My hard journey to building Sh. 350 million wealth

Clyde Mutsotso: He owns Clyde and Associates, a consultancy firm. His net wealth early 2014 was estimated to be around Sh. 350 million.

“I come from a very large family, and resources were strained. I was fortunate enough while in campus at the University of Nairobi, I got a Helb (Higher Education Loans Board) loan to pay my fees. However, to get food and pocket money, I used to go to Kiambio slums and buy chang’aa. I would then sell it to my fellow students in campus and make Sh1,500 profit.

I am not proud of the way I used to make money but I did it to survive through campus. After I graduated with an economics degree, I got employed by a government agency and with a good income, I cleared CPA before doing a master’s in business administration.

After being employed for two years, with the blessing of my wife, I used my savings to set up my office. I was so confident that since I had dealt with many clients before, they would all come trooping to my office and within I will be a millionaire in a few months. No client walked into my office for the first six months. The landline I had installed hadn’t even had its first ring. I used to call my landline using my mobile phone just to hear it ring.

The good thing was that I had paid my house rent, and office rent for a year. I had also paid for Internet, and paid the phone company a full year estimates for the landline. Back home, things weren’t going on so well. There was a time my son was so sick, and I could not afford Sh800 to buy medicine, and on the same day, my water was disconnected over a Sh800 bill. Sh50 in the house In the evening when I got home, electricity had also been disconnected.

I was depressed and didn’t want to go to the office the next day but my wife just laughed at me, and asked me to get back to work. With a sick child at home, who had no water or electricity, I borrowed Sh100 from the estate watchman, left Sh50 in the house and took a matatu to town.

I got to my desk and prayed. I swore I won’t leave the office till I get a client. I prayed for over an hour and started sorting out the files of all the clients I had approached. It was then that my landline rang, for the first time, eight months after I had installed it. A client had gone through my proposal and wanted me to start consultancy immediately. It was my big break, and the Sh1.7 million cheque came after a month. I have diverse business interests in construction, transport and energy.”

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