By Bizna Brand Analyst
This past Friday, I decided to stop by one of the coffee shops in town to grab a cup of Cappuccino. As I patiently waited for my order to arrive, a young lady came and sat opposite me. She then pulled a laptop from her huge handbag and started typing. A few minutes later, she looked up, then looked at me for a few seconds before exclaiming, “I know you,”
“Oh…really. From where?” I asked.
“You are Philip… the blogger. I follow your articles by the way. Plus, I am a blogger too.” She responded.
Things got even more interesting when I asked her what she blogs about. Grace Akoth, as she told me her name was, owns over 10 blogs which collectively make her a monthly total of 50K on the minimum. On a good month, she gets over 60k. Each of her blogs covers world news about a specific topic ranging from fashion, shopping, sports, technology, showbiz and politics.
None of her blogs bears her byline as she prefers to remain anonymous. She even declined a request for a proper interview so I had to milk as much bits of information from her as I could through a normal conversation.
How does Akoth manage to run all those blogs at once and make that much money?
“I do all the work from home. I rely on Google Adsense. What I do is find out what type of news is trending on each of the topics I cover then post a single brief story on each of my blogs everyday. After that, I share the links in as many social media platforms as i can including Facebook groups. This way, posts simply go viral.”
That was interesting to say the least. Google Adsense is known as a reliable source of revenue for bloggers who have high traffic. Given the kind of effort Akoth puts into getting the traffic, it’s no surprise that she makes that much money. Her revenues are also likely to grow as her blogs become more popular. She says she’s been blogging seriously for close to a year now. She set up all the blogs at once a few months after she cleared high school.
My curiosity though was on her cost of doing business. Given the amount of time she has to spend on her blogs, the biggest resource she needs is internet. And as we all know, the cost of internet here in Kenya is not so favorable. So does she jump from coffee shop to coffee shop to take advantage of free wifi? Not really.
“ I installed Zuku Fiber in my rental room just a few meters from my campus. It serves me really well. The speeds are terrific and there is rarely any downtime. Unless there is a power outage, I work any time I want’’
As she said that, my eyes glimmered. I use Zuku too at home and it’s terrific. If you like your internet fast and uninterrupted, don’t even look anywhere else. Zuku offers unlimited internet, free telephone and over 60 TV channels at cheap rates. The installation cost is 4000 shillings but might vary depending on your area of residence. A quick rundown of their packages is as follows.
1.Infintie 15 Package – 15 Mbps Internet at Sh 4,499 per month
2. Infinite 30 Package – 30 Mbps Internet at Sh 5,699 per month
3. Infinite 60 package – 60Mbps Internet at Sh 9,999 per month
4. Infinite 1 package – 1Mbps Internet at Sh ,2,999 per month.
Akoth has the Infinite 1 package, which means that when she deducts operational costs, she’s left with a cool 47k. Yet she’s just a first year student. Ponder that.
There are currently no better home internet offers for residential use in Kenya as Jamii Telecom (the only other internet provider with quick speeds) is restricted to offices. The problem with Zuku Fiber however is that it doesn’t cover every location in Kenya. You might wish to have it, but you might not get it because of where you chose to live. Zuku only covers majority of Nairobi and Mombasa .
I understand that the service is currently limited to specific locations because the amount of bandwidth the company can provide is limited too but I hope this changes with time. Otherwise, I give Zuku 5-stars, it’s not easy to find a product or service with only a single disadvantage and when you do, it doesn’t hurt to appreciate it.
