WOMAN OF PASSION: Connecting people through the web

You know how people say you should use your head and not your heart when it comes to money and business? Well, Mary Agatha refutes this belief. Most of her important life and business decisions, she says, have been driven by her gut feeling. “I always go with my gut,” she says.

When a business idea popped into her head eight years ago, it was all she could think about. Mary decided to follow her gut even though she didn’t have the skills or the expertise to go into that field of business – she holds a business management degree from the University of New South Wales in Australia. The field she was looking to get into was IT.

“I just knew that if I didn’t do it, time would pass and I would start regretting not taking up the chance” she says.

SHUNNING EMPLOYMENT

Unlike most people who get into employment for years before getting into a rut, it took Mary all of four months to decide that employment was not for her. During her short stint in employment, she worked as an accounts executive.

She just didn’t get any fulfilment from it so she quit and tried getting into the family business, which was printing. The family business allowed her to utilise the skills that she had acquired along the way.

The experience was more challenging and it kept her engaged. Four years in, she stumbled into her business idea.

“Every time I caught up with my friends in Australia, they would complain of the highly-priced web development services on that end. When I looked at the market here, all I saw were a lot of unemployed young people. What if I could become a go-between for the two worlds?”

At first, she dismissed the idea seeing as she didn’t have advanced IT skills, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The more complaints she heard, the more valid the idea seemed. Finally, after weeks of trying to fight it, she gave in. This was eight years ago.

“Luckily for me, I didn’t need any finances to set up. All I needed was some office space which I created from the family business offices.”

Next, she sourced for some young web developers whom she set up in this space and then started looking for gigs from her friends in Australia. She learnt her first business lesson pretty quickly. When she gave a quotation for her second job, the client offered to pay double for the services.

“I was very surprised. The money that they paid was enough capital to last us two years. This was when I knew the value of the services that the company was providing,” she says.

LEARNING FROM MISTAKES

Mary has a very interesting business module. Instead of going for the already established corporates that can easily pay more, she opts to go for the up-and-comers. Even when she is getting people aboard her team, she goes for those with fewer opportunities – those who would otherwise not have gotten these jobs.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision. I just found myself making these choices,” she says.

Her choice of clientele brought with it another hurdle: The small business owners needed some convincing to see the value of her services. While this is an attitude that she is still struggling with, she shares that she has seen changes over the past eight years.

“There are a lot of quacks in the market promising the same services for only a fraction of the cash. Slowly though, clients are beginning to see the value of quality services.”

After four years of running both the printing business and Kenya Development Palace, Mary closed the printing business in 2012 to focus on her passion. In addition to international jobs, her company started focusing on getting Kenyan clients the same year.

“The only challenge I have now is with the human resource. It is hard to find people who are truly passionate about the trade, people who are passionate about bringing something to life. I have encountered many who are driven by the money.

They will work for a few months and then the excitement wears off. Only a passionate person is consistent,” she says.

The ‘It’ moment for her will be having her company build a bug software application for a multinational corporation. For now though, she is content on building the structures of her business so that she doesn’t need to be there all the time for things to get done.

MARY’S NUGGETS

•  She knows the value of showing appreciation for one’s employees. She has learnt that when you do, they will be with you for the long haul.

•  Doubting herself is one of the things that slowed her progress especially at the beginning. Her advice? Never ignore the voices in your head.

•  As long as passion pushed you to a particular venture, all you need to do is hang in there.