Anand Shah is the Director, Workshop Serviced Offices and Co-working, which deals in letting out fully fitted workspaces complete with furniture, offices, internet, cleaning, meeting rooms, lounge and a shared kitchen.
I started with a capital of Sh. 5 million in 2019. I saw an opportunity in the market where people needed small workspaces that were affordable and provided all the amenities required to be productive.
People wanted flexibility and did not want to be tied down by long-term leases. Today, this business has now become a plug and play solution. You just bring your computer and start working. After I started, it took 3 years to break even.
This was not without challenges, some of which were balancing increasing costs – especially electricity costs – maintaining value of the services we offered. Today, we have strategic locations in central Westlands and Riara Road in Lavington, which has given is an edge in business.
When I started this business, I almost ran out of cash after trying to grow the business too quickly. Business development is not an overnight occurrence; it takes time. This experience made me realize that I wasn’t very keen on controlling my business expenses and managing cash flow on a daily basis.
I learned that if you start a new business, you must be careful enough to have bookkeeping and capital strategies to stay afloat and avoid the temptation of overspending.
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Never underestimate the importance of every customer. One satisfied customer is a return or second customer in waiting. I have gotten many of my big clients from referrals by customers who appreciated our services, gave us five star ratings and recommendations, and shared their satisfaction with out services to their social and business networks.
If you are in business, you must understand that the surest way to fail quick is to undercut your customers, deliver below expectations and trigger bad reviews for your business.
If I could start my business all over again, I would use quality products like furniture and fittings. My experience has shown me that this pays in the long term through less maintenance costs and a better customer experience. It also gives the right impression about your services and allows you to stand on proper ground when negotiating business.
In my line of work, proper relationships are critical for business development. To stay ahead, I have built relationships with suppliers who not only give better prices, but also good service. A good price must always be accompanied by good service, lest cheap becomes expensive.
This means getting the supplier to address any issues that might crop up satisfactorily and sticking and or going over and above the deliverables to guarantee quality. In any business, trying to take short cuts just costs more in the long term.
If I were to choose between business and employment, I would go  entrepreneurship. It is not easy at all, requires more effort, longer working hours, trials and errors. But there is a lot of fulfillment from the fruits if the labour you out in that cannot match what employment offers.
At the same time, I have found entrepreneurship to be more rewarding in terms of the autonomy I have in decision making and terms of work.
It takes time, patience and grit before you see things eventually working out. That saying that Rome wasn’t built in a day is not just a cliché; it’s a reality in business and career development.
Some advice I got is that, in order grow, whether personally or in business, you need to swallow your ego and pride. Do it for yourself and not others.
A version of this profile feature on Nairobi businessman Anand Shah of Workshop Serviced Offices was also published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.
