Mbugua Njihia is a man on a journey who claims to have written a CV only once in his life. A member of the Safaricom Innovation Board and Founding Chairperson of Mobile Monday Kenya, the CEO of Symbiotic Media shared with us his growth as an entrepreneur over the past decade and his prospects for the future.
Educational and Professional Background
Mbugua Njihia attended Starehe Boys Centre for his secondary education and started working at age 20. He had just completed a one year JKUAT program at the Starehe Institute, which was equivalent to Form 6, obtaining a diploma in Management Information Systems. It is at this point he wrote his CV which he submitted to a company called 3MICE, a web development company, and was employed soon after.
He started with a salary of Kshs. 6000, a substantial amount to him back then. Equipped with a good internet connection and no particular social life, Mbugua committed himself to his work; even working through Sunday each week. He also started experimenting with mobile stuff while carrying out his duties at 3Mice.
In 2003, Mbugua moved to Cellulant, a mobile software and service development company, where he worked as the Head of User Experience and Portal Development. This was about the time Cellulant was getting popular for their mobile services such as ringtone downloads.
Entrepreneurship
While at Cellulant, he had been told that he would never make money working for someone and soon enough, he quit his job. He then got a consulting job and was paid by a cheque addressed to Symbiotic. The only problem was that he had not yet registered the company at that point and he had to quickly get his company registered before he could bank the cheque.
Mbugua had been toying around with the idea of Symbiotic since he was in Form 6. He envisioned it to be a company dealing with web applications at one time, at another point a bar and yet at another, a company training in Adobe. He kept on refining his business plans as time went by.
When he quit his job at Cellulant, Mbugua decided to go back to school and enrolled himself at USIU in 2005 to pursue a degree in International Business Administration. As a freshman, barely a week in campus, he joined a business plan writing competition using his ideas for Symbiotic and literally won it overnight.
“I just found out about this competition a day to the deadline for submission. I won, beating fourth years who had been working on their projects for a while. I got validation from a panel of experts about my business idea!”
Mbugua continued his consultancy, juggling between school and work. Cash flow was a major problem and he would literally beg banks for money. At one point, he was sure that his business was on the verge of failing.
Breakthrough
One day, Mbugua was called for a meeting with Equity Bank to discuss a project to help the Bank in facilitating the Safaricom IPO. There were about 15 people present and before the meeting began, he was asked when Mbugua Njihia would be joining them. They were all surprised when he identified himself to them as they thought him far too young. He did not get the job then, but the word was out on the street of his capabilities and soon after he was called by NSSF to do a project for them. The NSSF project was expected to be completed by the next day and their location did not even have electricity supply yet. They somehow managed to deliver on time. Mbugua then bought servers and located them at UUNET.
Symbiotic Media
Symbiotic is a hybrid tech company that mainly builds mobile applications and services for companies. Some of their products are Sembuse, Tuma SMS, short code services and developing other mobile contents for their more than 242,000 users.
Sometimes, when they show their portfolio to venture capitalists, they come across as a company with lack of focus and are therefore, in the process of trimming their product portfolio with the aim of refining products while increasing revenue.
Marketing of Symbiotic Media and its services is mainly by word of mouth, networking and family and friends. Their services however sell themselves. One of the highlights from his past is getting to showcase the first ever KCSE, KCPE exam results service which brought in revenues of Ksh. 45million and served to show the market the potential of mobile based information services in Kenya beyond running of promotions and giveaways. He says that the current initiative to open up government data will see more value unlocked for both government and the common mwananchi, and can wait to get his hands dirty rolling out innovative services. .
Management of the company
Mbugua says he manages his company by putting people around him with whom he share his vision. He delegates work, the designing and technical aspect of it while dealing with the visionary aspects himself. He insists that you have to teach your employees the culture you want to run your company by and if they do not adapt to it, you have to adapt to live without them and move on.
Breaking Even and Strategy for the next 5 years
Looking into the future, there is the risk of ideas running out, according to Mbugua, and therefore execution is key to success. The Company is at a comfortable place but far from where he envisions it to be. The advantage of such a company is that it has less overheads but with good margins. He believes there are massive opportunities, and foresees that in the next five years, at least ten mobile development companies acheiving a worth of a Billion Shillings each. He hopes that his will be one of those, with his services being offered in other African countries.
Safaricom Innovation Board and Mobile Monday
Safaricom Innovation Board provides opportunities to local developers to showcase their innovation and develop their applications. It is good for Symbiotic in that he helps design policies to protect the industry. Mobile Monday Kenya on the other hand provides him with an opportunity to meet peers where he can lobby and acquire new projects.
Outlook of the Industry
“Money, Money, Money! We haven’t even scratched the surface yet.”
Mbugua believes there is a lot of potential for creating and provision of services that make sense and affect lives and the masses.
Family and Other Interests
The first loan he ever obtained was from his mother, a loan of 80,000 Kshs., to buy a laptop. He is the second born in a family of 5 brothers.
Mbugua loves the great outdoors but sometimes the development of this interest is curbed by business.
What do you regret or wish you knew when you were starting out?
“I was naïve. As I was starting out, I got taken advantage of and was not paid for some jobs I did.”
He however is grateful for the interesting journey it has been. He further wishes he had been a bit more cut-throat as he established his business.
Mbugua Njihia asserts that he loves what he does and therefore has no exit strategy from his business. On the other hand, he believes he shall consider himself successful when he establishes a foundation.
Parting Shot
Mbugua advices that one ought to read people or situations.” You should walk away if the deal does not sound good.” Moreover, he states that failures are experiences and we should take everything in stride.
“Always believe in yourself!”
Mbugua summarizes, just like in a spoken word video we watched together, that his journey will not stop, until he does.
You can also read more about Mbugua Njihia and his work on his personal blog , company website and follow him on Twitter as @mbuguanjihia