He was about to be kicked out of his house for rent arrears but came up with a brilliant make money idea at the last minute (true story from Nairobi)

How a single ingenious make money idea saved a man and his family from going down. Adrenalin caused by fear can do wonders...

This is an absolutely amazing Kenyan story. There are those who believe that if a story is not political or about relationships and sex it can never be exciting. Well maybe after you listen to this amazing real life Kenyan story you'll change your mind. 

This guy was fired from his job and you know sometimes it takes time for these things and generally bad news to sink in; complete with the consequences that are bound to follow.

And so after he was fired he was at first confident that all those people had been talking to him about all manner of consultancy jobs and things that he could do for them would come through.

And so after a stint of sticking to positive thinking, he woke up to reality to find himself in a very big mess. His house rent hadn't been paid for three months, his kids were at home (school fees arrears), and even his electricity had been disconnected.

This man was in very serious financial problems because he had borrowed all the money he could from sympathetic friends and relatives.

The reality that he needed money--a lot of it and very fast hit him and hit him very hard. He could see that he was sinking way too fast and another week of this and he would be on the streets with his family (including his small children).

Now most people don't know this but fear and especially adrenaline are very helpful because they get you thinking fast and chances are that you could come up with very ingenious ideas. The fear and adrenalin can even cause you to achieve "impossible" stuff.

This man's skills were in journalism and writing and he also had lots of marketing experience (especially from his last job where he had been fired). The truth is that he hadn't gone to school for those skills but he had tons of experience out there. And so he came up with this idea to dive into the gutter press industry in Nairobi.

At that time the emerging gutter press in Nairobi was an 8-page A4 publication with big headlines and catchy stories selling at Kshs 20 per copy. He decided to sell his new publication at Kshs 20.

We shall not go into a lot of the technical details but maybe briefly; he managed to do everything on his laptop computer. You know computers can be very wonderful and useful gadgets, especially in an emergency like the one this man was facing. He got his publication printed somewhere on River Road, down town Nairobi CBD.

And he had a very good idea of how he was going to sell it. His calculations carefully calculations showed him that if he sold out the 10,000 copies he had printed he would be left with a cool Kshs 100,000. That would be than adequate to save him.

His ingenoius idea for selling were the miniature copy of the magazine which was actually a small flyer. The plan was to approach the potential buyer with this flyer. They would look at it and get enticed to purchase his publication. 

And so he rushed out here to make his quick Kshs 100,000. BUT it never happened. He returned home that evening having not sold a single copy of his newspaper. His plan had failed miserably.

He was devasted, but he picked himself up next morning and went out again. Now the previous day he had gone to the Kibera slums knowing that it was the place where he could find very many people concentrated in one area.

His flyers had run out very fast but he realized those Kenyans hardly had any money on them, not even a meagre ten shillings to spare. So that's why he had sold nothing.

Pictures of him begging on the streets of Nairobi with his kids flashed through his mind and cold fear swept through his body and the inevitable adrenalin that gave him that sick feeling at the pit of his stomach.

He decided to give this thing one last try. Failure was really not an option here.

Now in those days we used to have what is called the Central Bus station in Nairobi. It was situated along Hakati Road. And there were always thousands of Nairobians milling around the place at virtually any time of the day. 

To his utter joy his publication started going like the proverbial hotcakes. But not without a few challenges like the City council (Kanju) askaris who classified him in the category of a hawker. Hawking was of course NOT allowed within the CBD. Combating with that and the other challenges, in three days he had his 100k. He had sold out his publication. He rushed back to River Road for a re-print of more copies. 

Within a matter of days, life in his house had completely changed. The kids from back in school and his landlord was pleasantly surprised and had to call off the auctioneers he had already started preparing for him.

He ended up employing a team of young students to help him sell and at the height of this business the man was raking in between Kshs 60,000 and Kshs 80,000 daily (after expenses). Which was an absolute fortune in the late 90s.

A brilliant idea that was well executed got this Kenyan out of very deep trouble.

Proving yet again that it is indeed true that ideas are money. If you get the right one that is. I think that has to be the big moral of this story. Where to get over 101 unique, brilliant ideas each idea with ingenious ideas on how to get customers right away.

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