It is often said that the best way to make money or get rich is through entrepreneurship. In fact, oftentimes, entrepreneurship emerges as the winner in the battle with employment. This popular admonition has become a pressure kettle on many people to join the world of business, in hope that they can accelerate their earnings or even become wealthy.
What most people do not know is that just like any other venture, there are steps that must be followed before one can successfully shift build up a business. The most critical of these is business funding. Take seed capital. It is the biggest challenge that budding entrepreneurs face in Kenya. Although there is always the option of a bank loan, not too many banks are willing to extend loans to green entrepreneurs. Such borrowers are mostly considered high risk by the majority of banks.
However, not all banks have slammed their doors on entrepreneurs within the small and medium enterprise category. This is what the experiences of business women Regina Nasyeku and Paulina George have shown.
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The two women who run independent businesses recall how at their most vulnerable, they were able to secure funding from KCB Bank Kenya. On her part, Regina says that when schools shut down in 2020 due to the pandemic, she was able to easily get funded so that she could sustain her workers or at least two months before they could find something else to do. When the schools started to resume, Regina requested for yet another loan to help reignite her school business. “I was astonished that the bank was willing to give me a loan even though it was clear that schools had shut down across the country and we were in the middle of a pandemic which meant that I would not be able to repay instantly,” she says.
On her part, Paulina says that he business which deals in the sale of West African attire was shut down for seven months because she had no money to stock it up. “There was no money coming in from anywhere. I was only relying on my family, friends, and husband,” she said. Lost on what to do, she took a bold step and decided to approach KCB with her case. “I pitched for my business and explained that I needed funding to break even,” she says. She got the funding and her business has since broken even. How did Regina and Paulina do it? They shared their experiences in the following videos:
In this video, Paulina George whose business is located in Nairobi shares her experience in getting funded by KCB, and how she managed to access KCB funding:
In this video, entrepreneur and school director Regina Nasyeku shares on how KCB funding boosted her school enterprise at the height of the pandemic:
