Making Ideas Happen

I was invited by SBC to give a talk at Strathmore University on the topic of  "Making Ideas Happen"
The following was my speech.

 

 "My name is Eugene Mbugua. I am the creator and executive producer of a television show called Young Rich. Young Rich airs every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on K24. We are currently in our sixth season and have featured over 65 relatively successful young entrepreneurs. 

You have probably heard the phrase “If it were easy, everybody would do it.”

Well having ideas is easy and as such everybody has them. Literally everybody you meet has an idea or two that they think could change the world. If you don’t believe me log onto social media right now and see.

People have ideas on how government should be run, how sports teams should be managed, how our security should be handled, how people should dress,  how this and that business should be run, how their lives can improve…the list is endless.

The same applies to business. I’m sure you listening to or reading this probably have a business idea or half a dozen. 

The sad truth however is that majority of those ideas and I even dare say over 95% of those ideas will never be implemented.

If there are so many ideas, why do so few people actualize theirs?

There is no specific formula to making ideas happen. 

The ways that one can implement their idea are as varied as the ideas themselves.  These ways often depend on the person’s situation, their environment and the idea itself.

While the ways are varied, there are a few characteristics and traits that one must possess to see their idea to fruition. Today I want to talk about two of those characteristics that I think are the very important.

The first of these characteristics I believe is passion.   This is a cliché line and I am sure you have heard it enough times. But the reason clichés are so common is because of the amount of truth they carry. 

Passion can be described as intense emotion, compelling enthusiasm or desire for something.

So you have an idea, how passionate are you about it? How badly do you want to see it done? How much of your time do you spend thinking about your idea?  How much of your time have you spent researching and talking about your idea?  How many of your friends have you told about your idea?

A lot of entrepreneurs I know myself included, and a lot of the ones who have been on Young Rich are not people you would want to spend a lot of your time with. They can be exhausting. They often sound like broken records. They constantly talk about their business, their plans, their achievements, their challenges and their new ideas. Over and over and over and over again. 

I believe my friends and the people who work and associate with me are very patient. When I have an idea, I go on and on about it. I’ll meet someone on Tuesday and excitedly tell them about my small idea and then I see this look of patience in their faces right before they remind me that I had told it to them yesterday and last week and the week before that.

So I say ‘oh’ and walk off to find someone else to excitedly tell about the idea. 

These entrepreneurs as they talk about their business or current project usually have this look of wander and sheer pleasure in their eyes. This is passion. If you lack it, chances of seeing your idea through are minimal to nil. 

You just don’t want it bad enough.

So you have your good idea, you’re supper passionate about it. You’ve pissed off your friends, colleagues and family from constantly talking about it; so then you go out to try and make your idea a reality. This is where the 2^nd trait comes in.

The second trait is so important that it has dozens of words that can be used to describe it; perseverance, tenacity, staying power, steadfastness, persistence, grit, spunk, endurance, pertinacity, immovability, constancy and indefatigability to mention just a few.

No matter how good your idea is or how passionate you are about it, when you set out to pursue it if you do not have the trait described by the words above, you will fail. 

Your idea is only splendid when it is in your head. The moment it leaves your mouth and hits the ears of other people, it will immediately encounter difficulty.  People will tell you it cannot work, they will show you someone who is doing it better, they will tell you it has never been done, or it has been overdone, they will tell you the time is not right and there is no market for it. They will say you do not have enough experience to pursue it and give you examples of others that have tried and failed.

These people, for the most part are not malicious, society, especially the one we live in is just set up to see the impossibility in things. If you lack perseverance, tenacity and endurance, your idea will die at this stage.

Suppose you give a deaf ear to the naysayers and get on with trying out your idea, you will then most certainly face a tornado of other challenges. You will lack capital, you will not meet the networks you need, you will not find people to support your dream, some will try to derail you, you will be discouraged, you will be defeated, you will lose friends and you will lose relationships.

And just when you think it’s over, some people in your team will quit on you, you will get tired, you will have sleepless nights, people will ignore your calls, customers will be scarce, and people will laugh at you. 

Legend has it that Walt Disney was turned down over 300 times before he got financing to create Disney World.

Stephen King who has sold over 350 million books had his first book rejected over 30 times.

John Grisham who has sold over 250 million books had his first book denied by publishers over 28 times until someone gave it a chance. 

Elvis Presley, one of the best-selling artists of all time was fired after his first performance and told, “You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.”

Steven Spielberg one of the biggest names in film today and worth over 2.7 billion dollars was severally denied entry into some of the film schools he wanted to get into.

 I started my first real company with a friend called Dexter, We wanted to teach kids in nice schools film and get paid for it. Most of the schools we went to; the guards looked us down and turned us away. 

We drew up a lot of ideas for TV shows and movies back in the day, we even spent our little money shooting pilots for some and since no one knew who the hell we were, we were unable to get them through any meaningful doors.

I went to USIU and while there, I run a small movie shop and game arcade. When I wasn’t in class or hustling elsewhere, I was a glorified shop keeper at the shop. It wasn’t the most glamorous thing to do and I’m sure many people laughed at it. 

The rejection, the being turned away and people’s harsh words and laughter are the cause of death for many ideas and start outs.

95% of people will quit at the onset of these challenges.

The 5% or less will use passion and persistence to propel themselves past them. 

Passion and persistence are what you need to make ideas happen.

Thank you."

 

You Should Start a Business While Still in University

I was invited to give a talk at Daystar University at a student event organized on 5/11/2014 by a group of very resourceful young ladies called '9 and Partners'.

 The following was my speech.

"Good afternoon, my name is Eugene Mbugua, I'm 23 years old and I'm the creator and executive producer of a TV show called Young Rich.

 

Do you know the following companies or products? 

• ·         Dell
• ·         Facebook
• ·         Time Magazine
• ·         Google
• ·         Yahoo
• ·         Word press
• ·         Microsoft
• ·         Fed Ex

Do you know what they all have in common other than being multibillion dollar businesses?

They were all started by University students; while still students. 

While we are not nearly as successful, I also started Young Rich while I was a student at USIU where I was studying journalism.

Young Rich is a television show that airs on K24 every Tuesday at 8 p.m. We tell the stories of young Kenyan entrepreneurs that have managed to build thriving businesses. The aim of the show is to inspire others to do the same. We are on our 6^th Season and have featured over 60 young Kenyan millionaires. 

We have been watched close to 2 million times online and by hundreds of thousands of people on TV every week.

About two years ago however, Young Rich was just an idea of a college kid living in Roysambu. 

From when I could remember, I wanted to be rich. When I finished high school I was introduced to film by a cousin and since then my wants changed from wanting to be rich to rich and a film maker.

I didn’t know how to do this so I went to university.

While in university I tried, in partnership with different friends, my hand in many business ventures.

For about three years my friend Deksta and I had a company that taught film in primary schools.

Teaching film at Makini School

My friend Muchi and I tried event organizing and arranged an event called Body Arts Festival where we got tattoo artists to pay us to come exhibit their works at USIU, the university we went to.

 We tried setting up a travel agency and got some friends to pay us to arrange for a trip to Naivasha. We were able to get together about ten people for the trip. On the way there however, I forgot the entire group’s stash of alcohol in the matatu and we figured if we couldn’t be trusted with a few bottles of cheap liquor we couldn’t be trusted with people’s trips. 

The Naivasha trip

We set up a game arcade outside USIU called the Game Court where we charged bored students by the minute to play video games. I believe the Game Court still runs to this day but by another owner.

The Game Court

While still at USIU, my friend Carlos got me a writing gig at The Nation so I made some money writing film reviews for  Saturday Nation.  

In between all these ventures or experiments as you may rightfully call them, I found time to attend some lectures. One of my favorite lecturers was a good man called Mr. James Mutua.  Mr. Mutua taught production classes with a lot of focus on film. The idea of young Rich was born in one of his lectures.

  

Although I can’t quite remember what the class was, I do remember that one day the topic drifted from production to why young people were unable to turn their skills into money making ventures.

The issue sparked quite a debate and was discussed at length as such issues usually are in class. Everyone tried to put in their two cents. Blaming so and so; faulting this and that system.

I don’t remember if I participated in this discussion or not but I remember that Mr. Mutua’s question rung in my head for days and weeks on end.

“Why were we as young people, unable to transform our skills into money?”

After a lot of thinking and looking around, I finally found the answer; or at least I think I did. 

My answer was that the reason we young people didn’t know how to transform our skills into money is because we didn’t know how to.

It sounds stupid and repetitive, I know, but don’t write me off quite yet.

I found that no one showed us how to make money. They made us attend classes, taught us skills and we proved that we had learned (or crammed) those lessons and skills by repeating them in exams.

They’d however not shown us how to turn the same skills and lessons into hard cash. And so my answer to Mr.Mutua’s question was that we young people did not know how to turn our skills into money because we did not know how to turn our skills into money.

At this point I’d like to make it clear that I wasn’t blaming the education system for this lack of know how.  This is because school teaches you but only real life examples can show you how to do it.

Schools teach, they don't show;life does.

I tried to find stories about young people who had made a fortune but found very few of them; stories I mean.

I decided I was going to try and show myself and other young people how they could turn their skills into money by telling them stories of those who had. To do so, I turned to the skill I had; film. 

 And so that way, from a stubborn class discussion, the idea of Young Rich was born. Over many months, the idea was molded and became a TV show.

The first episode of Young Rich aired on TV on 16^th of August 2013, a day before my friends and I graduated from USIU.

My mother, Muchi and myself on graduation day

University or College is the best place to start a business for a number of reasons.

Most successful businesses are born from solving problems and answering questions.  There are fewer places on earth that you will encounter as many problems (the theoretical kind) as you will in a college or a university.  Lecturers are always posing questions (which are ideally problems) whose answers could form the basis of good businesses.

There’s that issue that you and your friends discuss at the bar that you just can’t get to the bottom of; there’s a business opportunity.

Better still, there’s that question, that simple questions, you keep asking that no one can seem to answer; why something is done this way and not the other; there’s the biggest business opportunity.

While in university, my friends and I when we weren’t drinking would have these banters about many questions and issues that we didn’t have answers to. Lectures and classes were also full of issues and questions that we didn’t have answers to. A lot of those formed and still form many of my business ideas.

When you’re in University, you can get professional advice from experts for free. You’re surrounded everywhere by experts. Befriend that lecturer who teaches business and they’ll help you enhance you business plan for free. Befriend that law lecturer and they’ll help you draft contracts and give you legal advice for your business; for free.

 

You're surrounded by experts

Out here in the world it’s called consultancy and it costs a tone of money so take advantage of it now.

When you’re in university (unless you’re an over achiever or don’t know how to use a condom), you probably have no family and no real responsibilities to speak of. You can dedicate a lot of your time and effort to starting businesses. And if you fail; there will be no starving children or waiting land lord.

When you’re in college, you have all the networks you need to start you off on your small business.  When I was teaching film in primary schools, I used cameras borrowed from friends. When we arranged the trip to Naivasha, we got our friends to be our first customers. 

In University, you’re surrounded by people very similar to you. These people are a resource waiting to be exploited. Need a business partner? You can get one easy because a lot of your school mates are looking for their footing in life. If you’re looking for customers for your first product, they are right there.  Better still if you’re looking for cheap skilled labor for your first business, you’ll find them in your university because most students are desperately looking to spruce up their CV’s.

You're surrounded by people

When we set up the Game Court we relied on friends in the university to be our customers and spread the word about the place. When we were teaching film with Deksta, we borrowed cameras and other equipment from my friends in USIU. When I finally got the contract for Young Rich I called on my friends from University to give me capital and set us off.

Finally and most importantly when you’re in University, you can fail and it’s okay. As a matter of fact you’re expected to fail; the surprise is when you don’t. And failing is good because it means you’re learning.

On Young Rich, we have a question we ask all the subjects “what was your first money earning venture?”

Selling bread in high school was the definition of breaking bad

I have noted with a lot of interest that a lot of them answer that their first money earning venture was selling bread illegally in high school. I did too, only mine was legal and it was not bread it was ‘kangumus’ at the student run canteen where I was a shareholder in Upper Hill School. 

The best time to have started a business was to have sold bread in high school. The next best time is now; in University.

Thank you."

With the organizers of the event and Ocar of Business mind

 Twitter: @Kipnoey

Event pictures by Wilson Muchicho

Working Hard vs. Working Smart

I was invited to give the closing speech at the Greenhorn Aspire Leadership conference at University of Nairobi Business School on the 22nd October 2014. The following was my speech

  

"My name is Eugene Mbugua. I am 23 years old and the creator/executive producer of a TV show called Young Rich. 

Young Rich is a television show that tells the stories of young Kenyans who have managed to build businesses that are worth millions. We just completed season 5 of the show and have so far featured over 55 such individuals. 

The show is watched by over 4 million people every week on TV and has been watched over 1.6 million times on youtube alone.  We are rather popular and the reason for this popularity is that we try to get as deep as possible into the thinking structure of the young millionaires we feature on the show.

I often get asked; what is the most important lesson that I have picked up from all these young and arguably successful entrepreneurs?

 I have picked up several; and I am going to share one of the most important ones with you today.

There is a common phrase you hear people throwing around all the time and I am sure you too have heard this phrase quite often.

 “Don’t work hard, work smart” or “Work smart not hard”

On Young Rich we have a segment where the entrepreneurs give advice to other budding youth and when we begun, I expected to hear this phrase quite often because I felt quite strongly that success was about working smart and not hard.

 

Surprisingly, save for one or two, this cliche line is barely ever given by any of the entrepreneurs.

All of them, without exception, however, always give the advice “You have to work hard”

Now you have to understand that most of the people we feature on Young Rich are not wealthy. They are rich and these two words are worlds apart in meaning. 

Being wealthy is defined as that status of an individual’s existing financial resources that supports his or her way of living for a longer duration, even if he or she does not have to physically work to generate a recurring income.

Rich on the other hand is anyone with some relative amount of money. Relative because anyone with more money than you can in your view be rich.

The people we feature on Young Rich are not wealthy, they are rich. They are not made people; they are people who have made something.

Back to the phrase “Work smart not hard” 

I have come to one realization; the people who use this phrase are mostly lazy poor people, liars or very wealthy people.

The lazy poor ones are trying to make an excuse not to work hard. The liars actually work hard but either don’t know it or are trying to mislead others so as to appear smarter while the wealthy ones can actually afford to work smart. 

There is no in between.

 

If you are poor and looking to get rich, working smart is not an option for you. Unless you inherit or win a chunk of money in the lottery you have no choice but to work very very hard.

Why do I say this?

Working smart somewhat implies that you are tricking the system or that you are actually not putting in the physical work required to achieve the goal you are after. Of course you can get rich by tricking the system and people who do that are called criminals. They are the true embodiment of working smart.

In the course of producing Young Rich, I have met one young person who genuinely works smart. He is my business mentor and his name is Dennis Makori. He is the CEO of Onfon Media. Onfon Media is a one of the leading mobile marketing companies in the region. They were just recently listed as among the top 100 medium sized companies in the country. The company that Dennis owns is worth billions of shillings.

Dennis Makori on Young Rich

But Dennis and his company did not achieve this fete by working smart. They did by working hard.

Dennis was born in what he describes as “below poor” background. He saw electricity for the first time in high school and a computer for the first time when he went to Moi University. While at university, Dennis spent many hours of his days and nights, for months on end, teaching himself how to code.

Dennis then partnered with a friend and painstakingly built Onfon Media over a period of over a decade. They did it by working hard.

Today at the age of 34, Dennis works smart. He invests his money in courses he believes in. He’s set up different other businesses that are run by other people and he spends a considerable amount of his time playing golf, mentoring others and being philanthropic.

The point I am trying to put across is that working smart is not something you simply do; it’s something you earn after working hard. Had he not put in those hard hours of learning how to code, Dennis would not be able to work smart as he does today.

When success is involved, there is absolutely no substitute to working hard.

Another question that people ask me often is: With all the young millionaires you have featured, which is the industry that you would say one has a chance of succeeding most at?

The people who ask this are trying to work smart; trying to see if there’s an easy way out.

The correct answer to this question is that it doesn’t matter which industry you get into, how much thought and hard work you put into it is what equates to success. This fact is evident on Young Rich. We have featured people who have made millions from IT, farming, photography, restaurants, tents, education, athletics, housing, film, publishing, events organization, animation and even comedy.

The common thing among all of them is the time and effort they continuously put in their chosen field. Whatever it is you are good at or are interested in doing, you can succeed at if you do the same.

I have had several businesses in my short entrepreneurship years. Some have failed and some have worked. All of them however have been financed by other people other than me. These people put their money on me not because they think I am smart or I am good at business but because they know that I will go hard to work at whatever undertaking it is.

I have about 11 people that work with me at my different ventures, most days I am at the office hours before and hours after them. When we are shooting, most people who meet us for the first time do not know I am the boss because I am often the one running around the most.

I am working hard now so that in a number of years to come I can afford to work smart.

 Most of the people in this University with you have some level of smarts so in this way you’re not unique. The only thing that can set you apart and ahead is the amount of hard work you combine with your smarts.

I do not mean to over simplify this matter by saying that hard work is the only ingredient of success. There are many other factors involved of course; but hard work is undoubtedly the most prominent one.

Unless you worth is in the billions, forget about working smart and focus on working hard."

Twitter: @kipnoey