Being in employment revealed gap in construction industry

Rexe roofing MD Irene Wanjiku

From earning Sh500 a week as a shop attendant, Irene Wanjiku, Managing Director Rexe Roofing has risen to create a multimillion-shilling roofing solutions company. She would run around the city and its environs looking for developers who needed roofing materials.

Hers is a story of sweat and tears whose final chapter is yet to be written. What lessons has she learnt in the quest for a place in Kenya’s vibrant construction industry?

Keep your eyes on the ball

Getting into any business requires some capital. Usually, employment is key in putting together some savings needed to jump into the business world. However, don’t be too distracted by the sweet allure of employment. Never get your eyes off the ball.

I got my first job after completing KCSE in 2002. My salary was about Sh2,000.

My second job was in a clothes shop with a salary of Sh5,000. As little as the salary was, I managed to save little by little since one of my relatives had subsidised my accommodation.

I carefully observed the frequent business travels my boss made out of the country. I kept asking myself how she could do that just to procure goods and still make a profit. 

From her example, I knew that business held the key to my future despite my little experience in the commercial world.

Use initial challenges as learning curves

In order to raise capital, I had to get a job that paid a bit more and allowed me time to enhance my business skills. Rather than write endless resumes, I decided to collect business cards with the aim of writing to the individuals with the hope of getting a better job. I remember writing text messages to about 200 people that one mobile telephone provider blocked my number after what they termed as “some unusual activity” on my line.

Out of all these messages, one person responded in 2004 and offered me a job as a receptionist with a starting salary of Sh12,000.  

Actually, I had asked for Sh10,000 only. With enhanced savings, I quit the job in 2008 and jumped into the rough and tumble world of business.

If I had given up for lack of positive responses to my messages, I could not have landed the job that enabled me to save and start my own business.

Create a business model that can attract the money

While capital is important, it is the business model that begets the money.

An entrepreneur friend once told us that a person without enough capital can employ the concept known as OPM – Other People’s Money. Don’t get me wrong.

This doesn’t mean that you break into a bank or defraud others.

It just means that with the right business concept, funding will follow since there are investors out there willing to fund a good idea.

How then did I go about developing my roofing business idea? First, I had worked in a company that imported construction materials.

I noticed that floor tiles and paints kept evolving. Interestingly, the roofing materials in Kenya had remained unchanged for years.

I thought to myself, how could I bring in totally different roofing materials? I figured that every new home needed a roof, so there was a ready market.

Next, I made a brochure with colour charts and visited construction sites though I did not have even a sample.

All I needed was someone to believe in me and hand me a deposit enough to import the materials. Okay, that was tougher than I thought.

Follow every money trail

When looking for business, be prepared to do some legwork, literally. I remember driving to the farthest reaches of Syokimau in search of ongoing construction projects that needed roofing solutions. It was tiring.

One day, I met a construction supervisor who told me to try and contact the developer who was in an eatery located at a different location in the sprawling suburb.

I managed to find him. He was so surprised that a young girl had managed to trace him to his ‘hideout’, a feat no other supplier had accomplished.

“For your determination, I will give you an order worth Sh4 million,” he told me. That was one of my big breaks.

At one housing expo in 2012, I decided to stay on in the evening after every other exhibitor had left.

Two brothers who were constructing in Kitsuru approached me with a deal to supply roofing materials and gave me a deposit of Sh1.5 million.

Again, had I taken it easy and went home with the rest, I would have missed the deal.

Do not take rejection personally

Getting people to part with their hard earned cash in not easy, especially when you have no track record.

Had I looked at the number of rejections and intimidations, I would have given up on day one.

I remember one particular individual who told me outright that I was trying to upgrade my modest Toyota car by asking him for a down payment of Sh800,000.

Others, owing to my small size, would conclude that I had ran out of school and now harassing them with demands for money for items I didn’t have. There are those who thought I was a con woman out to get their money.

Listen to trailblazers

As a budding entrepreneur, listen to those who have been there before you. Remember that however practical your business ideas might be, others have perhaps tried them with a measure of success.

One of the people that I looked up to was Tabitha Karanja, CEO Keroche Breweries. She told me that it is good to start small, satisfy the local market but have a global outlook.

This helped us to standardise our operations and service delivery and meet international standards while keeping up with the local clients’ changing demands.

She reminded me that the way to the top is a process and no firm, however big, has made it to the top yet.

“That is why multinationals are bringing in new innovative ideas and technologies,” she told me.