Lyn Gicharu is the founder of Lyn Enterprises, a company that brands and customizes water for corporates.
Getting started: There will never be a short supply of money-making ideas. You just have to be keen and observant. My business was born out of a simple observation. I was attending an event. As it usually happens in events, water bottles were placed on the tables. Looking at the bottles, I thought they didn’t match the profile of the event. They weren’t properly branded or customized. I thought that I could start a business that could brand and customize such items to the theme of an event, or profile of a corporate. Since then, I have netted businesses with clients such as the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project.
Saving and growing wealth: Although the current state of the stock market is not too appealing, I have found buying of shares to be a viable way to pool my investments. Additionally, I also use savings account in the bank and the old fashioned home piggy banks which takes in any extra change. I don’t believe that wealth is grown in a day. Rather, it is grown by bring together and multiplying small and large bits of cash and investments, be they lose milk change or proceeds from an investment.
Startup cash: You won’t always need money to start a money-making activity. For instance, I didn’t have any cash when I started. I didn’t take a bank loan either. In the business I run, a client must first tender their down payment. This means that I was able to solicit for clients even though I didn’t have startup capital. Always remember that the best money-making ventures aren’t those that you heavily spend on, but those that don’t require too much to run them, yet provide big returns.
Biggest loss: As is wont to occur in any business, I have had my share of a major loss. In one of my big branding deals, I labeled a product with the wrong customer information without noticing. Then I proceeded to make deliveries. I had to recall all the delivered products which put my business in the red. I have since learned that the supervision of my business is my biggest responsibility. You must be the most diligent employee in your business and make a habit of checking even the smallest of details if you want to be spectacular.
Getting it right: I have observed that one of the biggest traps you can fall into in business is starting an enterprise to please a spouse, friends, family or to simply stop being a house-wife. The effect of this is that you easily get in the wrong business.
