Form A Kenyan Company

December 1, 2009 by 6 Comments

Last week, I called out for help in making business registration easier in Kenya. I got a lot of responses (thanks!!!). Interestingly, a lot of these responses simply just pointed me to this website: formAKenyanCompany.

The site says this about itself:

formAKenyanCompany.com is an online specialist in limited company formation covering everything necessary to facilitate the formation and/or registration of a company in Kenya . All types of Kenyan company formation can be catered for and everything necessary to set up a limited company in the Kenya, including filing and all required documents, including the memorandum and articles of association are provided. Our automated on-line formation is quick, simple and affordable enabling the immediate check of company names with the Company Registry. All formations are done electronically with our incorporation system and delivered manually to the respective government offices. All costs include all necessary documents and filing fees at Sheria House and the company formation process is usually complete within 7 days.

Nice, isn’t it? Do check it out!

Filed Under: Small Business, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

Laughs From Google

November 25, 2009 by Leave a Comment


Google’s autocomplete feature for searches can be pretty useful when you’re looking for a common search term. Hey, neat! You don’t have to type the whole thing! Sometimes, though, Google’s suggestions take a turn for the hilarious or just plain weird. A site called Autocomplete Me collects some of the strangest ones for your amusement. Admittedly, some of these might be offensive, so viewer discretion is advised.

Did you notice that Google introduced an autocomplete feature? It’s pretty nice, you don’t have to type so much – Google offers you suggestions that are often very relevant and useful. Sometimes, though, Google’s suggestions are Bizarre. A site called Autocompleteme collects the most bizarre and hilarious ones for your enjoyment. (Some may be offensive, be advised.)

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

An Online Strategy For Companies in Kenya

November 24, 2009 by 10 Comments

This one is from a while back. Someone asked me:

My question to you is, what do you think should be the online strategy for a tour company in Kenya and how should they approach it and what tools should they apply?

Here’s my response:

What would be a good online strategy for a tour company in Kenya? This is an interesting challenge. So let’s see, what I would do is launch an elegant website that is intuitive to use and stylish (web2.0-ish also). I’m assuming this site will have some sort of ‘place’ (a shopping cart, online booking form etc) where a sale needs to be made – focus on this. Make the buying/ordering process easy to use for even a passing browser. And the sales copy around it has to be absolutely well done. If need be, hire professional copywriters for this one page (menwithpens or Kenyan Freelancer come to mind). You do this to make sure that your site doesn’t suck at selling.

Now, in my mind, the target visitors of this site are not in Kenya. True? So you need to find how to reach them. I would include a blog with the website. You can talk honestly and with a personal voice (no corporate-speak) about Kenya, and why it’s such a great country. I’m sure there are tons of things that your blog can talk about.

How to get visitors? I like the organic way – make a remarkable site and blog and then apply SEO VERY well (the works: link building, directory submissions etc). Also, since your visitors are not from Kenya, it should be easy to find out where they hang out – other travel blogs, forums, etc. Go there and join those conversations and, by all means, get noticed. But be subtle.

To complement this sort of ‘organic’ strategy, also carry out a PPC advertising campaign (with Adsense or YPN). This will get some visitors and some sales (if you did your sales copy well). I don’t like extended PPC campaigns so probably you should phase this out as the organic traffic rises – unless your returns on the advertising are very good.

As you get visitors to the site, have some way to opt in visitors into an email marketing campaign. Use mailchimp (by my experience they rock!) to provide your auto responder software/services. Don’t spend too much money on this – people sometimes go crazy – just a basic Mailchimp account will do (they even have a free offering). Be creative in how you get people to join your email list (NEVER buy email addresses). Perhaps you could offer free Swahili lessons via email, or an amazing free video of unseen Kenyan delights. But I’m sure there’s no shortage of creativity on your end.

I think if you do this, you’ll have a good strong start. I doubt many other Kenyan sites have done this well. 😉

To recap:

  • Build an elegant site. Let is be super easy to use.
  • Do your sales copy excellently.
  • SEO everything.
  • Market the site by authentically joining the conversation on other travel blogs, forums and other sites.
  • Carry out a PPC campaign and consider stopping it (or slowing down) when there is enough organic traffic.
  • Create an email marketing campaign.

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I had not mentioned a social network strategy (Facebook, twitter, etc). I’ll work on that and post it here soon. Stay tuned. Got questions? I have answers! 🙂

Filed Under: Lazyweb, Small Business, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: ,

How To Fax For Free

November 21, 2009 by 6 Comments

So recently we’ve been having a number of dealings with organisations and people in the big USA here at Like Chapaa. We’ve had to send a number of faxes, unfortunately. Unfortunately because we consider faxing to be…old school. We don’t even have fax machines at our offices, for starters!

What to do? Well, for a while we sent the faxes the old way…but we’re internet people so we were always looking for a smart alternative. We think we found one!

How to send faxes to the USA, free of charge and via the internet
Cool, eh? It’s simple too. Just:

  1. Get a free account and US fax number from k7. K7 will give you a US number that will let anyone fax or call you. Faxes and voicemail will be delivered to your (email) inbox.
  2. Go over here [www.faxzero.com] here [www.gotfreefax.com] and send your free fax. Be sure to put in your new US fax number in the “sender information fax #” field.
  3. That’s it, you’re done!

We’ve been sending faxes (and receiving them) with smiley faces ever since we discovered this. Hopeful, some our dear readers (that’s you) will find this useful.

What can you do with this? Well, if you’re doing business with anyone in the USA, you can now get faxes and voicemail delivered to a US number and you retrieve them quickly and easily from your email.

Have you tried it yet? How did it go? What do you think?

Image courtesy of Yo Spiff.

Filed Under: Small Business, Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With: , ,

Make Your Own Facebook

November 18, 2009 by 3 Comments

Recently, social networking sites have become all the rage. They have let people with shared interests connect with each other like never before. Some social networks, like Facebook, have grown to gigantic proportions. Social networks are so cool that people sometimes want to create their own. Do you want your own social network?

Well, you’re in luck! You can create your own social network for the lovely and friendly cost of ZERO. How? Use BuddyPress. BuddyPress is a social networking application built on the WordPress platform that allows anyone to build their own social network. Out-of-the-box, BuddyPress comes with these features:

  • A WordPress blog
  • Individual profiles for members
  • Private Message (PM) functionality
  • Friend Networks
  • Groups, which include a blog, photos and other user generated content
  • “The Wire” (like the wall on Facebook)
  • Activity/Action streams of public actions on the site
  • Forums using bbPress

What can you do with BuddyPress? How about a social network for fans of a local team, or a sports league, or a writers’ club…..or even your very own Facebook. The possibilities are endless.

Here’s a live demo of social network built using BuddyPress: TestBP

What do you think?

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

Online Data Entry Jobs?

November 7, 2009 by 86 Comments


Recently on the Young Professionals Group, we had this question from Boni:

Hi Guys

I have had this eager to venture in this thing called online data entry jobs which pay well but u have to register an amount for you to join.

  1. Now I don’t know who or where to begin searching for them
  2. If they work or not

Kindly please advice me and probably give sites that have paid.

Here’s my answer:

Hi Boni

How are you? I hope all is well.

In my experience, data entry jobs are among the worst type of online jobs out there. Why? Because they usually involve a whole lot of work. The amount of data to be processed is not anything small, trust me. For example, I once had to input 3600 entries (several columns) into an excel sheet for a mere $30.

The best way, in my view, to make online data entry work for you is to do more than just one gig here and there. Perhaps you can organise some people and then your role becomes that of just getting the jobs and then passing on the work to them. If you get 10 jobs paying $30 each that is $300. You then just make sure you pay your people less than $300. I know several people who do this from their own homes, using their friends and younger siblings for labour.

Better yet, do something else other than data entry. Probably, every other type of job pays better than data entry. Do you have a particular skill or technical training? Yes? Good, you can find hundreds of job with that.

Here are some of the sites that I know actually work:

www.getafreelancer.com
www.guru.com
www.elance.com
www.rentacoder.com

There are thousands of jobs available but the competition for them is fierce. People from India and other parts of Asia have particularly flooded the net looking for jobs.

How can you outcompete them? Well, basically, it involves clever marketing. Put yourself out there in a way that you are seen as not just another freelancer but a serious professional. When looking for work online or elsewhere, it is sometimes very difficult to demonstrate what you can do to potential employers. You don’t really have anything tangible to sell and convincing clients to pay can be hard – they may even resort to asking you to do the work and then “if” it is good they will pay you. How can you change this? Use a portfolio. A portfolio is key in making potential employers feel secure and confident about you.

I hope I have been of help. Please feel free to ask any other questions that you may have.

Additionally, we have written a whole lot on this subject on this site so you will probably get some of your questions answered if stick around. :p

Here are some articles that may be interesting to you:

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews Tagged With:

The Khan Academy

November 4, 2009 by Leave a Comment

“The Khan Academy is a remarkable, one-person effort to educate the World. Salman Khan has produced over 900 videos on YouTube with 6 million views-covering everything from basic arithmetic to calculus, chemistry, and physics. Continuing to produce several hundred videos a year, Salman intends to provide instruction in all subjects to anyone, anywhere.

Millions of students around the world lack access to high quality instruction, especially in the sciences and math. The Khan Academy provides it for free in a way that can be accessed on-demand at a student’s own pace.

The videos are directly teaching tens of thousands of students on every continent on a daily basis. Other non-profit groups have even begun distributing off-line versions of the library to rural and under served areas in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.”
Tech Awards

Can you believe that? I stumbled upon an absolute goldmine of a site this time, didn’t I? There are more than 1,000 videos which are remarkably easy to follow and which touch on anything from physics to the US credit crunch. Truly amazing.

Now you don’t have to watch your grades slip off a cliff because of a bad class/teacher. Here’s one testimonial from the site:

“This is my first year in college and until today i was completely lost in math. Half an hour with your presentations taught me more than three months of sitting in my professors class. You seriously saved my grade.”

Why don’t you check it out?

Filed Under: Tips Hacking and Reviews