Does anyone else like that Usher song, Confessions? Well, I love it! And, keeping with the spirit of that song, here are our Biashara 30 confessions….
Some background
Well, we accepted a total of 17 applicants into the first edition of B30. We had received a total of 117 so we, randomly, decided to slash it down by a hundred. Why? We wanted a small group in hopes of forming a close knit community and team. In hindsight, we probably should have let in more people…more on that later.
Actually, not so much later. The reason of thinking that maybe we should have let in more people is because the attrition rate was so very high. You won’t believe it, but about 10 of the 17 that we let in didn’t even sign up or respond to our invitation in any way. Makes me wonder whether they were applying just for fun. And even then, not all of the remaining seven participated fully. We did achieve one thing though: at it’s height, the B30 team felt really “connected”.
A few disappointments…
However, we are, overall, disappointed with this edition of B30. Why? Because just two of the 17 managed to make money online (that we know of). We would have liked to have 17 out of 17! Also, we are disappointed to announce that we are closing the first edition of B30 today despite the program not being fully complete. This really is hard for us to do but as things stand, it is the best thing to do. We apologise for any inconveniences caused by this action.
Smiles
Okay, we’re done with the bad parts of B30. Now, the good. We are very proud of one of the participants, Ms Maria Maina who came in as a green newbie but now has an interesting freelance business as well as an ebook for sale. This is what we want and love to see and it makes us endlessly happy. We’re proud of you, Maria.
Another nice product of Biashara 30 is Kazi360 (don’t click it yet, it is not fully ready). Kazi360 is a Job Board for young professionals in Kenya. Whether you’re looking for a job, or hunting for top-notch talent, Kazi360’s simple but powerful tools are geared towards connecting Kenya’s brightest minds with the best Kenyan companies. It is a joint venture between Like Chapaa and others. While running B30, the need for such a site was very apparent and, as usual, we jumped at the opportunity. You shall be hearing more of this project, you can be sure of that.
Was this edition of B30 successful? Well, sadly, no. We did not achieve everything that we had hoped to achieve. 
What could we have done better?
We’ve thought long and hard about what we could have done better, and here are our conclusions:
- Kenya is still an offline country, we’re afraid. We realise that we should have had more face-to-face meetings.
- We should have gone through the material faster. Though it was a lot and sometimes we felt that the pace could hinder the learning…
- In relation to the above, we should not have spent so much time and effort in the “getting an online job” section of the B30 program. We don’t care much for jobs and we feel we needed to have spent more time on setting up an online business.
- We also seriously need to find more and better ways of keeping attention and focus levels of the participants up.
- Wambere (me) should have spent more time in the program. I sadly had other pressing matters to attend to.
What next?
So there you have it, all the gory details. So what next? First off, we’d LOVE to hear from you. Yes, you. What do you think of all this?
Anyone still willing to take part in the next Biashara 30?
Please discuss in the comments below.
