Skip to main content

Selling Income

One of the greatest challenges I have faced in my time as an entrepreneur is what to do after a large paycheck. Surprised? I was too at first , and it's even worse if you have been waiting for that payment for some time. With money in the bank, you rationalise with yourself of the 1001 things that need to be purchased, and they all demand high priority allocation.

Of course, this is a psychological condition that can easily be averted by careful planning beforehand. When it happened to me I tried to avoid the extravagance that accompanies large income inflows by investing the money as quickly as I could.

When SoftLaw sold the laws of Kenya to the judiciary I discovered why having the government as a customer can be very rewarding. Relatively prompt payment, many zeroes in the payment, and a very appreciative customer.

With our newly expanded bank account, we knew that we had to quickly invest the funds or we would be sucked into a vicious and wasteful consumption given our still University of Nairobi residential address and crushing social expectation to bling. Genius Executive Centre (www.geniuscentre.com) helped to mop up these excess funds and assured that in future we would have a relatively stable and recurrent income.

My only regret is that in our rush to dispose ourselves of excess funds we also made several investing faux pas: like putting up several quarter page ads in the media when classifieds would have done the trick; importing sophisticated PABX machinery from Europe when locally available equipment was sufficient and leasing furniture instead of buying. Fortunately we were able to correct most of these as we went on.

One thing we have not yet done but have always wanted to do is expand to other locations. Setting up a business centre however is a costly affair, and to finance our expansion we have decided to sell the future rights of income for two-thirds of Genius Executive Centre.

Here is the ad as it appears in today's Daily Nation back page


By leveraging the future income of the offices at GEC we intend to expand to Nakuru by mid this year and Eldoret before the end of the year. Admittedly this is a new concept in Kenya but that is what SoftLaw is all about, pioneering.

Comments

coldtusker said…
You guys are awesome!

Keep it up!
Harry Karanja said…
@coldtusker

Thank you for your very kind words.
Empower Kenya said…
Hey pretty "ingenious" idea.
Keep up the good work.
Danzo said…
Great job!

I also have that problem of not knowing what to do when cash checks in. Poverty and brokeness motivate me but when the money comes I lose psyche for working completely till i'm broke again. HELP!!!

Tell us when you come across a solution!
Unknown said…
Just a thought, do you have unused capacity at the Nairobi offices. If yes then good news because I was thinking of getting an office in the next one month. If all the offices are rented, you may need to consider Nairobi before investing out of Nairobi. I have noted that you are not likely to get good deals outside Nairobi. But I may be wrong. Have you thought of renting ground floors of buildings ad converting to tiny business premises?
Unknown said…
I want to be like you. Keep it up
家出 said…
「家出してるんで、泊まるところないですか?」家出掲示板には毎日このような女の子からの書き込みがされています。彼女たちは家やホテルに泊まらせてあげたり、遊んであげるだけであなたに精一杯のお礼をしてくれるはずです
チェッカー said…
SM度チェッカーで隠された性癖をチェック!外見では分からない男女のSM指数をチェックして相性のいい相手を見つけ、SMプレイしてみよう!合コンや飲み会で盛り上がること間違いなしのおもしろツールをみんなとやってみよう

Popular posts from this blog

Cyber Cafe with an EDGE

Followed up from Laying the Groundwork for a rural cyber I've finally got around to writing this. Thanks for you all who patiently waited. Although I approached the project as an "internet consultant", I soon realised I would need to implement the whole spectrum of tasks required to get the cyber running. I spent almost a week laying the structured cabling, installing the software, and configuring the network. Most of the work I was doing for the first time (e.g. drilling holes in concrete to fix the trunking screws) and most of it was hard, but all of it was enjoyable. I needed to prove the project was implementable with minimal human resources (if it was going to work elsewhere). With an eye on both troubleshooting by the owner and future projects I prepared detailed How To manuals for most of the tasks. So the day finally arrived, November 17th I connected all the PCs to the internet. The results were incredible, the speeds were nearly as good as my 256K broadband conn

Differences between a Business Name (Sole-Proprietorship / Partnership) and a Limited Liability Company

While consulting for our online company registration service, Incorporator I find myself answering the question "What is the difference between a sole-proprietorship and a company?" Anybody who is considering starting a business must consider what type of business structure is needed for his or her particular situation. In Kenya there are three types of structures that one can use to start their business. 1. An LLC, or Limited Liability Company 2. A sole proprietorship 3. A Partnership A Sole-proprietorship and a Partnership are registered through the same manner (Form BN/2) with the exception that a partnership has more than one owner and although not necessary, entrepreneurs are advised to register a partnership deed as well. In this article all references to sole-proprietorship also include partnership. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each structure is important when deciding which one you want to use for your company.

Selling stuff online to Kenyans

You might not know this but my love of entrepreneurship is fuelled majorly by my love of computer programming. My first exposure to computers was in 1988 when I played shuffleboard on an Atari. Having been raised in the boondocks I was utterly spellbound with the concept of a video game. In 'shags' we hardly ever got toys from the shops; instead we would create our own toys using locally available material. For toy cars we twisted and shaped wire coat hangers and cut out rubber tires from old (and sometimes mom's new) bathroom slippers. For planes, we stuck a stalk of grass through a dried maize leaf and made our 'propellers' rotate by holding them out in front and running into the wind (incidentally this was my all-time favourite). For marbles we hunted for used and discarded bottle-tops (beer bottle-tops were coveted). In fact we had so many toys that our game time never felt inadequate. That was until I discovered video games. Hard as I thought I didn't see