Exploit your past successes to set up thriving ventures
Slim Therapy owner Elizabeth Simiyu during a 2014 interview in Nairobi. She started her company following weight gain problems. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
Your past experiences and success are gold mines waiting to be mined.
Last week in this column we saw how you can get business ideas from a bad experience. Today we get inspiration from one lady I am greatly impressed with. She is one of the most successful start-up entrepreneurs in Kenya.
In 2014, she was nominated as one of the Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 Women.
Her name is Elizabeth Simiyu-Bisher, the founder and CEO of Slim Therapy Limited.
The most interesting part of her entrepreneurial journey is that it was sparked off by her own experience or challenge.
It all started in 2009 after giving birth. She gained 13 kilogrammes - something that happens with most women. In her own words, “In six to 10 months, my weight jumped from 62 to 75 kilos. I wondered how to shed it and go back to my pre-pregnancy body.”
She tried exercises, wearing slimming belts and diets without success. She then tried electrotherapy – a weight loss and muscle toning electronic procedure. “It worked wonders. I lost all the extra fat that I’d gained within a few weeks.” she said.
This single breakthrough in her struggle to lose weight sowed an entrepreneurial seed in her. She thought of many people who were in her predicament and saw a chance to help them solve their woes and to make money in a meaningful way.
This marked the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey from employment to business and culminated in the birth of Slim Therapy Limited, a company that offers electrotherapy slimming solutions based in Westlands, Nairobi.
All successful enterprises are based on solving an existing problem in the society. Therefore if you can solve a particular problem that affects many people and they are willing to pay you for it, you can turn it into business.
Turning your experience into a business, makes passion, which is a critical component of entrepreneurial success in any undertaking.
Furthermore, you look more confident and persuasive when you share something you have experienced.
The most fortunate thing about life is that almost all of us have a story to tell. Anyone who has gone through some struggles in life or failures and emerged successful has a story to tell.
The unfortunate thing is some of us choose to tell the story of others. The desire to do what other people who seem successful are doing generates mediocre imitators and copycats in the market.
You can turn your past journey and experiences into a successful business venture. You can chose to use different forms of teaching others how to duplicate your success in a particular field, or simply share your life experiences with others to entertain them.
The motivation industry, which generates billions of shillings annually, is founded on sharing experiences with others and showing them how they can walk the path you have walked and reach where you are and beyond.
The stories of, ‘from rugs to riches’ are always best sellers whether written or told from horse’s mouth.
Robert Kiyosaki the author of the popular ‘‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’’ and other books made most of his money by ‘writing or rather sharing with others’ how he made money. This applies to all other successful writes in this field as well.
Quite remarkable, most successful motivational speakers as well as writers are the ones that share their experiences with others. It is more authentic and practical to learn from someone who is experienced and has a track record than from a person basing his thesis on theoretical research.
Your past experiences and success are gold mines waiting to be mined.
