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A
You've got to invest in your personal brand, whatever you build in the world, that's great. But the fact that people have confidence in you, the entrepreneur or the person who sets up something is the currency that you use to do other things in life. I would tell any young person who's trying to get into digital not to jump in with what we were doing two years ago, but to ask themselves in this modern context, if I'm going to do this, what does it look like in the context of AI? Any person today in this context needs to be thinking about how you're going to tap into that next thing. And it means that you need to be willing to sacrifice nostalgia to potentially grab onto the future. And I often like to tell people the entrepreneur's journey is a little bit like driving a car on a badly potholed road with no suspension and no cushion under your seat. You literally feel every bump. You rise and fall on the things you do and do not do.
B
This is financially incorrect. I am your host, Barack, and this is where we have a cheeky take on serious financial topics. We hear people's money journeys, hear stories, and hopefully you can learn a thing or two from their mistakes. They say that learning from other people's mistakes is the best way to learn. However, if you'd like to, you know, make the mistakes yourself, you are always free to do so as usual. If you'd like to access fxpressa, all the links are in the description box. You can learn how to trade, you can open a demo account, learn how to get it done properly before you actually start trading. And once you get onto the platform, you can trade commodities, you can trade indices offered to you as a one stop solution on fxpersa.com so today I have with me at Titan of Industry, I think we've been talking about getting this done for about a month now.
A
Really? Yes.
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have Moses Kibaru with us in the room. Welcome to Financially Incorrect.
A
Thank you for having me. And I'm a fan, man. I've been watching you for a long time. What's your favorite podcast, the one you've done? Yeah, I think one of the ones that stuck with me, I think, was the one about the bar next door. And I really loved that one. It felt very authentic. I really felt that it brought out a lot of the entrepreneurial side, but also the personal side of running a business. Yeah, I kind of wanted. Those are my favorites, for sure. Okay.
B
Yeah, I think that was. I think that's definitely one of the People's favorites. When I, I think when I met random people.
A
That's.
B
Yeah, that's one of the ones that people to talk about. So, yeah, it was good. I. I think he. I think Anthony is a fantastic storyteller, for starters. So I think he just told. I think the story I remember from him was where his shirt was stolen.
A
In the episode, he talked about his.
B
Shirt, which is crazy. But anyway, the other one is Christine's episode. She's from Nigeria, that's coming up. And her story is out of this world. Yeah, definitely. Like top five craziest stories I think we've had on the podcast so far.
A
Awesome. Looking forward to it.
B
Yeah. And hopefully yours is going to be B1 as well. You know, you can tell us how you broke through the digital space, how you became, I guess, a pioneer in the tech. Tech communication space, and what that look. What's that looking like now? Right. Okay, so maybe where we can start is a little bit about your company right now. The company that you've gone back to, to lead in digital communications and marketing.
A
Yeah. Yeah. So Dot Savvy is a business that's been around since 2002. So it is old. It's been around there for almost 22 years. Yeah, it started in the typical startup sense in my bedroom. And at the time, basically, I was working at another agency called Three Mice, which was one of the first in the market, which was part of Africa online. And I'm talking about like ancient history. Sometimes people won't even know this stuff.
B
I. I honestly don't.
A
But I was like the first digital marketing agency in Kenya. So what happened to me there is that I made a lot of clients and we were kind of like premium. They were serving Safaricom, Kenyaways, the likes. And you'd meet these guys, you know, people like travel agents, small entrepreneurs, and they'd be like, look, you know, I'd like to do this project. I really like the proposal, but, you know, we don't exactly have 3,500, $5,000. And you remember this is the early, early days of Internet. Right. So it was a big deal to buy a website at that price. So I kept getting people coming at me, you know, look, I have like a thousand dollars, I have a hundred thousand shillings. What can you do? What can you do? And during the time I was going through kind of like a personal situation, my mom was all well, and I just needed to make more money, so. So it's kind of like the hustle came to me as opposed to the other way And I had this obligation where I needed to do something about this situation. So I remember being approached by a fairly significant client. They had a reasonable budget, but not quite enough to pay my employer. And I was kind of like, in this situation where I was like, look, let me try this. They were kind of like, actually encouraged me, listen, Moses, you can do this at night. Do it when you're not in any conflict and can help us start. And that's what happened. You know, literally went there. I didn't have a company or anything, you know, so it was personal checks initially. And then I had a couple of colleagues who were helping me and working literally at night and weekends to make this happen. You can remember these days when even the Internet wasn't on your phone. There was no, you know, you'd go to a cyber cafe and floppy drives and started doing these projects. And it started accelerating because then we do a good job. And I had all this professional background because I'd worked previously at, you know, other companies like Africa Online and been doing web and digital. So the point is, it kind of came to me. And then at some point, I got a reasonably large client and I had to now incorporate a company. And I remember having to borrow money from a friend so I could get the money to open the bank account. That's how things worked in those days. And I remember the Standard Chartered, and I needed something like 100,000 bob. So I literally opened the account, and then I withdrew the money and gave him back his cash so that I could then bank the check that I got from this client. Right? And then at some point, you know, it kind of came to light that I was up to stuff. And it just felt like it was the right time. So I resigned and, you know, started running the business. But I also got very fortunate because my lawyer then was still my lawyer now is a good friend. And, you know, there's a friend of mine or somebody introduced me to called Robert Koech. And Robert had just come back from the US he had done electronic engineering, and he was also trying to set up a business. He was more of a techie. I was more like sales and stuff. And the lawyer said, listen, you guys are kind of like both doing stuff. Why don't I connect you? You know, he buys into your business. You guys go ahead. And lo and behold, it actually worked, you know, so we put money in. He had an office already. We moved in, bought some assets, and we started trading. You know, we got clients like ABC Bank. We got people like the Avenue Healthcare and A few very interesting clients very, very early on. I remember it was so funny because even when I was leaving my previous job and telling these guys, like I'm leaving, some of them actually withheld the checks and the payments they're about to make and said, okay, you go do what you're doing. When you're ready, we'll come to you. And I think that's just incredible that, you know, sometimes the best thing that happens to entrepreneurs is that early support, that early confidence. You know, serious organizations saying, we want to work with you, you know, and this is why I think when I talk to young people today, I keep telling them, guys, you've got to invest in your personal brand, whatever you build in the world, that's great. But the fact that people have confidence in you, the entrepreneur or the person who sets up something is the currency that you used to do other things in life. They trust you, they believe in you. They will back you up when they believe you're the right person. And then we started, we sort of went to the races. You know, the two of us, we had a few people, had many, many moments of highs and lows or what we call feasts and famines. At some point, I think by around 2007, were one of the biggest companies in the country doing websites, social media and stuff that was coming in. And of course, like any entrepreneur business, you know, there have been what I call life and death moments. You know, like, I remember one of the key moments in the business was when the big agencies, the scan groups and all woke up one day and realized digital is a thing. So up until that point, they were giving us the clients, you know, people at Kenya Power or the subcontractors. Yeah, they were subcontracting. They didn't have any digital capability. So one day they woke up, you know, and literally consolidated. So you had clients like ica, you had clients like NIC bank, you had Catepa and these guys and all these are your clients. Right? So. And many of them were kind of like offloaded to you because they don't do this stuff. So when they came into the game, it was a really a wake up call. Because remember that time I was working with Robert and we saw these job ads flying online and you know, there's something called a social media community manager you can remember. It's like 2007, 2008. You're like, so what the hell is that? Yeah, you don't even know what the hell that is. You know, there's social media. Yeah. At that point it's probably Facebook and Twitter at most. Yeah, but what the hell is that? What does a community manager do? Because right now you've built a machine that is perfectly tuned to build, manage and market websites and this is an entirely new skill set. And in fact, I'd wager that the agencies are better suited for social media because it almost felt like a natural extension of the fact they're already doing copywriting and ads and content of that nature. Billboards, there's almost a sort of a corollary between the two. But that was a wake up call because the next thing that happened is once they consolidated was the talent flight. So you'd kind of be having a meeting on a Friday, you know, pretty much at 4 o', clock, about to wrap up the day, maybe even do your happy hour with your team and you sort of assign the work. So next week, this is the plan. You get in your car, you get to your house in Kilalesh where you open your laptop and you see five resignations. Bang, bang, bang, bang. And they're all leaving. Now, the immediate effect, phones are off, emails are not being responded to. On Monday, ica, ICA has a meeting with you to review progress. You don't have people. So that's the kind of stuff that happened to us and also some of our competitors, you know, because we're not part of a larger global agency. Yeah. Locally owned, locally managed and run. And then of course, we built legs in the social media space, advertising, content creation. And what we've tried to do recently is we sort of in the last few years try to sort of position ourselves as more focused on performance. Right. So whereas there's a lot of, you know, branding and visibility stuff, we try and tell our clients, look, whatever we do for you needs to have a very clear roi, a clear straight line that whatever we're doing, you know, if you're spending half a million, Bob, you should be able to come back and say, Moses, I generated 5 million because of the effort. Yeah. And that's kind of like what's kept us going, because with that sort of overarching philosophy, it just keeps us going, you know, and alongside all this, I think, which is, I think another part of my Persona is, you know, I've been blogging now for about 17 years. It started off as a, almost like a pet project, Right. Almost like a journal, you know, and I'll just see stuff in the news and I'll be like, this journalist doesn't know what they're talking about in this space or that doesn't make sense or this is what's really happening on the ground. So I started writing this stuff because I felt mainstream media at the time wasn't really covering the tech scene in this country or the region effectively. So I started writing. And I think I've always had this talent to write or an ability to write, and before you know it, it becomes a thing. You know, to the extent that when, you know, blogs were really a thing, I think my website at one point rose to about the number 88 most popular website in the country. And when it gets to that level, let me tell you what happens. I remember there's a time I went on a bit of a hiatus. You know, the time I lost my mom because she eventually passed on, and I went like, dead for, like a week. I just couldn't write, I couldn't create. I was getting phone calls, and people are even internationally calling me like, dude, where's the content? Where's the stuff? And I was like, are you kidding me? Do you actually think I get paid to do this? I mean, I'm writing. It's like a hobby. But I realized people took it so seriously, they were counting on me to share insight. And at that point, I think I kind of have an inflection point of realizing I just need to keep creating content. And right now, it's like an obsession, you know, like whether it's my podcast, my YouTube channel, or whatever it is that I put out and very much tied into what I do in my company. You know, it's kind of like this personal brand has almost become bigger than the business brand because, you know, it's what people know me for many times. And across social media and other platforms, you tend to find that I'm always putting stuff out. But invariably what happens is a lot of the interactions and things that come through this.
B
Yeah.
A
Come back to the business. Right. So that becomes my commercialization channel.
B
Right.
A
So you'll see that clients become aware and that becomes the business.
B
Okay.
A
Yeah.
B
Interesting. A question on, I guess, the general digital marketing space. I've been reading, or I've just finished Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Great book.
A
Yeah.
B
In the book, you know, he talks about how a number of outliers, you know, Bill Gates, a couple of other people we mentioned in the book, were in their specific career times at the right time. You know, they happen to be born at the right time.
A
Yeah.
B
So asking this in context with regard to digital marketing, what do you think was the right time to get into digital marketing, if one was to be, you know, to become a guru or to become really, really successful in the digital marketing space, when do you think was the right time for that to happen?
A
I think it's always happening, right. I don't think there's a specific moment. I think what we have is those inflection points when something fundamentally shifts. Right. So, like I told you earlier, you know, we started off in the very beginning where connectivity was. It was about infrastructure, getting online. You know, going to yahoo.com you know, hotmail.com, that's where people were living and doing stuff on the web. Then social media showed up, and that was a strategic inflection point where content and people could now do dialogue. You know, you could create a presence without needing a website. You could talk to millions if you created great content. And that was a key strategic point. We then had probably the advent of the smartphone. That, again, was another point, because the Internet was now portable. You know, you had a 3G, 4G connection on it. The iPhone, of course, triggered that transition. And you're doing stuff on this space. And of course, within that, you saw blogging and all become a thing, if you ask me. It's so. It's never a specific. I think it's what it is. It's about at that moment in time, what is the inflection point, what's changing? And I think, without a doubt, right now, the thing that is changing everything has to be AI, right? If you talk about digital marketing, you find that AI has become so fundamentally and intrinsically linked to what marketing and digital marketing is, whether it's content creation, whether it's analytics of how you're performing, whether it's the fact that if you go to Facebook or you go to Google, there's AI capabilities built in that basically, with all due respect, eliminating some of the work that campaign managers have done for decades. It's planning for you, it's doing automated creative. It's finding the audience that you need to reach. It's optimizing itself automatically with machine learning. And what I would say is that, if anything, digital marketing has become incredibly scientific and even more, shall we say, intuitive in a way that wasn't possible before. And what I love about AI, and I'm saying this in the context of now what you're saying, the right time is I would tell any young person who's trying to get into digital not to jump in with what we're doing two years ago, but to ask themselves in this modern context, if I'm going To be a campaign manager, if I'm going to be selling or business development, if I'm going to be in analysis of data. The question you should be asking yourself is, in this modern moment, if I'm going to do this, what does it look like in the context of AI? Which means that you need to start mastering and dabbling the tools and the platforms and also rethinking the philosophies of what has always worked to what works now. And case in point is you're a podcaster. I'm a podcaster, but I use things like Riverside, which helped me remove background noise by just sliding a button. I use Otter to help transcribe an audio aspect of my content so that it helps me, you know, summarize the content we see. Even brands like Safaricom are now using AI to create content for billboards in terms of visual content and stuff. So my. My point or my takeaway at this moment in time for anybody trying to get into this space would almost be like, yeah, go to the platforms, you know, get certified on Google Ads, learn how to do, you know, copywriting, figure out how to create visual stuff. But most importantly, AI has become sort of this enabler that makes it faster, easier, better, simpler than it ever was. And if you look at it, then that means the costs are dramatically dropping, Meaning that even as we engage our clients, it's getting increasingly hard to justify certain expenses because they also know that AI is closing the gap. Yeah. So that average people can do what they couldn't do before. Yeah.
B
You know, okay, if I was to ask you finally, before I really get into your money story, to try and map out the critical inflection points for digital marketing over the last. I mean, if you're saying you started 2007 around websites and what that's looked like and what the transition for that has looked at, especially specifically around the Kenyan digital marketing sector scene, what would you say the journey map would look like? I mean, if we are saying the beginning point is websites and connectivity.
A
Yeah.
B
And then we move on to certain elements of social media.
A
Yes.
B
And then I would assume, you know, the blogging was really big at some point, right?
A
Yes.
B
Vlogging at some point was. Was. Right. And then we move from vlogging. And then, you know, Instagram becomes more than just images and video stuff that begins to happen and money moves from. From YouTube to now Instagram. And then I would say now we are like in this podcasting, oh, yeah, you know, world where now, like you just mentioned before we started, we have all sorts of podcasting studios now popping up left, right and center.
A
Absolutely.
B
Question would be, what next?
A
Well, if anything, and this is where it gets very fascinating is I think there are two fundamental things that are changing a lot of stuff right now. And maybe the first one I think is going to be TikTok. There's a phrase in fact we call TikTok iFication. And if you see what's happening on social media across the board, it's like TikTok has now become the gold standard that everyone is trying to emulate. Short form, tight, concise, light content, easy to absorb, easy to understand, to the extent that it's actually stealing such traffic away from both Google and YouTube. And that is why YouTube Shorts was launched. That's why reels were launched. Everyone is trying to become the next TikTok. But within this particular new moment, I think we're seeing a fundamental shift in consumer behavior, meaning that we no longer have the patience or the attention span to consume long form content in the manner we used to. People want it tight, concise and easy to get, which again, puts a lot of pressure on people who are creating such stuff because there's a mastery, there's almost a fluency you need to acquire to create content like that that runs well. And the reason I'm saying this is because you will see that many people who succeeded exceedingly well on YouTube doing long form, are struggling with shorts, are struggling with TikTok, they're struggling with reels. They're not automatically translating to be effective.
B
Yeah.
A
And then you'll also notice in Kenya that there are guys who are absolutely crushing it when it comes to TikTok. But you notice that they're nowhere on Instagram, they're nowhere on Facebook, they're nowhere on Twitter. Is like a completely different vocabulary, a completely different dialect that you need to master to do that on that platform. So that's one of the things that when I look at right now, that format, that type of content, this TikTok ification of what essentially is what we are consuming online. Because remember, digital marketing is all about content. It has become the thing. And the beauty about it is again, if you do well in TikTok, it's very easy even for you to find your video where you have only 100 followers getting 2 million views. It just happens. You know, I had did one last year when Starlink was first launching in Kenya in July, and I did a video of the. The dish just tilting. And the last time I checked, I think, I think it almost had 80,000 views. I don't know why. I don't know why people want to watch a video of a thing tilting yet. There are other videos where I've sat down, I've planned it, I've scripted it, and think it's got like 500 views. Yeah. You know what I mean? So mastering it is kind of like the next big thing in terms of what happens. The second thing coming back to the podcast conversation is I think if we just broadly call it personal branding, if I can use that phrase, whether it's a content creator, influencers, key opinion leaders, podcasters, just broadly that avenue I, as a content creator or a podcaster or a technology analyst, it has reached a point where as an individual, the engagements I'm having with brands and activities literally are on the same level as what my company is doing with other clients. As in, you can bill as much, you are treated with as much respect. You are not seen as just a trivial something on the side anymore. And remember, this is somebody who's been blogging for 17 years. It has literally become front and center for brands. And I think partly why that's happening is in the arms race to buy more ads and be more visible. Guys are asking themselves a very fundamental question both on the consumer and the advertiser side, which is how the heck do you do I get attention and resonance with the people I'm trying to reach. What are the best avenues to do so? Is the content considered? Because remember, anyone can buy an ad, but very few people can create meaningful resonant content. Yeah, and I'm starting to realize something very profound is happening. The individual brand, the personal brand is now actually accelerating ahead of the corporate brand. It's a reason why you'll have somebody like Cristiano Ronaldo, I think now across all platforms that over a billion followers. But Nike will never hit those numbers. Even though we all buy Nike shoes, we simply don't watch their content the way way we would Cristiano Ronaldo. And I think that's probably a really a tipping point of sorts. Possibly the next inflection, which is going to be a marketing manager or director, is going to sit down or CMO and ask himself, I've got 20 million shins to spend this year. Should I a be buying Google Ads and tick tock ads and so forth? Or can I deploy this money with a company like Wowzy or somebody and find 20 exciting upand coming nano influencers with that same budget? But they're not going to just give me reach. They're going to Give me conversions, they're going to give me cool factor as a brand and all the things that we look for. But it's a direct reflection of the individual or the personal brand that's carrying your message.
B
Yeah.
A
And I think we are literally on the cusp, or maybe it's already happened, of that transition point.
B
Okay, interesting.
A
I guess.
B
I guess we'll see. I'm interested to see what's going to happen the next, what, like three, four, four years? Yeah, we're interested to see what the next big thing around content is going to be. I'm curious and yeah, I cannot wait to see it. But let's get into it, right?
A
Yeah.
B
My first question is, what do you think has played the biggest role in forming your ideologies around money?
A
Wow. Ideologies around money. That's a good one. I have an increasing view. I've always had the perspective around the fact that money is defined by value. What does that mean? It means that you can go to a shop that sells electronics. You'll find an entry level HP laptop, perfectly capable, perfectly functional. That'll cost you 40 to 50,000 shillings. Right next to that, you'll find a MacBook with the latest M3 processor selling for 250,000 shillings. Now, the question you've got to ask yourself is this thing here is 50k, the other one is 250k. Right. Are they fundamentally different? No, they essentially do the same thing. But what is the ascribed value that gives it five times the value to the person buying it? And the idea that value is obviously the utility you get, which both can deliver. But more importantly, at other times it's about the perception of value. Meaning that when I buy a MacBook and I have old MacBooks now, I think for 15 or 16 years is the intrinsic value I get from it is not just a utility to do Microsoft Word or Excel or do my podcasts. There's other things that come with it. Such as. And with all due respect to anyone who's watching this.
B
Yeah.
A
Sometimes it's about signaling. Right. If I'm using a MacBook in the creative spaces or digital marketing, the moment I rock up into a meeting and I'm about to do a pitch and I flip open this machine and I connect it and you know, like if your Mac usernot is, it's almost like a ritual, you know, you've got to get that extra cable here, you've got to plug in. It's almost like this ceremony to get working. Yeah, it's always been that way. It's always been that weird thing on the side. Of course, it's much more common these days, but back in the day, it was always like. I remember even once we had like, this guy was one of our creative directors, and he had like, dreadies and all in the early days. And we walked in this meeting in a very serious corporate office, and the MD was sitting at the top of the table, and this guy flipped up this Mac and said, apple. Then he looked at the guy with his crazy hair, and he's like, that must be the designer. And he was excited because there's almost like this signaling that these are the right guys. Because the Persona, the way he looked, the gadget he was using, it conveyed that this is the authentic practitioner here to do the work for us. And therefore, when I think about value, money and so forth, I have this view nowadays, when I think about brands like Apple, Nike, and all that money is increasingly become about the perception of value more than the actual value. And those who have managed to master perception or the ability to convey or signal superior value, whether it's actually the fact or not, are the ones who get a disproportionate return on it. Meaning that I can go to somebody who'll say to me, moses, I want you to do a podcast with me. I got 50k. I'll turn around and tell him, well, I don't think you, you know, I can't do it for that price. But they'll come back to me or I'll talk to somebody else and, you know, they believe I have value and they will pay me 250k for presumably the same work. And I think those who are the best storytellers, who can articulate what that extra value is, ultimately get the most money.
B
Okay, and where, where did you pick up that perception from? Was it from your childhood? Was it from your, I guess, adulthood? Was it from, you know, something that you figured out in the most recent past?
A
I mean, money for me is maybe a bit of a touchy topic. I can't say that I have mastery of money. I think I'm intrigued by it. We all need to use it. I'm often fascinated by what people are willing to pay for services. I often question, you know, why I walk into a restaurant and pay 500 for a cup of coffee. But sometimes I'm paying for the ambiance. I'm paying for the peace of mind. I'm paying for sometimes the possibility of bumping into the right person because I just happen to be there. There's many intrinsic Things that come with that. But I think for me, possibly when I think about early influences around this, I think possibly going back to childhood. I remember growing up and my dad became an entrepreneur. At some point he had a engineering practice and before that he was employed. I was very young, but I'll never forget the transition when he stopped being employed and became, you know, essentially self employed. And very quickly, you know, we used to have butter and I think sausages and very nice food and things at breakfast. Suddenly it was like blue band and mkate, right? You know, and even as kids, I remember asking my mom, like, what's going on? Suddenly it's more gali than less of it. I think even the schools, there was a transition where we went, you know, from certain schools to other schools that were cheaper. And clearly, you know, the guy would like, leave in the morning. This is pre Internet days, you know, come back late at night, still take us to school. But you could see he was going through a transition. And I remember it was very clear even as a child that something has changed. But here's the interesting part. He became very successful, right? So we ended up going to some of the best schools. My siblings went to the US and all that. You know, I was over at USIU and I started to see the benefits of the fact that if you did your time and you did what you had to do, you could also become disproportionate, successful through that effort. And I think that kind of informed my world view and became very instructive to who I am today. Because even as children, I remember my dad, when things really started turning around, would say things to us like, guys, you've got to be your own boss. You've got to be in charge of your destiny. You don't want to ever be in employment. Because I think he had struggled with employers in the past where he kind of was the victim of winds of change or whims of managers. And he had this view that you've got to own it, you've got to do it, you've got to make it work for you. And from that point of view, therefore, I think all along, even when I was employed, I always knew in the back of my mind that one day I'm going to do my own thing. And that really comes from my dad. So if anything, that sort of informed that perspective or that notion that if anything, you've got to be kind of in the driving seat. And I often like to tell people that entrepreneurs journey is a little bit like driving a car on A badly potholed road with no suspension and no cushion under your seat. You literally feel every bump, you rise and fall on the things you do and do not do. And that, again, is very instructive because I've had moments where even in dod, Savi, I remember there's one instance where we literally had no money. The office line had been cut. This is very early in the business. And we had a client at Wilson Airport, and we rock up and we're just praying that they're about to approve that particular milestone on the website project. And with that money, hopefully we pay salaries, get the phone line back on, pay the rent. It literally was make or break, right? The thing that blew my mind is we walked in, the guy was a wealthy person. He's a name that you would probably know. And he's like, okay, so we're good to go. Do you guys mind if I pay you in cash? We're like, what? We're like, you know. Now, of course, you're playing it cool. You're broke, office line is dead. You're praying they haven't called the office. Those are. These office lines used to matter. So me and my partner Robert were just sort of standing up, playing it cool. Were relaxed. Yeah. Very thoughtful, very mindful. Chilled. So the PA goes there, we sign some documents, they open up this big safe, bundles of cash and different currencies and stuff. They give us the payment in cash and we get in the car as if this happens every day. I think we drove all the way to the gate at Wilson Airport.
B
How much cash was it?
A
It was like hundreds of thousands.
B
Yeah.
A
You know, and I remember we got to the gate and all I remember doing is both of us were just screaming. I can't explain the emotion, the release. We're just screaming. And those moments, I think, are quite memorable in an entrepreneurial experience because it showed me something very profound. I think we worked like for two or three nights non stop getting that work to that point with the team in the office. And then literally, I think it was a Friday or something, we just called the guys, hang out in the office. We're on our way, like, literally hold our beers, were coming. Yeah. You know, gave the money out, sorted out things pre and pesa days, and then we had a massive piss up after that. But the point is, you know, it was just a realization that if you put in the time, if you do what you need to do, money will come out. Okay. Yeah.
B
Okay. So how did you. How did you decide? How did you decide what you were going to study. Did it have anything to do with the amount of money that you wanted to make?
A
No, it was always from a foundational love of something. And if I look back at my early, I'd say the high school. No, actually this goes back to primary school. My dad was a civil engineer, but he was also a very tech forward person. Even those days he'd always have the tech things happening. The latest VCR and you know, he was that kind of a guy, tv, you know. And the thing, I don't know, that rubbed off on me somehow, but I just also loved electronics and tech at a very young age. And I remember that at some point when computers were coming in, there'd be these computer classes. Yeah. And I somehow managed to convince him. I remember there's a time when there was, because I grew up in Mombasa, there's a time when at one of the hotels, IBM was Showcasing the latest PCs. This is in the 80s. And I rolled up and asked my dad to take me there. I didn't know anything about computers. I mean the sales guys there looking at you like what, what are you doing here? And they kind of also probably rubbed off on him because then he eventually bought a computer to help him do his engineering work. And I told him please, I'd like to learn how to use these things. So in the building where he had an office, his practice, he actually paid for me to do a class on, you know, programming, basic programming. I was, I don't know, 11, 12, 13, I don't know. And I got this early leg up, almost like what you saw in the book, you just talked about the outliers where I got this early exposure where the only other people in that room were people like financial managers and accountants learning how to computerize their, their accounting practices, you know, using the various softwares of the day. And because that early window of exposure which I'm so grateful for, I got this love of technology and learning how to manipulate technology. And I'll give you another example of that. He also bought us a home computer. Back in those days it was something called the ZX Spectrum. It's like the Commodore 64. If you grew up as a child of the 80s, you would know what these are. And these were like the early home computers. And he brought it home. And then at some point, you know, we kind of exhausted the games that he had bought in the UK or something on his trips and he was okay guys, here's a book. In this book you learn how to program this thing to Create your games. So me and my older brother would sit there late into the nights on the weekends, and hopefully those days, Kenya Power would not go off because it went off. There was no backups. There was no. And would code manually. And what would happen is, once we run, the code, would know what meant what. So you could look at the code. You know, if I have infinite lives, I do this. If I want to change the color of the background, I do this. And once you understood the language of the software or the programming, you could almost have, like these superpowers and realize, my God, if I change this thing, this what does this to the software? And I think from those early experiences, and even when I went to high school and university, I did business administration, focus on it and all this, it was kind of driving me up to that moment. And I'll tell you, the moment I knew I was going to do something on the Internet. In the very early days of the Internet, there was a company called Netscape, started by a company called a guy called Mark Andreessen. He was like my age at the time, I think 21 maybe. And Mark had created the first web browser when he was in university, and it was called Mosaic. So as the Internet was taking off and people were connecting onlines and all this was how you accessed content online, this browser. And when the company had the ipo, Netscape, there was a cover. At that time, I think I was somewhere in uni or just finished my time in uni. But on this cover was Mark Andreessen. I think it was a Fortune magazine, sitting on a throne barefoot. And the guy was now worth something like $40 million. Now, in the age of billionaires, in the world as we know them today, that was a monstrous amount of money. And I remember looking at this. I remember looking at the fact it converged with my intrigue of tech. I wanted to know about this Internet thing. I bought that magazine. I read it end to end. It had stories about the Internet, what was the Internet. And I just knew then, then I'm going to do it on the Internet. So at that point, I think some companies were setting up those. Africa Online, those Formnet. I applied to all of them. Luckily, I got into. I was in Mombasa still. I got into Formnet. And that's where everything started to blend. But more importantly, we started on connecting people. And then I saw the opportunity to get into the website space, so I even pushed my next employer, Africa Online. We set up a branch for this web division and kind of picked up from there. But if I hadn't had that early exposure to the computers and the technology, it wouldn't have been what I am today.
B
Okay, but the 40 million worth, that in one way or another pushed you to some degree to be like, yeah.
A
What it told me, maybe I didn't give you another part of this story. At some point, my dad, when I was in high school, got unwell. He passed on. It changed the family fortunes significantly.
B
Okay.
A
You know, so I was no longer able to go to the US As I thought I would. It changed everything for us as a family. You know, it became a struggling time. And in those moments, I remember thinking to myself, what the heck can I do? What can I do? What can I do? And as I was getting exposure, I spent a lot of time in the British Council, you know, reading stuff on tech, teaching myself how to code in stuff and just being busy as I was trying to figure out the way forward. And as I saw that, it was kind of very interesting because for me, what was going through my mind was Mark Andreessen and me are not that different. Right. He's been playing with computers since he was a teen. He understands tech. I understand tech. Right. Why couldn't I do what he has done in the context of Kenya, of Africa? And even at one point, by the way, I tried to start up an Internet service provider. I actually got a bit of money from family. My brother and I were trying to put it together. It fell out to the people who are trying to do it because at that time I was in Mombasa and no one else had a local, what we call a point of presence. You'd have to do a long distance call to Nairobi to get online. So we did all the preliminary work and it folded. It didn't even start, really, you know, co director, partner issues. But my whole point in my mind was that I had the same ability or competence to be as successful as he was. So if you maybe became kind of like a benchmark or a reference point, that if indeed you are who you are, and the only issue is that maybe you have another right opportunities, but you have the potent potential, the Internet could be that leveler that allows you to get to that level.
B
Yeah, okay.
A
Yeah.
B
When do you. When do you learn about budgeting, if at all? And I guess how to manage your own personal finances. And what's your general budgeting rule to date? And has it shifted over time?
A
Well, a lot changes. I mean, if I talk about the man who was single and available and living the good life, when I was younger and let's see into my first, you know, jobs. At that point in time in your life, everything is about fun and games, let's be honest, at least in the conventional sense. So you're earning a salary to essentially live your life. Right. So. But for me, at that point, even I think there was always this philosophy, always, I always felt that you have to have some money, meaning that I'll never run it down to zero. I'd always make sure that I'm putting a little bit of cash aside because, you know, the rainy day things always happen. So for me, that's one of the early influences that I saw. But I think what changed quite dramatically is the point when I, I got, you know, my first child and what that happens and what that does to your financial makeup or setup. It means now you're sort of in a situation, you know, in a, in a, in a family type environment where you're looking at much more. It's no longer just Moses, it's now, you know, your partner, your child and all this. And that changes a lot, you know, And I'll never forget the moment when my first child was born. We left Nairobi hospital with literally no money. We didn't have proper insurance because I was an entrepreneur. I just literally paid cash over the counter, putting money aside, and we walked out of the hospital literally with nothing. And luckily, you know, my mom in law at the time just literally stocked up the fridge and got all the baby stuff we needed, you know, because she understood that this guy's an entrepreneur is broke. Yeah, so. So, you know, like she stocked us up. But the point at the end of the day is that that was a real wake up moment, like you can literally have nothing. And as an entrepreneur, that's one of the things that I learned. So coming from those experiences, it's kind of like I have this almost obsession with finding the next source of revenue or income. But also I've come to understand that it's so important that you must have multiple income streams, meaning to say that you could even be sleeping. But something is making money, such as ads running on your website, that in addition to your day job, you know, you're also a podcaster who's commercializing that. Also, you know, I'm also a trainer and a speaker at events. So multiple income streams for me is like absolutely everything. And even as you earn this additional money, it's very important to separate what's yours and what's for the business, both in all the cases I'm in.
B
Right.
A
So Always thinking about what's actually mine and what's for the business. Because I think one thing that many entrepreneurs get wrong is at some point there's a lot of money sitting in the bank. And you see a lot of young guys, entrepreneurs, first time entrepreneurs, forget that that money is not theirs and they start spending money that's not theirs to start creating the optics that they're actually successful before they are. And I'll tell you, this is very profound because my business is probably only Alive today after 22 years, because we've always been super frugal. Though those moments I'm telling you I was dying, I'm like, there's money, I can buy a BMW. There's money, I can move to a better office. And something would always tell me in my back of my mind, like, no, no, no, no, no. Just stay humble and plug that money back into the business. Buy some new furniture, get some new laptops. That's another thing that's key to me. How do you reinvest in yourself? How do you reinvest in your business? Right? And that's so important. I'd rather have a 300,000shilling laptop that helps me produce better content and do better work for my clients than spend money buying a car that makes me look as if I have money.
B
Okay.
A
So that's one of my key philosophies. It's always about the core. The money should go back into the things that actually bring more money back.
B
Okay, a question. How do you end up. Because it seems like you said, yeah, having a first child is a big eye opener for your finances. How do you end up there? And the reason I'm asking that is because you seem like you, you know, finish uni, start working and you're employed, meaning you're getting a salary, and then at some point you become an entrepreneur. So what's happened to all of the money that you've accumulated up until this point when you have your first child and you're paying cash and you have no money thereafter? And then actually a B question to that is, how come getting married doesn't have any? Why is getting your first child the, the first big thing that changes or open up, opens up your eyes financially?
A
Well, it was maybe not the only thing, but I think it was one of the most significant things. Like it is that moment I think of realizing even with your partner, your wife, that you're no longer alone. Because of course, your partner, your wife, is also income earning and you're kind of splitting the Bills a little bit. You know, you're handling this, she's handling that. But for me, it was kind of unprecedented because within that, again, you know, there's all these medical costs, there are incidentals you didn't plan for. It just throws you a lot of curveballs, even just on your time. Yeah. You're no longer just able to be anywhere doing what you want because you have to structure around routines. You have to structure around how this whole family unit situation works.
B
Yeah.
A
And of course, let me go, let me not even get into education. You know, when you start thinking about today what good quality education plus extracurricular activities cost within the family and you know, children concept, it can get quite interesting. You know, you find that a lot, a big percentage of your income will go into just servicing those costs or investments. So I wouldn't say it was that one singular thing, but I think it was probably the biggest wake up call. Like you now really need to be at any given point relatively liquid. Okay. Number two, you need to be putting money into things that can also bring back money to you. So whether you go buy plots of land, you invest things in your business, you invest in another business, but you start looking at ways and means of ensuring that you have reserves of wealth or value that you can tap into when you need them. Yeah. Yeah.
B
Okay. So what about the. In terms of what first of. In terms of how you ended up broke entrepreneur with your first child. Right. What have you, what have you done with your salary and everything that you've earned up until that point and what potentially were the different salaries that you earned up until that point?
A
Well, I don't use that phrase, but there's so many things in the African context that happen that you might not have planned for. Like I mentioned, for instance, you know, the situation with my mom at the time. Right. Medical costs, sustaining and keeping her going, you know, the sending the money home, Those are some of the things that were quite costly. Lifestyle, how was I living? How's operating? You know, as a solo operator, you know, you're almost thinking about just the next day in the lifestyle you're in. You know, so weekends are spent enjoying things in the good places in life. I would say that quite honestly, in hindsight, I was not very good at conserving and planning financially in those days. I think I kind of lived a little bit more day to day, to be honest, and just living for the moment. But I would say that up until that point, with having family and children and so forth, that was really that tipping point. That wake up moment of, oh, my God, this is real. I need to get more organized, I need to do stuff. And it continues from there. You know, it's just that the scale of the things that you handle and the things you need to do and achieve, it just grows exponentially bigger. You know, you have bigger things that demand financial consumption, but also financial investment. Yeah.
B
Okay, so I guess in your. In your journey now as an entrepreneur, what would you say was either your most successful period or I guess your best day as an entrepreneur, financially speaking?
A
There have been so many. Yeah, they've also been bad days. I. I don't know whether I can single out one moment or one thing, because even right now, there are things that are happening that are just spectacular. I think for me, it's kind of probably those moments when everything looks incredibly bleak, which happens a lot in entrepreneurial situations where it just looks like maybe your company might fold tomorrow. There is no future. There is no possibility. And call it the grace of God or something, or just the hustle, you know, Like, I'll give you a funny one. There's one time we're in. In a bar in the early days, and literally I'm at the bar with another IT guy who's also an entrepreneur. We're having drinks. We meet one of his clients. Turns out that this client works at one of the big organizations. We start chatting up, and he says, well, what do you do? You do websites? Oh, that's. That's so sad. You know, we're actually closing our tender tomorrow morning. And I'm like, what? And he said, there's a tender? Yes, there's a tender due. And remember, this is pre emails on your phone and all. What time is he due? He tells me something like 2pm so we make a deal. I start drinking water, stop drinking alcohol. He says he's gonna get to the office like 7am and so do I. He sends me the stuff on email. I quickly whip up a proposal. In those days, we didn't have like an office person to print. And also I printed them, bound them, drove into city center, Tomboya street, dropped this thing. Lo and behold, a dude I met the night before having a pint. Two weeks later, we closed the deal. One of the biggest deals at that time for a particular website. And that for me was just madness. I was just like, I was in the right place at the right time. But the idea that opportunity presented itself. I had to make a quick, very important decision if I could capture that moment and moving forward from there and quite Often it's those moments, you know, over the last 22 plus years that I've seen become so instructive to what happens next. The whether you did it or not. Did you make that extra effort? Did you make that call? Did you, you know, that guy you met at some event randomly and said he might be interested and you actually followed up and then two months down the road you're like, oh my God, thank God I did what I had to do. That has changed my financial fortunes. That has meant the business lives another day. And those moments, trust me, if you know any real entrepreneurs, they'll tell you it happens all the time. There's not one singular moment, but it's a realization that every activity or inactivity has a consequence.
B
Yeah.
A
Yeah.
B
Okay, interesting. What's the if, if, if you, if you, if you're going to, I guess, be open to share, what's the most amount of money that you've made, as in a month as an entrepreneur?
A
Wow.
B
I guess in the digital marketing space, when you're looking at all the different revenues.
A
Yeah. Multiple streams, different things. Working as a consultant, because that's also been a thing at times when it was really madness and I had like some international things involved. And if I put those numbers together, let me put it in Kenyan currency, today's translation with everything else, probably at one point I think it was pulling in maybe close to. So I'm just trying to convert in my head maybe 1.2, 1.3.
B
Yeah. Okay.
A
Yeah.
B
How do you, how do you then, as an entrepreneur, entrepreneurships. How do you, how do you.
A
Deal.
B
With the highs of, you know, like achieving that high for a specific period in time and then coming back to, I guess, what would be your relative media and space financially? How do you, how did you budget and manage the money so that you make sure that, you know, when we come back to whatever status quo may.
A
Be, you're screwed over. Yeah, yeah. I, I, I, I have to say I'm probably very fortunate because my wife is a very grounded person. I don't know what it is in Kenya, but there's sometimes this thing within our social circles and how we hang out with people where, especially as men are concerned, we start to get to this itch of trying to show the world you've made it or done it. And when you're sitting on a few millions in the bank, there's this tendency or feeling that this money has to go somewhere now, but more for the optics than the value. And there's doing those moments where I literally came quite close to doing some of those things. And then that's a sober moment. Okay, let's. Let's. What's the closest you got, Man, I went to the showroom. I started looking at that BMW. I'm a BMW fan. I was. Walked around it. I sat there, I smelled the leather. I touched that German wood on the dashboard. It was this close. Yeah. It almost happened. And I don't know how I pulled back. But I realized later it wasn't for me. It was for me to try and show the world I'm here. And, you know, this is why sometimes they tell you who you marry and who you settle with can be very instructive for your future fortunes. Because as it turned out, when I was going on this high, it abruptly ended. But the good thing is, this money now was in a plot of land here. It was in some investment there, you know, in a Treasury bill. There's some money sitting just in the bank there, you know? And the most amazing thing out of that moment went through like a crazy dip, but for the better part of the next year, until things sort of came back to norm, that's essentially what kept us going. And the best thing about it was we maintained essentially the same quality of life, but the money, having been conserved and put into places of safety, became this reservoir that we could tap into to maintain how we're operating. And again, there's a lot of frugality involved. You know, holidays were now, you know, no longer hotel. You're going to Airbnb and, you know, kind of, you know, saving a significant amount there.
B
Right.
A
You do things, but in the back of your mind, you're very clear, like, look, this has to be done frugally. This has to be done in a sober way. Yeah. So that was really a reality check, because I was making mad money. And I mean, when. When that tapped. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It was so, like, you're so grateful you didn't do the BMW.
B
Okay, so you think. I mean, so. So I guess you're a believer in, like, you say, you know, I guess the person you're marrying or the spouse that you have.
A
Yeah.
B
A huge contributor.
A
Oh, yeah. The ones who can hold you back or they can say, yeah, baby, let's go. Yeah, let's do this. It can happen. Both of you could be like, it's time. We've got to show the world we've got something. And, you know, Kenya is like this. We see so many people flying up the. The corporate or the entrepreneur online, and a lot of time is spent creating the signaling, creating the view that look at me now. Yeah, but it's not really for you, it's for them. Yeah, it's your insecurities to show people you're okay, but the reality is in the back end you're not. You know, and I'm sorry, but we live in a society that values perception of a reality, like any society. I guess. Yeah.
B
So, so what would you say? I mean, other things or the skills that you put together that allowed you to even get to this height or that keep allowing you to be be able to make money, if you were to look down at the granular, fundamental things that you do that allow you to make money, what would you say they are?
A
Number one, be intensely curious, that is never take anything for granted. It's going to always be like this, how it's going to work. Case in point, when that whole website social media transition happened, we were completely caught flat footed. We didn't know what was coming, we didn't realize it, we're in it. But we had these lenses on that business as usual. Continue. That was a massive wake up call. Number two, a wake up call as an entrepreneur. Employees will leave. Okay. Do not presume that you're in it together forever. As an entrepreneur, you're the one who owns it, you start it, but your team is there just to essentially be a partner for that period of time and to get things done. I think the biggest wake up call sometimes is entrepreneurs presume that the people are there forever and you've got to be doing that. Another thing is, I think is, I don't know, you want to call it persistence or I think they call it grit. You know, plugging away even when you're knackered or you're tired. You know, like there's this crazy guy who did this book, it's now become quite famous. He was a marine, he was a seal. I think you've probably heard of this guy, I'm just forgetting his name but you know, he says this thing go hard, you know, like he's always like, don't stop when you're tired, stop when you're done. And I think that philosophy really serves you well in life where in discomfort, in difficulty, finding the ability to keep going I think is insanely valuable. Very few people have that ability. Another thing that I see is very fundamental to this and I think in some ways I've been blessed with it, in some ways I've nurtured it is the ability to communicate the best communicators in the world, or what I think they like to call storytellers in the world, are the people able to articulate things very simply and very accurately? Meaning when the world is throwing you 20,000 pieces of information, the guys who are able to cut through the noise and catch your attention are the ones who succeed these days. So it's not that they're necessarily the best or the ones who even are most competent, but the person who can tell the best story wins. And again, you've got to understand that this goes back even to when I started my company where, you know, why did those clients feel confident enough to take a chance on me doing their work and giving me their business, even though I didn't even have a company registered yet or very barely registered? It's because they were betting on me. You know, they say they're betting on the jockey, not the horse.
B
Yeah.
A
And from that point of view, it can only mean that somehow I created a sense of confidence through the manner in which I handled myself and I communicated. So I think the way you communicate things, ideas, concepts, your passions, what you stand for, I think is probably going to be the single most important thing for children going forward, especially in this personal branding era that I'm seeing is coming. And I think it makes such a huge difference. Because if I give you one story right now, you know, as an entrepreneur, I also had moments when I sort of stepped away from the business because of, you know, challenges and issues. You know, I'll never forget the time when I was blogging a lot and, you know, a suitor reached out to me after my wife had seen this position, and all they told me is, listen, you don't need to tell us who you are. We read what you write and we know who you are. We know what you're about, therefore, name your price. You know, and that is profound because it only comes from the ability to communicate that somebody can have that confidence. You know, and maybe the last thing I think about that is, unfortunately, we live in an environment locally where there's this perception of visibility around reservoirs of wealth or value being quite conventional. Right. Think about the fact that till today, most people, if you told them, where were you going to put 5 million, Bob? They're going to buy a piece of land. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe build some shares or maybe do what you guys do at fxpesa. But how many guys, if you told them two years ago there'd be AI, and maybe it could be an opportunity, would have invested in that? Probably zero. Yet today we know There's a company in Africa called Instadeep that had an exit of $500 million last year. My point being, through that curiosity that I mentioned earlier, are you looking at the next next thing, or what we call the new news thing?
B
Yeah.
A
That is going to be that. Right now, AI is essentially screaming that there's going to be something here.
B
Yeah.
A
And any person today in this context needs to be thinking about whether they're a lawyer, doctor, engineer. How are you going to tap into that next thing? And it means that you need to be willing to sacrifice nostalgia to potentially grab onto the future. And in a very dramatic way sometimes, because that could mean that potentially maybe certain jobs will disappear in the next couple of years. So with that curiosity means therefore be open to new possibilities and grabbing that opportunity going forward.
B
Okay, interesting. I guess I'd say a good grasp of understanding of the things that you've done that have allowed you to make money. Where have you put your money as we wrap up? Like, where have you invested your money?
A
Where.
B
What's. What does your portfolio look like?
A
To be honest, I don't think it's particularly spectacular. You know, it sits in different things. There's elements of land, you know, bits and pieces here and things like shares, you know, kind of like the standard stuff that you normally put. Of course, there's money in the bank in various forms, savings and, you know, current accounts. And then of course, inherently sitting also in investments, like the business itself. The business itself inherently has value. Yeah. And of course, the assets that come with that. So I think in a nutshell, that would be pretty much it. Do I want to change it and improve that portfolio? Absolutely. And we hope that with the 10,000 hours that we've put in, many entrepreneurs, I tend to think we have a legacy of putting everything back into the business, trying to grow it and get there. But I think the notion is that at some point will be an investment or an exit that potentially gives you that liquidity that you've created, you know, spend 20 years building. Yeah. And I've seen this happen to some of my friends who exit to the very good exit because they've created value over a number of years. So I'd say from that point of view, maybe the entrepreneur is slightly different in some ways because we. We tend to put most of our stock into those businesses that we set up. Yeah. And I think it's the view that at some point you'll be able to kind of reap the true value of that investment. Or I think we like to call it the blood and guts or the sweat capital that you put into that business.
B
Okay, last question. Do you think that you're a successful entrepreneur?
A
To be honest, no. I think I'm a work in progress. And I say this because in the space that we operate in, given the size of the opportunity, I think there's still so much headroom to grow, to do things. And on many levels, when I look at this AI moment that we're currently going through, I really do see that opportunity to sort of extend above and beyond where I am today, simply because it's almost like a reset happening. And those who manage to achieve mastery in this new context potentially are going to get the disproportionate return on effort. So that's kind of like where my focus is tuned in right now. And even if you look at my blog and the podcast, that's kind of like, I've been talking a lot about that, but others might look at me and say I'm successful. I personally don't think so. I think I'm still a work in progress.
B
Yeah, it's very critical and. But I think rare.
A
No, but I think you've got. Well, if I look at myself 20 years ago where I'm now, I'd be like, whoa, man, you. You've absolutely aced it. But I think it's a. It's a constantly moving target. Right now where I am now, I'm thinking, like, where I want to be. I'm like, wow, I have such a long way to go.
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. All right, well, I mean, thanks so much for coming on to Financially Incorrect. Thanks for sharing your insight and giving a little bit of your financial story. For all of you guys, thanks for watching yet again, Please, like, comment, leave any questions you might have. We'll pass them on to Moses, and we will see you guys on the next episode of Financially Incorrect Incorrect next Friday.
Episode: Moses Kemibaro – Building a Personal Brand & AI-Driven Digital Growth
Host: Barrack Bukusi
Guest: Moses Kemibaro
Date: August 22, 2025
In this episode, Barrack Bukusi sits down with Moses Kemibaro—digital pioneer, entrepreneur, and long-standing content creator in Kenya’s tech and communications industry. They discuss Moses’ journey from modest beginnings to digital marketing success, emphasizing the power of personal branding, the evolving digital landscape shaped by AI, and candid reflections on money management. Moses’s story underscores how adaptability and authentic storytelling can forge a path toward both business and personal growth in Africa’s dynamic market.
Dot Savvy, Kenya’s first digital agency, began in Moses’ bedroom out of necessity—driven by clients who needed affordable websites and a personal family financial need.
Early clients’ faith helped Moses transition from side hustle to full-fledged company.
Challenge:
When major ad agencies realized the value of digital, they consolidated, causing a talent exodus. Moses details losing team members suddenly, highlighting the volatility entrepreneurs can face.
Shift to Performance:
Dot Savvy evolved from a branding focus to performance-driven work (ROI-centric), staying resilient amid industry upheavals.
Moses identifies key technological revolutions:
Quote: "If I'm going to do this, what does it look like in the context of AI? ... You need to be willing to sacrifice nostalgia to potentially grab onto the future." — Moses (00:00, 16:25)
Moses reflects on how value is more about perception than function:
Childhood Lessons:
Seeing his father's transition from employment to entrepreneurship, with initial hardship followed by later prosperity, shaped Moses’ attitude toward risk and autonomy.
Quote: "You've got to be your own boss. You've got to be in charge of your destiny... You don't want to ever be in employment." — Moses (27:00)
Single Moses lived “for the moment”; the birth of his child forced a dramatic shift towards financial prudence and the need for multiple, sustainable incomes.
Importance of separating personal and business finances; frugality has been critical for his company’s longevity.
Nearly splurged on a luxury car during a high—his wife’s prudent advice and his own frugality saved him.
Instead, he diversified and invested, maintaining lifestyle even in subsequent downturns.
Key Skills:
Advice:
Don't get trapped in conventional wisdom; be open to new value reservoirs and be willing to “sacrifice nostalgia to grab onto the future,” especially with paradigm shifts like AI.