Archives for October 2009

How To Be Successful

About two months ago, we started a little project to try and work with some of our readers and try help them earn their very first Shilling online. Of course this program is Biashara 30. Well, B30 is now coming to a close and I want to take this opportunity to share the biggest lesson that I learn over the duration fo B30.

First, let me digress. B30 was fairly successful. We only let in 10 people and, unfortunately, some of the people we let in did not find time to participate in B30. The rest were very active, and the B30 training website bears witness to this. By far, the star of B30 was Maria Maina. She came to B30 being a big newbie on the internet but as I write she is launching an ebook shop whose first offering is an ebook that was written by Maria herself. In addition, she is a raging success at online freelancing.

How did she do it? In her own words, “Don’t flake out and everything you do will achieve some success.”

I agree with Maina. If you want to do something, and succeed at it then you have to do it, and do it well. You have to put in the energy, focus and do the work. There is no shortcut, really.

Going back to B30, Maria stood out from the rest – she actually really did everything that we talked about, and flooded our inboxes with questions. What about the rest of the B30 participants? No one put as much effort as Maria……likewise, no one is enjoying the success that Maria is enjoying.

If you want to do something, and succeed at doing it then you simply must work at it. Find time and work at it; and work at it again, and again until you accomplish your goals.

N/B: If you’re looking to get into the next B30 then be warned….everything that you achieve is absolutely up to you and to the amount of time and effort that you put into the project.

Nokia’s Ovi Mail In Kenya

So, recently, Nokia has been very hard at work telling us about the new Ovi mail service they’re introducing in Kenya. It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? You can have access to email on your phone as long as you own a Nokia. You don’t need a Blackberry anymore.

I think it is a move that is long overdue. Mobile phone manufacturers have a unique opportunity to influence the way we use our phones. Just imagine this: Nokia could have an MPESA-type service that works the world over, couldn’t they? I wonder why they took so long to try and “own” their phones and what we do with them. But I digress.

Back to Ovi. While it is a super move and I am very much interested to see where it is going to end up, I think the advertisements are a bit dishonest.

One in particular says, “you can get upto 1,000 emails free of charge.” First off, this means that Nokia is going to charge us to use Ovi mail at some point. Can this really work? Probably. I would never pay to use Ovi mail, though. Because I can get email cheaper elsewhere. You can too – just download Gmail for mobile and you’re good to go. Or if you are comfortable working with POP and other email settings, almost all Nokia (and other) phones allow you to set up POP and IMAP access to email from your phone.

Secondly, “1,000 free emails” is just downright untruthful. You will still have to pay your mobile phone network operator for the data you use. For Safaricom this is Kshs 8/- per Megabyte while it is Kshs 3/- for YU – don’t know about the rest.

I love that Nokia is introducing Ovi Mail. I’d prefer some honesty though.

That said, Nokia’s Ovi is so much more than just email. I encourage yo to try it out!

Edit 12/10/09: I have confirmed that the first 5MB worth of emails using the Ovi Mail service is absolutely free. No network charges. Good deal made by Nokia.

‘White People Stole My Car’

Who really stole your car?

Who really stole your car?




‘White people stole my car’ became one of the most searched topics in Google over the past few days. If you are thinking it’s the new hot rock band, you are wrong. So what made this phrase so popular? The result generated by Google on the search was ‘Did you mean: Black people stole my car.’

I know, I know, right now you are probably like ‘whaaaaaat???’ Well, if you spent sometime on Google more than a week ago trying to figure out why this phrase became one of the most searched phrases, you probably came across a lot of unsatisfactory results and got a whole lot of bugs and viruses while at it. I have tried the search severally but haven’t been lucky enough to get the said results either because Google has already fixed it, or it simply never happened. There isn’t really anything out there that fully explains this.

Some say it was just another Internet scheme, some say it really did happen. Either way it has been all over the Internet and generated comments from readers all over the world expressing their disapproval, shaming Google and demanding a public apology. While others have just taken it with a light touch and laughed it off. Weather it was a mistake by Google or some schemer’s plot, it sure has caught a lot of attention.

Here are some comments I came across:

Kevin: Try to Google black people shoot up school or black man chops up his wife and see what the results are smh. LOL
Jay: How is it racist? The search engine generates results based on popularity. More websites have the content “black people stole my car” than “white people stole my car”. Statistics are the truth….not racism.
Flagburner: All black people are criminals, some just hide it better than others.
Brandon: After nosing around a bit, I discovered that devilish lil’ spammers made this oh-too-popular phrase appear on Google Trends and from there, folks were led to Web sites filled with spam and viruses.
Joe: How about this: WET(White Entertainment Television)
now how would that go over? Will blacks be upset? Will you watch?
Mandy: Honestly? Come up to where I live and you’ll see all the blackies acting like we owe them something…
From Canada: Racism is alive and real… Blacks are suffering internationally, even in Africa.. slavery has been replaced by debt and prison systems…It’s worse than the Martin Luther King days, because it’s hidden…I am a successful black, but why did I have to work 3 times harder and be 10 times more aware???
Anon: relax everyone. It’s hilarious! I laughed so hard when I read that… and black people DID probably steal your car. Ha ha ha funny though!
Brik: So you are saying that white folks ain’t thieves? That’s just Bull!!
Jolenr: Ok this is racist but really funny. Like if I Googled “black people can’t dance” and it said “did you mean “white people can’t dance?” we need not to take ourselves so serious and laugh!
Heidi: a joke is something that all or most people can laugh @…even as a white woman this makes me upset. I think to just say “oh its a joke” should not make it okay.

There is also a whole website whitepeoplestolemycar dedicated to helping all our brothers out there find their stolen cars.
So to laugh or frown upon it is up to you.


Six of the Best Banks For Startups In Kenya

So last week we wrote here about our frustrations in finding a good bank for a young startup business – we had walked in and out of banks for hours and non struck us as particularly attractive for our young business. Following the article on Like Chapaa, we received a lot of emails and other feedback from a whole lot of people giving us advice on which banks would be suitable for startups in Kenya.

Are you a business owner? Are you planning on being one? For your banking needs, try one of these:

  1. Equity Bank. Evans says, “Try Equity bank, I have a business Account with them and its good and even accessing credits is easy.They have helped in the growth of my business,so I m a proud member of the bank. All the best as you start your business.”
  2. Chase Bank – Maingi says, “They are really flexible in terms of handling transactions for instance I comfortably transact without ID…in a nut shell they try to know their customers and treat them as such. Also there are good in Forex. Try them.”
  3. Fina Bank
  4. Bank of Africa
  5. Eco bank
  6. NIC

The banks in the above list are ranked according to the number of recommendations received for each. I hope you will find this useful.

All in all, the picture of banking in Kenya that I got from this experience is not good. At all. Our banks seem to be interested only in making money off their customers and they are very poor at supporting new businesses.

That said, I shall close this post with the best piece of advise that I got. Many thanks to the author, Sagongonyi. Thanks also go to everyone else who helped.

“Most banks will require a six months statement (minimum) for any meaningful assistance. It also depends on the nature of business you would like to engage in. For example if it is a simple transaction like you have an order to supply some items to an organization, Equity can finace you and you agree on how to share the profit.

There are other institutions like GroFin that can finance start up businesses but with a well presented business proposal. They will also require you to contribute a percentage of the initial capital outlay. They will also require you to personally manage your business and you will also share profits with them. They have assisted quite a number of my friends who import second hand Prime Movers. They are in Upper Hill CIC Plaza.

NIC are also good but they require you to have some experience in your business, even 3 months can be ok. Their systems are very good and you can get money in two weeks. They are very clear on what they want and they are very straight forward. They have financed my business for a period of three years now and i am not regretting. No bank can give you 100% financing for a start-up business; better start small and grow it.”

Make Money By Receiving Text Messages – In Kenya

I recently came across an interesting Kenyan site: Jumuika. Why is the site so interesting? They will pay you for each sms that you receive from them. Imagine that! I could read text messages all day and all night….

The idea behind it is simple to grasp – all the text messages that they send to you are advertisements. Given the popularity of text messaging in Kenya, I think it is an amazing idea and, in my view, the company should have no trouble turning this idea into a success.

So, I’ve registered with Jumuika and I’m eagerly awaiting my first text message, and chumz. I shall keep you updated, dear readers, on how I find the service to be.

One thing I really like about Jumuika is that you can send 10 free SMS messages a day from your Jumuika account. Nice, eh? It may be too late for them to be as popular for free SMS as Sasanet once was, but its something. 🙂

However, their system is rather slow/buggy. I registered my account quite a while ago and I’m yet to receive my activation link/code. Hopefully they’ll iron this out soon. Jumuika feels like it can be a success.

What do you think?

What Is Google Wave?

Did you know that email as we know it was invented 40 years ago? What if email was invented today, what would it look like?

Well, Google Wave has been describe as what email would look like if it was invented today, and it is hitting the world like a strom. Watch the video to learn more.

How To Unsubscribe From Bidii Afrika

A couple of my friends have been subscribed unwillingly to this Google Group: Bidii Afrika. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It has a nasty reputation for spam.

Unsubscribing from a Google Groups is very easy so I was somewhat surprised that my friends had been having trouble. I found out why as soon as I joined the group. At the footer of every email, the group owner puts some helpful on how to unsubscribe:

TO UNSUBSCRIBE EMAIL: bidii-afrika-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

Only that it isn’t very…helpful. Sending an email to: bidii-afrika-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com will NOT unsubscribe you from the group. Sigh.

The correct instructions are here, from Google themselves.

How do I unsubscribe from a group?
You can unsubscribe from a group through our web interface or via email. To unsubscribe from a group through our web interface, just click the “Edit my membership” link on the right-hand side of the group’s homepage. Then click the “Unsubscribe” button on the page that appears.

To unsubscribe from a group via email, send an email to GroupName+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For example, if you wanted to leave google-friends, you’d send an email to google-friends+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

Please note: If you unsubscribe from a group that only allows members to see group content, you may not be able to read that group’s pages anymore. If you want to continue your membership in a group, but don’t want to receive group email, select the “No Email” option on the left side of the Edit My Membership page and click “Save these settings.”

So the correct email to use should you want to unsubscribe from Bidii Afrika is: bidii-afrika+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com