Enterprise

Senanu: Entrepreneur who isn’t afraid to burn his fingers yet again

senanu

Chris Senanu, the Head of Telkom Kenya’s Enterprise Division. PHOTO | COURTESY

The location shoot of  the much awaited entrepreneurship reality show — The Lion’s Den — is a secret. Without giving too much, it’s on one of the many warehouses off a major highway.

Inside which are many overhead lights and an elaborate set, a beehive of Quite Bright Films Kenya (QBF) crew milling about with intimidating gear, like they are about to film the landing of an alien spaceship.

Production of the show, a spin off of the popular Shark Tank, is underway, collaborated by NTV, QBF and Kenya Commercial Bank Kenya.
In one of the makeup seats sits one of the show’s Lions, Chris Senanu — long legs, long torso, long hands.

A make-up artist is dusting powder on his face. It’s like watching someone pour paraffin into a car’s petrol tank. Chris remains gracefully undeterred. He’s Ghanaian (you can’t tell) and he’s talking about how he ended up in Kenya. 

“I was actually not headed here, I was headed to the US,” he says behind puffs of make up powder. “My dad used to lecture at Moi University so I came through Nairobi for the holiday. I’m still on holiday after 23 years,” he laughs.

“Stayed because after two weeks in Eldoret it was too cold and my knees had gotten arthritic so my dad said, ‘If you go to the US you will freeze, stay and hang out and go in summer when it is warmer.’

So instead of sitting at home doing nothing, I said, why don’t I register for a US college here, get some credits and then when I move to the US I’ll l go with those credits… ‘‘So I applied to go to Daystar and USIU, I got accepted for both and a neighbour said, ‘Don’t go to Daystar, you’ll die.’” He chuckles. “So I joined USIU.”

Chris, now head of Telkom Kenya’s Enterprise Division, worked at one of Kenya’s biggest Internet providers, AccessKenya, for more than a dozen years, exiting as the Deputy CEO after the firm was acquired by Dimensions Data, a South African firm.

He’s also the Chair of Kenya Network Information Centre (Kenic), the country’s domain registry institution, and also the Kenya Institute of Management Business committee.

Chris considers himself a businessman and sees entrepreneurship as a burgeoning field that Kenyans should embrace as the lack of jobs becomes a towering reality. But first, Kenyans need to re-evaluate their approach to entrepreneurship, he hastens to add.

“The problem is undercapitalisation,” he states, “the second problem is that most entrepreneurs don’t have a unique value proposition. Kenyans do a lot of ‘me too’ businesses.

Joe sets up a shop selling cows, he’s making money, so Jane goes and sets up a shop to sell cows because she expects to make the same money —no change, no value proposition, nothing. We like copy and paste. Also, we don’t ask the necessary questions.

Nobody asks Joe how much money he’s really making from the business. So people assume that the money is from the cow shop. People make assumptions even though they don’t know where Joe’s money comes from.”

Chris too has made mistakes in business. “I have gone into some partnerships without understanding the partners in terms of, ‘Why are they doing what they’re doing,’’’ he stops to measure his words.

“You can go into business with people who have their own reasons for doing business, which are different from yours. There are people who go into the club business, for instance, so that they can walk around saying that I own a club. Me? I always tell people, I don’t own restaurants, I don’t own clubs, I’m an investor.

The purpose of going into business is never about the show; I’m in for the money, somebody else is in for the show.

So the way he will treat the business or act in the business is different from me. I’m looking at matrices, at the top line, at the bottom line, at ratios, at sustainability. For them, they’re looking at, ‘Am I getting to the newspapers’. Are we going to have the same objectives?”

The make-up artist uses a soft brush to brush his forehead. Chris looks strikingly pale. He doesn’t mention that he is a venture capitalist and the founder of Blackrock Capital Investments which has invested mostly in entertainment clubs.

Under their portfolio are clubs like Tribeca, Sky Lounge and Rafikiz in Nairobi. He’s also a partner in Mama Ashanti, the famous West African eatery in Kilimani. Chris also co-owns a mobile app business, Shimba Technologies and a HR and a branding businesses as well.

And this, he says, is what makes him different from other KCB Lions (the judges of the show — Olive Gachara, Darshan Chandaria, Myke Rabar and Wandia Gichuru).

“I think the key differentiator is, one, I still have a job, I’m a pure investor. I’m totally detached from my businesses. I have a team of people who take it up, run with it in terms of legal, financial, operation people and once a month I look at the numbers.

‘‘The second is, I think I’m in more different verticals than these other lions — most of them are specialised and focused. The third thing would be, I’m the real hustler over here and apart from Myke (Rabar) I’ve definitely been in this game longer.”

He’s also been on that makeup chair for too long. But thankfully, he’s now finishing up then they will get back for another 20 or so minutes of recording. It’s a hubbub.

When all the Lions go back to the Den they will be looking for ideas to invest in, well, not Chris. He will be looking for more.

“I’ve invested several times to know that it’s not always about making a profit, not necessarily, but about investing in the person, in the relationship with the entrepreneur for the long term. So several times I’ve done stuff because of the people factor. So I’m very passionate about people.” He’s done.

The towel is removed from his shoulders. He’s dusted up. He’s a tall Lion at full length, great for seeing prey in the vast savanna of business.

Maybe he will invest a lot of money in a business idea he sees in the show, maybe it will be a bad decision, like some business decisions are. But he is unperturbed.

“That’s the fire that burns in my stomach. Every day it pushes me to do more. Have I burnt my fingers before? Several times. There was a sacco company that went bust,” he shakes his head with a smile, “I’ve put my money into people who wanted to do furniture and they got this deal to get timber from Congo and got excited and put all the money into it.

Losing money

‘‘And the trucks got stopped and all of it got locked by cops. And that was it, $20,000 gone, poof!  We got people who were saying; ‘We’re doing fuel, we’re going to export, there’s an arbitrage of fuel if you’re taking it to Mandera’. But it doesn’t come through. So yeah, things happen. If I can afford to lose one million, I can invest it. That’s the general rule, don’t invest money you can’t lose.”

Talking of losing money, what about debts? “Oh, debt is a good thing,’’ he says with a big grin, “because at the end of the day you cannot grow with internally generated funds.

You can access debt from normal banking institutions, saccos, microfinance. You can also access debt from what I call ‘friends, family and fools,’’’ he laughs.

Chris is excited that the show, Lion’s Den, has the potential to make financial institutions understand that they need to find ways of listening to entrepreneurs — to give them finance.

This is over the fact that it will bring up the ecosystem for people like himself who are looking for good businesses to invest in.

“I’ve been doing the investment pretty quiet, it’s been through word of mouth. I think this will give me a steady pipeline of potential businesses to invest in.” Chris is a sucker for management and business books. He eats them up. He’s currently reading The Power of Positive Thinking.

What he doesn’t learn from books, like how to know someone to invest in or partner with, he learns form encounters. He takes them to lunch or dinner.

“There’s a lot you can learn from somebody when you’re seated having your meal...’’

He would love to speak some more but he has to go back into the Lion’s Den. But first I ask him what kind of lion he is (apart from one with a pale powdered face) and he says, “I think I’m a slow and steady lion.

I think I’m a compassionate lion, the lion who has claws and everything but I think I’m also the huggy lion. The nice, fluffy, huggy lion.” He laughs loudly and shakes my hand with a big, firm and warm paw.