Growth of start-ups key in Kenya’s technopolis

As Kenya tries to stake its claim as “where the Silicon Savannah begins”, this reality will only be achieved when there is a high number of successful and profitable companies offering services to both local and international markets.

In business, there is high start-up failure due to a number of factors ranging but not limited to financing, poor execution, poor market identification, business processes, non-effective marketing and poor customer service.

In the business of technology, the death rate tend to go up since new companies are more often than not started by young entrepreneurs who have not spent time in the trenches and lack the experience element, that while not really necessary, would provide the edge and increase possibility of success by many percentage points.

Targeted efforts to mitigate all the causes of start-up mortality in the technology sector are a welcome relief.

Hubs, labs and co-shared spaces continue to open with the recent addition to this being the Start-up Garage; a co-working space that will be used for an accelerator programme run by the team at 88mph, who also under the HumanIPO stable, have run two 48-hour investment boot camps dubbed IPO 48.

Pivot East, an initiative by the Mlab and a follow-up to Pivot 25 - a regional mobile developer competition, is also on course with expected output of innovative ideas that gaining access to resources that may include incubation to see them through what is usually an intense start-up period.

This buzz has also attracted international attention with Start-up Weekend — a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities, running an event locally in partnership with the Nailab.

Networking opportunities

In a “no talk, all action” event Start-up Weekend Nairobi is looking to bring people from different disciplines to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch start-ups within 54 hours beginning Thursday.

The out of class education that start-up founders get from these initiatives, the networking opportunities, exposure to resources and in some instances funding, only brings us closer to realising that Silicon Savannah dream.

The key thing that these initiatives are doing, is bringing people together and allowing synergies to be realised and partnerships formed. Innovation is truly more about people and ideas and less about infrastructure.

Mbugua is CEO of Symbiotic.
Twitter: @mbuguanjihia
Web: www.mbuguanjihia.com