Kenyans are not creative in business ventures; all they do is copy and paste

Silas Nyanchwani indicated the other day, Nairobi now has more malls than New York.  Most existing other malls are not fully occupied, meaning that the supply of space in malls in now higher than the demand, but we are still building more malls.

This is the tragedy of business in Kenya. Most new entrants just follow a craze. Instead of studying the market in search of the unmet needs to meet and existing voids to fill, we study the market to identify the most popular business in the market and join the bandwagon; we do what everyone else is doing. There is no creativity. There is no out-of-the-box thinking. The pioneers in the Simu ya Jamii and M-pesa agency segment made a fortune, before the two became a craze and profit margins started going south. Those who started Maruti transport business at the Fedha, Embakasi made good money before everyone brought their Maruti and eventually Nissan Vannetes. There are now more than 55 vanettes along a 3km route that can easily be served by 15.  Almost every building along Tom Mboya has shoes supermarkets complete with that noisy recording that attracts passers-by. Almost everyone that can type has a blog, copy pasting content from the Nairobian. Uber might have twenty competing firms by the end of 2017.

Have we run out of unexploited business opportunities that the only option left is to copy paste the existing ones? Have we run out of human needs to meet or are we just too lazy to think out of the box or study the markets to unearth more needs to meet. As you plan to start a business venture, ask yourself: am I just following a certain craze or there is an existing void I want to fill? Is the market segment I am about to enter already saturated? You can only enter an already saturated segment if the goods and services you want to provide stand way high above the rest. Business is much more than a fashion trend. Do business to serve a need, to fill a void, not just to fit in.