Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

10 Kenyans Under 32 will be USD Millionaires before October 2010

by on Mar.09, 2010, under Coding, Symbiotic, Zunguka

March 18, 2010.

It is the Tandaa Local Content Conference today in Nairobi. Thanks to ICT Board again.

I am at iHub Kenya and just heard Wanyama [@kenyafreelancer], say “What more do we Kenyans want? We have Fibre now”

I am at iHub Kenya and just heard Cynthia Muyoti of FabGuru , say “Facebook has made my business better? 1391 fans todate and I am soon expanding my Shoes Business”

Seated next to me is Agosta Liko, Mbugua Njihia and John Karanja. I hear talk after talk. Aly Khan Satchu talks about how anyone can be rich and gives examples.

So I brainstorm with fellow coders and the question becomes; ‘How can Kenyan Coders be rich?’. Not the “i can afford to go out and i own a toyota” rich. Or the “I pay all my bills and my rent is always paid on time” rich. How about the “I look at the food names on the menu, not the price before I order rich”, or the “I am undecided whether to drive my Range or my Mustang today rich”.

50 Cent said ‘get rich or die trying’ [GRODT], but I tell you, try ‘get rich or get rich’ [GRoGR]. We are in a position never experienced before. So, for free as usual, I will list the top 10 opportunities that are there open-legged and wet and just waiting for Kenyan coders to smell the coffee and dive in and start making the old-Money conglomerate wish they could impregnate their daughters.Only coders?? Naaah! ANYONE can jump into the eChapaa bandwagon. It is free and there for everyone.

My Top 10

  1. Local Digital Content – Yes. Content is the buzzword. Enough Said. Anything you know [Yes, am speaking to Pamela, Wangechi and Anyanche] is sellable. Just grab word-press and google-checkout and walla!
  2. Content Discovery Tools – Coders. The challenge is yours. Java Applications, Desktop Applications. There is over KSHS 100M not made per month by PRSPs because of lack of content discovery tools. That is why the guys down South are inviting  likes of Symbiotic to go down there and consult on HOW to convert content and knowledge into wallet-content.
  3. Mobile Apps – Think of anything useful as a mobile phone app and there are 100, 000 people who NEED it and will PAY 20 bob each for it.
  4. Mobile Games – Here we go again. the limit is only your imagination. grab a keyboard and write some code!! Stop these silly excuses that ‘programming is hard’. I got a miserable B in KCSE and can code, sembuse wewe!! But whatever you do, please don’t use VB.
  5. Hacking and Security – The silence is deafening, but the hackers are on their way. Be equipped to defend Kenya. Your hacking knowledge will be invaluable in 3-6 months time. Tick.. tock…
  6. Animation and Design – Some foreign jamaaz came here, partnered with HomeBoyz Studions and now are making millions of dollars per month. What are Kenyans doing? Facebook all day and complaining about how hard life is, how much of a a parent-hater Esther Arunga is and how much money Ruto is stealing. Kaeni papo hapo.
  7. Kenyan Social Networks – YES. I said it. You can start your own Facebook tomorrow and become rich like crazy. There are 4M Kenyans with an Internet Connections. This number grows by the day. there are only 580, 000 kenyans on facebook. This is 14.5% percent of Kenyans with Internet. So what are the other 85.5% doing? Waiting for you to give them something better. Something Kenyan. Something more contextual. Lala tu.
  8. Adult Sites – Ati Eish? We all know Kenyan is the mdinyano capital of East Africa. An average slut makes KSHS 2, 500 per night. And those are the cheap ones. Connect the clients and the vendors. Simple as! I wont say anything more.
  9. eParty – Bring clubbing to the mobile phone. Hook people up to YOU on thursdays, fridays and sato. Just charge each user 10 bob per week. Kenyans will pay.
  10. Your own WebTV Show – If you are that Kibera guy who can dance like MJ or that Kileleshwa bathroom singer, get heard online! Make some money. Sell yourself!

So maswali ni, what do KENYANS want! Are you going to waste all day thinking up cocky status updates for facebook and poking strangers who you mean NOTHING to, or are you going to monetize your time? Are you going to waste your life away in the digital world, or are you going to focus on what will really make your momma smile in public pointing at you and say, “yeah! that’s my baby!”. Are you going to complain all day about the government, corruption, the kaanjo and these bloody foreigners, or are you going to take control of your life?

Amua mwenyewe!

Ehh, back to code! Pole timo.

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  • I_am_K_rich

    Interesting stuff Idd, I was just on Moses Kemimbaro's blog and the rankings for local website access were astounding! In fact we coders must put up local content and I pledge to do so myself ASAP!

  • http://www.kachwanya.com/ kachwanya

    Well put and to the point…too bad i missed tandaa conference.

  • christinekajuju

    may be iborian?

  • voicestream

    Umenena Kaka, one thing I have realised way too too late is that, “Literally knowledge is power” If I knew back then what I know now , let me go back to work.

  • Jeff Ndito

    Nice! i came across http://liwani.com/ and thought i might share as one of the providers of content!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mulutu-Jackson/526273834 Mulutu Jackson

    Idd, umenena kweli. You are quite on point. We must be the first guys to come up with 'useful content ' anfd trust me Kenyans/Africans will be ready to pay for it.

    Just a question; at this point of the article…
    '…are there open-legged and wet and just waiting for Kenyan coders to smell the coffee and dive in and start making..' are we still talking about coding and content ? :) Good stuff.

  • Yonny

    100% truth man…. Really got me thinking.

  • http://diasporadical.wordpress.com/ iCon

    Weird. I had this exact conversation with a colleague less than a week ago. As I fall into quite a number of the groups listed, I'm hoping to net some of that $$$.

    Excellent post.

  • iddsalim

    wacha stori bob.. hehehe…

  • iddsalim

    Woe unto those who will read such stuff, and do nothing about it.

  • iddsalim

    Thanks for the kind words. kali mzee.

  • edu32

    Well, if original content from local circles is the question then http://www.symclub.com is the answer. Putting learning smack in the middle of personal networking, in a way that has not been done before – these entrepreneurs might just make history.

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  • edwinabuga

    “Monetize your time!” – Dude, thats priceless.

  • http://www.devterch.com/ Joshua

    Kudos! That's the way to go….

  • oparaah

    5, 6 and 7 leapt out for me..good analysis. in this life there are sheep and there are wolves…..we cant convince the sheep to become wolves, we cant convince the wolves to become sheep either..

  • iddsalim

    @op – Gyebbaleko!! Thanks for the comments. I think we need to let the sleeping dogs lie.

  • http://sleekandwild.com/ Sleek

    Monetize it is…good stuff here. And i won't be back, gotta monetize u know…(hehe, double-edged sword).but thanks; even though i'm not kenyan

  • http://www.mapoz.com/ Brian Githere

    very positive stuff

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  • http://soqko.com/ mwangi

    no. 8 killed it!

    i trust you have been looking at soqko.com!

  • juliusbichage

    Please change the background colour to be anything else from black! I strained reading your good stuff! Good wake up call though, wasee waache kulala. Make millionaires!

  • http://wapichapaa.blogspot.com/ edwin abuga

    We both know that unless you have a huge-mongous budget, you can't do/make/sell everything to everyone. So my advice to freshmen in the school of mkwanja is 'If you cant play big, play niche'. That said, allow me to expound on eChapaa opportunity no.2. I have made a list of the most likely MobiApps you can build/sell.

    1: Money Transfer – From your rantings about Safcon it became clear to me that Mobile Money Transfer could do a lot more us and even though I think it'll take Carlos slim's acumen, Branson's balls and an act of God to threaten Mpesa's market share, the onus is on us to try.

    2: Location-Based Services – LBS takes 2nd place because of its high user value ranging from productivity and goal fulfillment to social networking and entertainment. Imagine a service that warns you when your heading towards a jam… priceless!

    3: Mobile Search – I heard some guys advertising something like it kitambo. I dont know what came of it. All I know is it has a broad appeal to all businesses because of its potential to offer a good return on investment. It involves much lower development costs than native code, reuses many existing skills and tools, and can be agile — both delivered and updated quickly.

    4: Mobile Payment – A partnership of, say, paypal with a local service for ePayment would open our respective wallets a whole world of mkwanja, that is assuming uko rada. Imagine being paid on a per click basis by Google adsense straight into your eMkwanja service.

    Acha niachie apo. The long of the short is that the possibilities ARE truly endless. Ukisleki utachekwa.

    Pamoja…

  • http://nbitodc.wordpress.com/ Roger O

    dude! you rock. That is all.

  • http://www.vhostafrica.com/ Ken

    Hello Idd Salim, I am Kamau, your ideas are very noble and I can't help but Imagine how few we are (of a kind). I am like you. Quite honestly I have looked at the number of poor urban youth who quite frankly only have a facebook wall to keep up with the rest…not thinking of how immensely facebook can drive their online marketing needs. I am with you too on the two points of how endeless whinners the Kenyan youth have become and how uninformed of the power of the internet 'the informed' are.

    However I also wish to point out that you and I know it takes skill and patience to sell both the ideas and products. My experience with outsourcing UK & US freelancing is both good and bad. The good side is that I have made over Kshs.100,000 from satisfied clients who do not even know whether Kenya is country or a continent. I was inspired by a Kenyan who lives somewhere in Valley road and has made over Kshs.2,000,000 in the same outsourced programming field. The flip side is that I have had to deal with f*cking Asians and Idonesians, Philipinos who outbid you by offering similar services for way to less (kindu $50 or so for a $350 jobo). Anyway, what can I say? Kenyan is just slowly getting there…they are the pioneers!

    Points 3,4 and 9 are cool but what you are not telling the young Kenyans is that, i-phone apps, Android and Windows apps are the best selling apps. They are not only a bit tougher to code but they require you to market well to a key market…certainly not Kenya since the number of Kenyans who know what an iphone app is are 1% of the total 1% who own an Iphone and 1% of those whose iphones have 3G capability in Kenya. Key is=make an app, market it for free, let it have kindu 2million users and it will be bought from you and not the other way round.

    On point number 1, 8 and 10. You need to tell Kenyans that there is still low internet penetration and I mean real internet (not the prepaid Edge mo'phone internet). Tell Kenyans too that, very few Kenyans are happy to use their debit or credit cards on the net and so they just wont pay…at least not today. GINA DIN and Ogilvy must first become spin doctors for the recently launched I&M, CBA and other mobile Payment platforms. What the average Kenyan can do is sell to the disapora who knows them. Adult sites can work best but how do you get paid? You can however give the service for free…if you like.

    I like 5 most. Just get a Certied Ethical Hacker certificate and never work full time for anyone. Consultancies only!

  • iddsalim

    Nice contribution. Thanks for taking your time to share your brilliant insight.

    What I believe in is that if you are GOOD and DIFFERENT enough, then screw the Indian firms. No one will ever choose them over you. Unless they are looking for cheap software.

  • iddsalim

    Nice contribution. Thanks for taking your time to share your brilliant insight.

    What I believe in is that if you are GOOD and DIFFERENT enough, then screw the Indian firms. No one will ever choose them over you. Unless they are looking for cheap software.

  • alexmumo

    Well put Sir.
    I really agree with you. My question is, do i have to be Cdr, to be a millionaire?
    :-)

  • iddsalim

    Hallo Sir.
    There are 587653685 ways to become a Millionaire. The mere 10 I have listed here only affect coders, mostly.

    you dont need to be a coder to run a brothel.

  • Cathy

    Idd Salim whoever you are you are going places and good thing is you know it!

  • Cathy

    you are hilarious!

  • iddsalim

    @catthy – acha kunifanya ni-blush…

  • kizitoo

    Stumbled on this :) nice read BTW..keep up.

  • edObie

    Haha. Ati the mdinyano capital of East Africa. check out these guys, way ahead of your que http://www.laidinkenya.com and http://www.nudekenya.com, what amazes me about the former is the social networking angle to it…

  • iddsalim

    Sema edodie – well.. we dont COMPETE.. we create NEW and DIFFERENT services… thanks for the comment and the link anyways…

  • Kamaray

    Nice piece…time the talking stopped and the “cash-ing” started.

    1 Problem : Kenyans don't share : Coder dies with brilliant code, Marketer dies with brilliant marketing strategy, Finance guru dies with financing connections……bring them together….BAM!

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  • http://mobilekenya.wordpress.com angela

    i like this list, it truly reflects the changing landscape of where money is to be made. And Mobile is going to create the new Kings of Content….watch this space

  • Spiderhand

    Enyewe IT guys are sharp thinkers

  • http://crazyblackkenyanwizard.blogspot.com crazywizard

    Allow me to be controversial here. Everyone has advise on how to do it, but no one is doing it. Idd, I know you are at Symbiotic.co.ke but untill 3 weeks ago, I had never heard of it. Who(nani) out there is doing something…? All those people who have commented on this page, what have you made? I bet nothing. After this, you'll stumble upon another brilliant blogger e.g whiteafrican.com who will tell you what you already know…
    Me? What am I doing? Niko at the registrars office now, registering my business name.
    Stop talking and start doing. And even before you reply to this post, you better have something(you have done/made) to backup your arguement. Otherwise, don't waste my time…!

  • iddsalim

    Thanks for the headsup. I actually Know and have blogged about laidinkenya.

  • iddsalim

    Well, I am sorry for sharing ways in which Kenyans can harness the Fibre to make money. I hope you can find it in you to calm down and forgive me.

    i can give an example of people have have acted on the list above, but you have to promise me you as mad as not to listen… Wazi Krezze.

  • Jack

    Superb talk Idd, an eye opener article that i should monetize my time and stop whining about my employer 's pathetic pay.

  • allOFyouAREmad

    This is crap…. you will never be rich in Kenya. bullshit!!!

  • http://www.personal-finance-insights.com Edit

    Hi Idd,
    That was a challenging and informative article. I loved the last paragraph. Keep up the good work mazee. Tuko pamoja!!

  • http://www.kenyanlyrics.com/mgangagenge Mgangagenge

    Dio hii tuko Noveba! Nani amewesa?

    XD XD XD

    Hiyo tu.

  • Anonymous

    hehehe.. i saw this coming. I mean what more is there to expect from an every-one-is-a-failure-and-i-am-the-best egomaniac like you. huh?

    Well, here is a list of the 4 I know so far:
    Marto – Age – 31 – KopaCredo (End of Nov)
    Jamo – Age – 31 – KopaCredo (End of Nov)
    Kis – 28 – TPFSocial – (End of Nov)
    Timo – age – 27 – TPFsocial – (End of Nov)

    Sorry to disaapoint you, but YES, people are making it.

  • http://www.kenyanlyrics.com/mgangagenge Mgangagenge

    Hehehe! Bulathee! Si unanijua tuu! I amu the pest! Washana na DJ Kared!

    Umenistua vizuri lakini. Hiyo tu XD

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