Alex Chege is the founder of Havila Resort, a resort located in Sagana, Kirinyaga County that provides food and beverage, accommodation, pottery, camping, conferencing services, water rafting and kayaking services.
When I was getting started, people close to me wrote my vision off. They thought I was engaging in an exercise in futility. But I knew what my vision was: I wanted to build a place that would conserve the environment, create an atmosphere of serenity where people would come to cast their burdens and life stresses away. I acquired a rocky, barren and forgotten piece of land that many people dismissed and began to rehabilitate it. I had to clear rocks, plant grass and trees, landscape the place in what I would call a very laborious and sweat-soaking exercise. This whole process took ten years to accomplish. The sweetest success is the product of great patience. Many people are gratified by instant success. We want to plant and reap within the shortest time. Things don’t work out that way. This place has been a testament of patience. If I had given up when landscaping wasn’t working out according to plan, I would not be where I am in life today.
State demands Sh. 7.7 billion from StanChart Bank, Heritage Insurance
In business you should know how to assess risk and rate chances. In the early days of the resort, someone came up with an idea of a big event that he wanted us to partner in. We estimated that about one thousand people would attend. For a new business, this was exciting. Perhaps goaded by excitement and not market reasoning, we ended up procuring a lot of food, drinks and tents in anticipation. We aggressively marketed the event. But on D-day, only about one hundred people turned up. A lot of food went to waste because we had just started the establishment and we had not invested in the equipment that we have now. We lost a huge amount of money. This experience taught me the hard way that to survive in business, I needed to quickly learn how to undertake planning and risk management. This includes the big ‘What if?’ question. In my case, I should have asked myself; What if no one shows up? What if we get an overflow?
It took me a while to understand the hospitality sector when I started. I could have spared the time I took to learn the way things work if I had invested in more research on the sector. There were many instances where I learnt from avoidable mistakes that I now laugh about in retrospect. There are jobs you can never learn about until you get started. But it is always important that you always do as much research on the industry and the market you are targeting before getting started.
Joining the bandwagon is a dangerous trend. At any time in Kenya, there is a ‘hot business’ idea that thousands of people fall into. There was a craze about car hire business, computer shops, phone shops, cyber cafes, among others. Even quails. There are people who get into business because so and so is doing such a business. This leads to duplication and cut-throat competition. We lack uniqueness. You’ll never get rich through business if your main business is aping other people’s businesses without providing any extra unique business solutions.
Multitasking is not an efficient way of building wealth. Many of us are pursuing many things simultaneously with limited time. You will find a Kenyan running a restaurant, in the supplies business, farming and selling electronics at the same time. What happens is that none of these entities get the required attention. While it is important to diversify risk, you must ask yourself where your true strength lies and focus on that.
Time will never be right for anything: Live it now! Stop waiting for conditions to be right in order to start a new venture or pursue a particular goal. When it comes to money, I have learned that being able to track every shilling is the discipline every entrepreneur needs to have. You must learn how to keep properly detailed cash flow and business transaction records.
This profile feature on Alex Chege, the founder of Havila Resort, was first published in the Saturday Magazine. The Saturday Magazine is a publication of the Nation Media Group.
