This week's episode comes from Kibera, Kenya's biggest, and one of Africa's largest, informal settlements. Life is tough here, and many talk about the "slum mentality" where a lack of opportunities leads to drug abuse, crime and a general sense of despair. Julius Otieno is an inspiration for those in his neighbourhood. After dropping out of high sc…

This week we're featuring what has to be one of my favourite business models to date. One of the dominant themes in East Africa is that individuals and businesses don't have the cash to afford products and services that would earn them more money, and make their lives better. To open up access to electricity, off-grid solar power systems are now co…

This week we're talking with two friends who have set up a business making socks in Kenya. Both Vidyesh and Bishell grew up in Nairobi to entrepreneurial families, and after education in the UK returned home to begin a business. They are also friends with Sumit, who featured in the board game cafe episode. Vidyesh and Bishell decided on socks, as t…

Do you know what the world's most expensive nut is? It's the macadamia nut. Similar in shape and colour to a chickpea, but up to twice the size, it's originally from Australia and is now grown in several tropical locations around the world. In Kenya, the first trees were grafted and planted in the 1970s with a few disparate growers and aggregators …

In this episode, I speak with Sabina Karumba about how she and her husband started Chia Africa. Most businesses have an interesting formation story, though this one is one of the best I've heard in a while. Sabina and her husband were watching TV one evening in 2012 when a doctor came on the show and explained the health benefits of chia seeds. Com…

In this episode, I catch up with Johannes, co-founder of Lynk. We initially spoke back in late 2016 along with his co-founder Adam. You can listen to the interview by searching for the episode on 'How Lynk is building a "TaskRabbit for Kenya"'. The company has continued to grow over the years, and this time we meet in the new Lynk house/ office. Wi…

In this catch-up episode, I chat with Caitlin who runs Flare. Caitlin and I first spoke in late 2016, and you can listen to the original interview by scrolling down to the episode named Ambulances. The premise then was that Flare would become a technology platform to connect people with ambulances much in the way that Uber has developed the model o…

In this second episode from Zambia, I speak with an entrepreneur who has found his niche and is fully focused on it. Paul Nyambe grew up farming goats in rural Zambia. He and his family were unable to earn money from the animals which always struck Paul as frustrating. Years later he built a career in food sales, specifically ice cream, which meant…

The landlocked country is just south of Malawi, Tanzania and DRC, and has the great Zambezi river as it's border with Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. Economically there's a lot of copper and mining exports, and my sense is that the development of local services is most in line with Uganda or Tanzania, rather than Kenya (more developed) or Rwanda (l…

In this episode, I catch up with Audrey Cheng, the founder of Moringa School. We first did an interview in October of 2016, and so it had been over 2.5 years since we last spoke. The initial episode is called "Coding Schools", and so be sure to scroll back through the archives to give it a listen, if you're interested. Moringa School is still going…

This week we're speaking with a big player in one of Kenya's largest industries: flower farming. Horticulture is one of the biggest sectors in the country's economy, and 60% of all the world's roses are grown in Kenya. This is for a number of reasons, which I discuss with Director of Sian Roses, Chris Kulei. Kenya has a number of natural features s…

In this episode I speak with Bilha Ndirangu who is the CEO of one of Africa's most successful tech start ups. Started in Kenya nearly 10 years ago, Africa's Talking now serves over 5000 customers and has operations in 18 African countries. Most of this growth has been self-generated, though last year they took on investment of around $10m to fuel t…

One of the nice things about having a podcast is that it allows you to have conversations with people you wouldn't otherwise get around to. In this episode I sit down with John, the man who I buy my eggs from in Kenya. In Swahili, "mayai" means "eggs" and so his customers know him as John Mayai. John works from an apartment building in Nairobi, and…

Near to where I live in Nairobi is a Japanese cafe. Whenever I've been the food has been delicious, and the small place is full of people from Japan, enjoying Ramen bowls and cold imported beer. I thought it would be interesting to interview the owner to learn about how the business started. It turns out that the owner Wangari and her husband have …

If you think about brands that different countries have, most people probably have two strong associations for Kenya. Safari and running. The safari industry is well established, with innumerate tour companies able to take you on your dream holiday seeing the Big Five. Running, however, is an industry which is much less developed. In fact, until En…

If you've been following The East Africa Business Podcast for a while, you might notice that most episodes are around the 30-40 minute mark. Whilst that was the intention here, in this episode Samir and I end up chatting for well over an hour. The reason being is that (to me at least) there's just so much interesting stuff to talk about the busines…

There are certain business models or concepts which seem to be universally popular. One big one recently has been creating a public space where friends can meet up for some food and drinks and play board games. In this episode I speak with Sumit Dodhia who a few years ago had the realisation that Kenya was missing such an institution, and so, along…

We've got a very interesting interview this week, one that brings together using modern technology with a compelling market need. It's all about electric vehicles. Now, you've probably heard about Tesla and some other companies building cars that don't run on petrol. It turns out that, for now at least, these vehicles don't work in the East Africa …

Gaming is something that a lot of people may not consider as a business industry. I, for one, know or rather knew very little about it, though this interview with Nathan Masyuko from Ludique Works was one of the most insightful interviews I’ve ever had. We speak about the international, multi-billion dollar business in video games and Africa’s plac…

An interesting heuristic you can think about when considering companies operating in East Africa is where the demand comes from. There are lots of businesses you can see where the product or service is developed in the region and ultimately is consumed in East Africa. Through the lens of this podcast, just look to some recent episodes on Tissue Pap…

This is an episode which I really hope you stick with. As you’ll have seen from some of the other episodes, I find that often the “unsexy” aspects of doing business in East Africa are the most interesting and important. Financial modelling is not necessarily top of most people’s lists to think about, however, in this episode, Sean Keough puts forwa…

In this episode I speak with Jonathan Rosenthal, the Africa Editor of The Economist. Our paths crossed when I was back in London for a few weeks, and so we took the opportunity to meet, and speak about some of the continent wide trends which he’s seeing, from the vantage point of running the Africa desk for the magazine. Most episodes you’ll have l…

Some of the biggest and most visible players in any country are the supermarkets. They employ thousands of people, have a wide geographic presence and interact with many aspects of the economy through supply chains and products sold. Tuskys is one of the biggest in Kenya, and East Africa, and in this episode I interview Daniel Githua the CEO. The i…

Manufacturing is one of the major value drivers in an economy. In this episode, I speak with Darshan Chandaria, Group CEO of Chandaria Industries, the company founded by his grandfather in the late 1940s and which has now diversified into other areas. The core business is hygiene products: recycling waste paper and turning it into tissue and other …

Housing in Africa is a huge problem. Every year millions more people arrive in cities and are forced to stay in informal settlements. Developers struggles to keep up, and walking around Nairobi at least, you’ll rarely be far from a construction site building another high rise. What I didn’t realise though, was how the current approach of building w…