Most of the world’s best businesses were started from scratch – but through persistence, they constantly grew until they acquired their epic status. Moral of the story? In business, nothing good comes on a silver platter. Sometimes you have to take unconventional risks. Other times you have to lose your hard-earned savings and so forth.
Real Life Story
The story of Peter Owiti, the brains behind Pete’s Coffee shop, speaks volumes of the great deal of effort that is spent when setting up a successful business. In the brief video below, Pete, who is a father of three, talks to Kuza Biashara about the challenges he encountered when he set up shop in 2004.
Peter resigned from a well-paying office job and, left with nothing other than his lifetime savings that amounted to Ksh500,000 ($6,000), he resolved to tread a path he was barely familiar with. Today, his business is valued at Ksh5,000,000 ($60,000). This admirable growth was recorded despite the scourge of Kenya’s Post Election Violence (PEV) in 2007/2008 which threatened to break his sequence of success.
Watch his story here:
Some quick facts about Peter and his business
- Used to work for one of the biggest coffee producing firms in East Africa
- He is a “people person”, easy to interact with and warm to his customers
- His main outlet is located at the iHub building in Ngong Road area in Nairobi
- His customers are mainly young people/ grandaunts who work for iHub and other firms located nearby (his restaurant attracts people from all walks of life)
