Yvonne Wawira is an entrepreneur and the founder of KAKIBA Collections, a women’s fashion brand that specializes in the importation and sale of Turkey and Dubai clothing collections.

We are a women owned and women operated business that aims to uplift the women in our society. We predominantly source our outfits from Turkey and Dubai. However, that narrows down the supply chain to only a few individuals, and hence we are expanding to include a ‘Made in Kenya’ sustainable fashion line that shall create more opportunities for the youth and women. We are in the testing phase and so far it’s been a great success.

I left the corporate world after 10 years in the food manufacturing industry. I have always wanted to work for myself and fashion was at the top of my mind. I started with about 2.8 million shillings which was all savings. This was late last year, November 2022.

We are yet to get to the break even point. However, we are sustainable in that the business can take care of its own expenses. We are projecting that December 2023 is going to be our break even point. This will be greatly driven by the ‘Made in Kenya’ strategy.

The major challenge has been fluctuation of the dollar hence planning becomes tricky. The other challenge has been figuring out the business landscape, the small how to’s, negotiating lease, and  coming up with marketing plans.

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All this, while a majority of other business owners who you perceive to have made it keep these solutions close to their chests because they are trade secrets. As a result, you end up with a lot of trial and error.

I was employed for 10 years in the food manufacturing industry in different capacities. This created a good base for me, especially with my last employer who taught senior managers on the entrepreneurship side of being in business. This is the most valuable aspect that I have carried to my current business.

Trusting people with money without any written agreements is perhaps my biggest money mistake. This has made me lose quite a lot of money through individuals who I perceived to be “friends”. Now, I only give money and do business with formal agreements. Also, I have learned to stay away from government tenders; they take too long to be paid, while your money loses value.

Each growth in the business is a major milestone. We have been doubling our sales month on month. We doubled down on content creation, digital marketing, which is an expensive space to be in. This boosted our brand name and grew our customer base.

If I could start all over again, I would reduce my initial overhead recurrent costs. At the beginning, they were more than half of our gross income so this slowed down our growth as it left less money to reinvest back into the business.

I save in both Saccos and the bank. Saccos are great for lending facilities as they also have lower interest rates as compared to banks. It’s effective as I have no access to the money unless through a loan facility.

I used to put money previously in bank savings accounts which I would withdraw in small bits for leisure which beat the purpose of saving.

I have been through both employment and entrepreneurship. From my experience, I would choose entrepreneurship any day, even with its uncertainties and heartaches.

I have never heard of a wealthy employee and  you can only go so far living off a salary. I enjoy my flexible hours and I can be a present mother to my kids.

Money has seasons. There’s a season for plenty and easy money and there’s a season where there isn’t as enough as the previous season. While in the season of plenty, invest wisely, save, give generously to those in need, enjoy your money, you earned it.

All this will help you in the season of lesser money going around. Your investments will cash in. The ones you helped will remember you plus you will have beautiful memories to keep you going through this season. While in both seasons, always remember God and be kind.

A version of this profile feature on Yvonne Wawira of Kakiba Collections was also published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.