars may even lead to the failure of the implementation of the new constitution in Kenya. The talk in town now is that the government may place a lower limit on mobile call rates i.e. akina Airtel will not be able to offer cheaper rates to us any more.

    Okay….what the hell is going on here? Kenyans have been looking forward to cheaper call rates for years yet when they finally come the government wants to stop them?

    It is true that the government will lose huge amounts of revenue from Safaricom’s reduced profits but is it really right or fair to change the rules so that Safaricom’s high profits are maintained at the expense of its competitors?

    Such a move by the government would be VERY wrong and would set a very bad precedent in Kenya. This is why:

    1. Airtel is a business that has chosen a certain strategy to tackle the Kenyan market. They have chosen to incur losses now so that they can profit later. This is also called “making an investment”. It is not proper for the government to stop them from doing so.
    2. Any change of rules would serve to protect Safaricom from the competition. This is unfair at the very least. Every business should be responsible for its own survival.
    3. The money that we the consumers save by paying less on calls does not suddenly disappear into thin air – we will still use it within Kenyan borders and the government WILL earn tax revenues on almost everything else that we spend that money on.
    4. Cheaper communication costs very often (in other countries) lead to a more robust economy.

    Let’s hope that the government does the right thing.

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  • 254 – A DukaPress Theme

    Posted: January 17, 2011, 1:06 pm by Kelvin

    254 DukaPress Theme


    We’re pleased to announce the release of our third DukaPress theme, the 254 DukaPress theme. This is a WordPress theme for use in your DukaPress powered shop.

    Theme Features

    • Clean and minimal layout
    • Drop-down menu support
    • 2-column layout and widget-ready sidebar
    • Support for WordPress 3.0 custom menus
    • Styled to work elegantly with DukaPress

    View the live Demo
    Download For Free

    Basically, this is a free shop ‘design’ (for those who have no idea what a theme is) that you can use to make your DukaPress online shop look good. Enjoy.Similar Posts:


For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

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  • The Best ISP in Kenya

    Posted: January 13, 2011, 12:07 pm by Kelvin

    A good and reliable Internet connection is pretty much essential these days. You need it for all sorts of things, including the ability to make real money online. Unfortunately, the state of ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in Kenya is very nearly pathetic. After some readers asked us to recommend good ISPs, we realised that we could not actually recommend anyone without giving a caveat. How sad, eh? So we decided to do some research and establish the truth about which company may actually be the best ISP in Kenya.

    Our admittedly very limited research focused on the so called ‘big’ names:

    Why did we do this?
    Well, almost everyone we talked to felt that the ISP state in Kenya is just not right. Very few if any of the Kenyan ISPs do things right and the customer is at their complete mercy. It should be the other way round – they should be at our complete mercy.

    This is our own little contribution towards that future. We hope to publish updates in the future as and when the situation changes. Please note that our review was limited to residential internet access and not the so called “corporate internet”. Many ISPs are totally different depending on what type of customer you are. Sigh.

    The Best ISP
    Unfortunately, and sadly, we did not find any one company that we could call “the bast”. Some seem very good, but all have painful problems associated with them. Sad tu sana, eh?

    1. GOOD ISPs
    A. Safaricom
    It may come as quite the shock but currently Safaricom seems to be the among the best overall ISPs in the country. Safaricom offers internet via mobile modems, WiMAX, and fibre. Overall, people speak very well of Safaricom.

    The Good:

    1. Very fast Internet
    2. Fairly stable and rarely goes down

    The Bad:

    1. When things go wrong, the customer often does not know who to cotnact for support – and the Safaricom customer care line rarely goes through. However, Safaricom seem to genuinely care about improving their customer care.
    2. Safaricom is expensive.

    B. Airtel
    Airtel is another company whose reputation is mainly good. They currently offer internet via mobile modems.

    The good:

    1. They are affordable
    2. Their service is mostly reliable

    The bad:

    1. Speed is really slow, sometimes becoming pathetic (i.e. the region of about 6Kbps or lower)

    C. Access Kenya
    Many people who deal with Access Kenya are quite happy. However there are some people who would highly recommend against them.

    The good:

    1. Fairly stable service
    2. Fairly ok customer service

    The bad:

    1. It is a bit pricey
    2. Relatively low speeds
    3. It feels like it is an ISP that is slowly fading away to the competition as far as residential customers are concerned.

    2. BAD ISPs
    These are ISPs that we would not recommend for anyone, unfortunately. Of course these companies do have happy customers so they must be good to them but you should engage with them with extreme caution.

    A. Orange
    Orange’s bad reputation comes fro their mistreatment of customers. Complaints range from:

    • In the past, they have changed their rates suddenly and unexpectedly and inexplicably
    • There have been reports that a customer’s bandwidth runs out faster than it should
    • Slow speeds
    • VERY poor support

    B. KDN
    KDN is famous for its extremely poor customer service. They seems to focus on serving corporate customers at the expense of residential customers. However, they are known for offering good services (for while) but when things start going wrong (they always do), they really get bad.

    C. ZUKU
    Personally I have been using Zuku at home for a while. In spite of this, I find it extremely hard to give a positive review of their service. Why? Because as a customer, Zuku will give you a special kind of pain: internet that is so shaky it disconnects every few minutes and extremely unhelpful, inaccessible and poor support. Dealing with Zuku sometimes feels like being scammed. Proceed with caution.

    3. Other ISPs
    We have no direct experience with the following, but their reputation seems to be good:

    1. Tangerine
    2. CallKey Networks

    Conclusion
    It is said that Internet services in Kenya can be one of two things, but not both:

    1. Reliable OR
    2. Affordable

    The sad truth is that, at present, if you want an internet connection that is reliable, even enjoyable, you must pay premium rates.

    What are your experiences with ISPs in Kenya?

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For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

For God, For Country and For Humanity

Jayanoris

Like Chapaa

  • Interesting Kenyan Sites #16

    Posted: December 6, 2010, 8:55 am by Kelvin

    We found all of today’s sites on Facebook. Most of them were being advertised on Facebook. I must say that if you are going to spend money advertising your website, please make sure that your website is actually a good representation of you/your business. otherwise, you will just be making Facebook rich and wasting money.

    The Good
    eManamba – eManamba promises to make travel simple and hassle free. How? Well, through eManamaba, you can book and purchase a bus ticket to many Kenyan, and East African, destinations. You can even choose a seat from those available at the time of your booking. I love it, and I will be sure to try it when I next travel. The site is well done, and it seems to work. Kudos!

    BidhaaTele – is a massive marketplace where you can find bidhaa tele to buy – though right now there is not so much probably because they are just starting. The site feels really well done and we must congratulate and thank the site developers for a breath of fresh air: a site that looks good and just works. Kudos, and good luck on the business.

    50-50
    Kamata School – I like the idea behind this site. Kamata Entertainment are using a blog to market their services (a music school, a DJ academy, and Salsa lessons) online. It is a very good strategy. Kudos. However, I feel that their site is letting them down. I do not particularly like the way the site looks and I think it could be better. However, the main problem is that the site feels a little cluttered and it feels like there is not a strong call to action i.e. they could sell their services more efficiently.

    Flops
    RimSite – this one is hard to figure out. It looks like a local social network (like facebook) but it also includes a job board where job vacancies are listed. It is a good idea, in principle. But I do not think the owners have executed it very well – the site right now looks like it is a little dead and feels like an adult (X rated) social network? Was that the intention? I do not know. But I do know that the owners did not intend for spam to flourish on their site like it does now. It is hard to build a social network, and I hope RimSite can overcome their current challenges and rise above them.

    Ayanah.co.ke – this is a furniture store. Basically it is a website set up by a furniture shop in Nairobi to promote themselves online. Nice, eh? The only problem is that their website could – and should – have been so so much better. The design is really poor – especially the site structure and the use of images instead of text (which means your site fails in SEO). Bad job by the guys who made the site.

    epur.biz – this is a kind of online marketplace where sellers can list items on the epur platform and then, one hopes, make money and be happy. The site is badly done, though. I would argue the design itself is what lets epur down the most – it just does not inspire any confidence in me. Couple that with the fact that the site looks “unfinished” and you have a good idea done really badly. The saddest thing is that epur is supposed to be a marketplace but I cannot find any products to buy….Similar Posts:


For God, For Country and For Humanity

  • Superman!

    Posted: December 5, 2010, 11:24 pm by Kelvin

    We’d all like to be there to make sure our loved ones don’t get hurt, especially not by us. But things happen and people get hurt, sometimes even by us. I wish I was superman, just for those times.

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes

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