These 10 entrepreneurs have all experienced life in developed countries like the US and UK, but recognised the business opportunities back home.
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Julian Kyula, MODE
Julian Kyula, founder of technology company MODE, previously lived and worked in the US for 11 years before relocating to Kenya in 2005.
While in the US, he tried his hand at business and failed.
“I tried a real estate business and it flopped completely. I lost a lot of money and I have lost a lot of friends,” he recalls. And his first business in Kenya after returning from the US (a financial risk and debt management company) “did very badly”.
“I sold it for a dollar because I didn’t have the strength to restructure it,” he said.
Today MODE has operations in 31 countries with a customer base of over 250 million.
2. Lucia Bakulumpagi-Wamala, Bakulu Power
Seven years ago, while visiting her family in the town of Gayaza, in central Uganda, Lucia Bakulumpagi-Wamala couldn’t help but notice the garbage on the streets. Having grown up in Canada, this was an unfamiliar sight for her. She began to wonder if the trash could be used for something productive.
Initially, Lucia wanted to focus only on producing power from waste, but after talking to a friend, solar energy piqued her interest. As a result, she founded Bakulu Power, a Uganda-based renewable energy company that designs, installs and operates systems for residential and commercial clients.
3. Fahad Awadh, YYTZ Agro-Processing
In 2014, Fahad Awadh, founder of YYTZ Agro-Processing, began looking for a business venture he could invest in – something that entailed value addition in Tanzania.
“I was looking for something with export demand and I came across cashew by looking at what Tanzania produces a lot of, that is exported and valuable,” said Awadh, whose first major entrepreneurial venture was a clothing business he founded with friends while studying at York University in Canada.
While doing research, he found out that Tanzania is one of the largest cashew-producing countries in the world and that about 90% of its cashews are exported in its raw form to India and Vietnam, where they are processed and re-exported to developed markets.
“That really stood out for me,” Awadh explained.
To understand the ins and outs of the industry, Awadh left Canada for Tanzania to conduct research on cashew production.
4. Olatorera Oniru, Dressmeoutlet.com
Olatorera Oniru completed her tertiary education in the US and graduated cum laude in business administration and management from North Carolina A&T State University. She also holds an MBA from Emory University in Atlanta.
After gaining years of experience in the corporate world at Fortune 500 companies Bank of America (Merrill Lynch) and General Electric, as well as Ericsson, the Central Bank of Nigeria and MTN, Oniru headed into the less-predictable world of online shopping in Nigeria, founding Dressmeoutlet.com in 2015. The Lagos-based e-commerce platform focuses on fashion, health, beauty and home-goods.
5. Nelly Tuikong, Pauline Cosmetics
Kenyan entrepreneur Nelly Tuikong’s journey began when she met American couple Stephen and Judy Leapman at a hospital she was working in. She eventually became friends with the family, and one day Judy pulled her aside, and broke the news that the family would like to sponsor her to study nursing in the US.
It was in her final year of studying that the entrepreneurship bug bit her, and she started thinking of developing her own beauty brand. So she moved back home and founded beauty line Pauline Cosmetics.
“I’m proud of having built a local cosmetics brand that is competing neck and neck with international companies in the market. Right now I can walk into a beauty shop and my stand is right next to the giants, such as Revlon and Maybelline. It is so incredible,” Tuikong explains.