Elizabeth Mwangi is the founder and managing director of Gwiji for Women, a tech startup that empowers low-income women from slums working as casual cleaners (mama fua)

We connect mama fua from informal settlements with clients through a Mobil application. Our mama fua are vetted and trained for professionalism, and cleaning rates start from as low as Sh. 600, which is provides both value for money for the clients and fairness for the cleaners.

I grew up in the slums, and every day I would watch my mother get up early in the morning to go look ‘kibarua.’ She would often return home empty handed, and I would wonder how could one work so hard, yet still struggle to provide for us.

As I got older, I realized that despite the willingness to work, without opportunities, hard work is futile. I decided to dedicate my life to the creation of opportunities, so that women like my mother would no longer have to struggle to feed and educated their children.

We started Gwiji with a $5000 investment from African Impact Initiative, a Canadian-based angel investor financing early stage African startups across the continent. From this, a few savings and a little support from family and friends, we were able to develop a minimum viable product (MVP), a website and launch our service in the market in 2021.

While our business is sustainable and profit-making, we are yet to break-even for two reasons. First, we are fairly a young company with less than five years in the market, and we project that we will be able to break even in early 2024. The second reason is because we allow our cleaners to keep majority of their earnings i.e. 80%, and this is because we place women empowerment above maximizing profit.

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Accordingly, since we receive only 20% commission for every cleaning order, it slows down our ability to break even quickly. All the same, the fulfillment I receive from seeing the women I work with feed and educate their children is its own rewarding.

I have worn many hats – I have worked as a marketer, a volunteer in the slums, and even as an architect. My training is in architecture, so naturally after graduation I sought to work in my learned profession, and I was fortunate to find a job under the former President of the Architecture Association of Kenya (AAK), Mugure Njendu.

Before that, I worked for an organization called AMURT Africa, for a project in Kibera called Ajiri Dada, which focused on fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS among impoverished girls from the slums through finding them work as house helps in suburban districts.

It was actually this project that inspired the idea for Gwiji – as a sustainable way to ensure the economic empowerment of low-income women from the slums working as casual cleaners.

I would say the biggest money mistake I have made in my journey is overly focusing on app development during the early stages, and ignoring marketing. I suppose my line of thought at that point was that a good product would sell itself – like the Swahili saying goes – ‘Kizuri chajiuza’. However, looking back, I wish I dedicated majority of that budget to marketing.

Over time, I have realized that even an MVP can be profitable if it is marketed correctly, and reaches the end consumer. Perfection comes with time, but getting your product to the market quickly is what is most essential, for any business.

The motivation to start Gwiji was a selfless one – I wanted to help women who felt as if they couldn’t help themselves in the market. However, I would be lying if I failed to admit that I derived a sense of fulfilment whenever I receive recognition for my work. This year, I won the Zuri Award under the Young Achiever Category – I was named amongst Kenya’s Top 40 under 40 Women, and I emerged the global winner of the Aurora Tech Award.

All of this recognition brought me inner fulfilment and made me feel and believe that the work I am doing is important. Recently, Gwiji for Women was also featured in Forbes magazine. I was overjoyed.

Maintaining clients was, and remains an issue for us. Our cleaners have direct contact with our clients, and there is always the risk that the two will strike a side-deal and bypass our company – after all, once we connect you with a good cleaner, what more do you need from us?

If I could do it all over again, I would focus on building relationships with our clients, so as to secure their loyalty to the company. Calling, texting, asking for reviews – all create a personal relationship with the client that prevents them from wanting to bypass the company for future orders.

To save on money we in the business, we reduce operational costs and, avoid cash liquidity issues such as debts. One ineffective cost savings method which we had to do away with was undercutting our marketing budget through opting for cheaper marketing channels like running a Facebook Ad for one week with a Sh500 budget.

While cheaping-out on marketing was good for lowering operational costs, it did not bring the conversions we needed to sustain our business. When it comes to marketing, you must spend to earn.

When it comes to employment versus business, I prefer entrepreneurship because I am strong headed. At the same time, I have learnt many lessons from my time in employment which have been helpful on my entrepreneurial journey. So, my advice would be to start with employment, and see if it suits your personality.

Don’t chase the money, chase the dream, and the money will follow. It may seem abstract, but if you enter business or a career with money as your only motivation, you are unlikely to succeed. However, if you have a bigger goal in mind that motivates you, you will be surprised by how quickly you rise.

A version of this profile feature on Elizabeth Mwangi of Gwiji for Women was also published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.