Interesting Kenyan Sites #20

March 8, 2011 by 16 Comments

Chukua.com – yet another directory-type website. Lots of these are being built, it seems. The thing that sets Chukua.com apart is that it is not only a directory but a marketplace – whereby you can set up an online “shop” on chukua.com. The site is very well designed and thought out. Good luck to the creators!

Nairobi Living – well, it is another directory-type website. Though I must say that Nairobi Living looks to be elegant and well done.

Samosa Queen – a website that represents a business based in Dallas, Texas, USA whereby you can order samosas, mandazi or chapati online. The design is a bit “dated” but it does the job – nice and simple!

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Maridadi.co.ke – is an online clothing store. The design is beautifully done. Kudos to the developers on that front. However, the checkout process is not so intuitive – when you click “buy now” the page refreshes, but it is not immediately apparent what happened. Could be improved. 🙂

Flops
Jambo News Pot – this is supposed to be a website which aggregates local news. Unfortunately, the site’s design does it no favours at all and makes the site look haphazard and unorganised. The excessive adverts near the top are also an eyesore (though perhaps they indicate the site is earning the owners a pretty penny). Could be better!

Filed Under: Cool Sites

The Housing Bubble in Kenya

March 1, 2011 by 8 Comments

It is often said that housing/land prices in Kenya always go up and can never go down. You just cannot fail if you invest in real estate in Kenya. But is this really so?

According to The Standard, a report by the Central Bank of Kenya and the World Bank indicates that only 1 in 10 Kenyans can afford to buy the home they live in, even if they get a mortgage (assuming they even qualify to get it).

I think the question must be posed: What is a bubble? According to Wikipedia, An economic bubble (sometimes referred to as a speculative bubble, a market bubble, a price bubble, a financial bubble, a speculative mania or a balloon) is “trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values”. It could also be described as a trade in products or assets with inflated values.

Specifically regarding housing/real estate bubbles, Wikipedia further says: A real estate bubble or property bubble (or housing bubble for residential markets) is a type of economic bubble that occurs periodically in local or global real estate markets. It is characterized by rapid increases in valuations of real property such as housing until they reach unsustainable levels relative to incomes and other economic elements, followed by a reduction in price levels.

Now, back to the Central Bank report. Here are a few selected excerpts from the report:

  • only eight per cent of Kenyans — 320, 000 households — can afford a mortgage was shocking
  • for one to buy a house worth Sh2 million, for example, one must have a net salary of Sh100,000, and service the loan at Sh42,000 a month for a period of 15 years at an interest rate of 14.5 per cent. Those earning less have no place in the mortgage industry and must find another way of owning their dream house
  • The shocking revelations also indicate that the total mortgage loan book in the country is only 16,000 accounts, while the total value of mortgage loans, as at the end of December last year was Sh133.6 billion. This means that, technically, only 16,000 people/organisations in the whole of Kenya have taken up mortgages
  • It is also an indication that buying property in Kenya is predominantly for the rich, who opt for cash sales as opposed to mortgages.
  • Professionals in the housing sector say the findings reflect the high level of speculation on land that has pushed property prices through the roof

Only 1 in 10 Kenyans can afford to buy the home that they live in, and even fewer Kenyan can afford to take up mortgages. In my mind, this report clearly indicates that the Kenyan real estate market is in the middle of a bubble. Real estate prices have gotten to be so high that the great majority of Kenyans just cannot afford real estate.

Sooner or later, this bubble will burst and prices will come crashing down. Many of the “me too” real estate developers and investors will lose vast sums of money. It is just a matter of time…

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

How to Make Money in 6 Easy Steps

February 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

There’s a great article on Inc.com written by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37 Signals. He gives valuable insights on how to make money and breaks it down into 6 easy steps:

  1. Understanding the buyer is the key to being a strong seller
  2. Sell only things you’d want to buy for yourself
  3. How, and why, to charge real money for real products
  4. There are different pathways to the same dollar
  5. The true value of bootstrapping
  6. Try, Try Again

Go read the article here: How to Make Money in 6 Easy Steps

Filed Under: Make Money

How To Make Money Online – For Absolute Beginners

February 25, 2011 by 6 Comments

When we set up this website, one of our primary goals was to teach people what we knew about making money online. This continues to be our goal – we would love to teach as many of our fellow Kenyans as possible. Over the years (its now been tow years!), by and large, we have achieved this goal. We’ve helped grow many business and shared our thoughts and ideas with even more.

However, we feel that even this is not enough. We have not been able to adequately address the needs of a person who is very new to the whole idea of earning online. What is the easiest way to start? How do you start? What do you do? Where do you go? We would love to answer these questions for everyone. we would love even more to take every one of these people by the hand and show them what to do, and how.

Alas, things have changed since the time when we started this website. We now get mountains of email daily and it is just too much work to be able to address everyone individually. And as you are aware, our previous efforts largely failed. Yes, I am talking about Biashara 30.

But we have a plan!
We have been secretly developing a resource – you may even call it an online course – that is targeted at absolute beginners. The aim of this resource would be to act as something of guide that will teach what we feel is the easiest and fastest way to make money online if you are a beginner. Sounds interesting? Here is what it will cover:

First, I must say that we believe the easiest and fastest way for absolute beginners to make a significant amount of money online is to get an “online job”. This is what will be the focal point of the guide, specifically:

  1. Getting Started : Understanding the freelance world – international business hours, worldwide clients, international currencies, language problems, range of clients (professional and personal), working at home (separating your home and work lives)…
  2. Preparation for working online: Study yourself, your abilities, what you will/can and won’t/can’t do (working hours/days, combining skills, price range). Are you more specialised in languages, programming, graphics, marketing, media… Several sectors or specialised. Qualifications, experience, references… Skills requested online – a few examples of sectors.
  3. Your Presentation: Photo, logo, profile, message presentation, website…How to write, what to write (and what not to write!)
  4. Where to work
  5. Employer relations: Clarity, efficiency and cordiality (explaining relations and approach, the employer’s point of view)
  6. Getting paid : Payment (online payment methods, payment through freelancer websites and withdrawals)
  7. Protection and Security: Escrow, feedback, work samples, privacy policy
  8. Copyright issues
  9. Etc

Why did we chose for this guide to be about getting an online job? If you go any site that deals with only jobs – freelancer.com, or guru.com, or elance.com, or anything else – then you will find that these sites are vibrant markets and that people make significant amounts of money through them. We believe that when you are getting started, making money through such sites is the easiest way that you can go. It also opens your eyes to see what can be done online and you will be able to later transition to doing something else.

What do you think? Interested? Subscribe to Like Chapaa today, or sign up to receive free email updates so that you can up to date on developments regarding this project.

Filed Under: Biashara 30, Internet Culture, Make Money

Topless Meetings

February 23, 2011 by 1 Comment

I think this is a great idea, something that surely came from a smart business mind – topless meetings. What better way to be more productive and have meetings less – ban laptops. What did you think I meant?

Nothing grates me more than long, pointless meetings. I almost avoid them to a fault. Too often, they are someone’s forum to get their own work done and it doesn’t benefit me to help them with their work. So I do everything I can to keep meetings short.

If you’re working and meeting in a physical location, I strongly suggest this rule. It’ll guarantee people get to the point quickly and time isn’t wasted.

Japanese-Style Meetings
When I was still employed (a.k.a working for someone else and not me), there was one guy I used to work with who scheduled Japanese-style meetings. The meetings were held while everyone stood (usually in some common area). The idea was that people wouldn’t waste time if they were standing around. It worked great as we got a ton done in about 10 minutes. I don’t know if this is the real name for this type of meeting but I strongly suggest this type of meeting as well. Force those long-talkers to cut it short.

Filed Under: Small Business Tagged With:

Local Websites That Use DukaPress

February 22, 2011 by 1 Comment

For those who don’t know, DukaPress is a freely available piece of software that you, or anyone can use to set up an online shop easily and quickly.

Black maasai

screenshot of a DukaPress shop


When we released DukaPress, we primarily thought that its main users would be local. As it turns out, the vast majority of people who use DukaPress are not from Africa. While this is good, we have been hoping to come across some well done local sites powered by DukaPress. In this post, we showcase a few of them.

  1. Black Malaika – a really well done website from Tanzania that sells arts and crafts from East Africa. I must say that DukaPress has been very well implemented here.
  2. Pamoja Shops – an online community/marketplace focused on the Maasai Market concept. Pamoja Shops offers vendors the opportunity to sign up and open up their own online stores to sell African handicrafts.
  3. Rusha Ndege – RushaNdege is an online community of aviation enthusiasts in Kenya. They use DukaPress to power an online shop that sells pilot equipment and accessories.
  4. DJ Kalonje – it was a personal pleasure to learn that DJ Kalonje himself uses DukaPress. (DJ Kalonje is an award winning Kenyan DJ.) Kalonje uses DukaPress to sell services. Although I must admit that DukaPress itsels is not well implemented on hist site…
  5. Drip n Dry Kenya – describing themselves as “Nairobi’s ultimate dry cleaning services”, Drip n Dry use DukaPress to enable customers to submit inquiries regarding their cleaning services.

So, have you ever wanted to have an online shop? As of this moment, DukaPress has been downloaded 8,972 times and here is a list of some of the most beautiful sites made using DukaPress. All those people cannot be wrong, can they?

Get your own shop today: www.dukapress.org

DukaPress is proudly Kenyan!

Filed Under: Cool Sites

Interesting Kenyan Sites #19

February 14, 2011 by 2 Comments

Love.Me – this is an online flower shop. The site’s creators must be commended for a job well done. The design is nice, clean and crisp and the buying process is simple and understandable. Kudos for a job well done!

Sandstorm Kenya – the website for Sandstorm Kenya, which makes hand crafted items. We find the website and online shop to be extremely well designed. Kudos!

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Ask a Doc – this is an interesting site that promises answers to all your medical questions. The answers are provided by real doctors. I have not actually received a question to my answer yet (something for them to work on), but the site seems like it can go places. Good job.

UrbanSlice – is a website that is to provide a personal shopping service i.e. you can use UrbanSlice to order from your favourite stores and have them delivered to you, no hassle. The problem is that, currently, it looks like just another online shop and the whole idea of “personal shopping service” seems to be lost. Let’s hope that someone is working on this. otherwise, the site looks good.

State House Girls – the website of State House Girls’ high school. While the web design could certainly do with a little sprucing up – mainly balancing out the page elements and making it look neater – I think the site is pretty good. Someone is certainly working hard to make this site a success. However, perhaps they have overdone it with the ads on the side (I would think that the main purpose of such a site is not to sell ads) and the links for Free and Bulk SMS on the main menu (would high school students really be interested in these?).

Cute & Cuddly an online shop for baby clothing. I like the idea, and the design. However, a few improvements need to be made: 1) the shopping and checking out process needs to be made more intuitive; and 2) for users with screen resoltions of 1024 (width) and below, the site design seems broken.

Filed Under: Cool Sites