Jodie’s Boost
For the past few weeks, I’ve had this energy boost to get things done.
The first of the extreme things was deciding to just go for it, and rent the place next to the office. I did bargain it down, and no, it still isn’t that great of a deal, but it brings all my employees within arm’s reach, allowing me to use our second room of our office as room for more employees (as well as a private room from which I can conduct business). As for the new space, it provides storage, work and living space just next door. I am particularly excited by this because it has a lot of small luxuries which I’ll love…tiled bathroom, outdoor kitchen (yes, it’s weird), western toilet, hot shower and basically can serve as a guest space for future employees. I only asked for the place until January of next year, where then I am hoping we will have ordered a container of shellers and bought land on which to store it and build a new place for work, marking the end of our rental days and leaving our only major expense the car fuel we need to run operations.
The second of extreme things was sending Philemon to Karatu on less than 24 hours notice because we were invited to present at World Vision’s annual meeting. As their meeting was over 100km away and not in an easily accessible place, we rented a friend’s car and drove their straight away. And because it didn’t make sense just to go there for a meeting, we turned it into a field trip for Philemon where he also went to set up dealers. Philemon returned the second day with an order for 35 shellers, and the following week, we delivered it in a compact car. The need for a car became absolutely imperative, and so I presented to the board and leaving the decision to me, I ordered a used Land Rover straight from Japan. It will be here in two weeks.
And then I guess you can say things have been falling in place. After Daniel and Reuben’s trip south, I re-engaged TFA, and in essence, TFA has become my second office, going there for multiple meetings to develop terms of trade, marketing strategy, etc. With this movement, I did the last of “extreme” things. I found a box manufacturer in town, found a plastics supplier, and now we have all the professional packaging we need to send our products around the world. I hadn’t done this before as I didn’t feel it was necessary, but now that we’ll be sending 130 sheller kits over to TFA branches in Mbozi, Mbeya, and Iringa, I realized it wasn’t going to happen unless we worked out that details, and so now there’s 1000 boxes with GCS’ logo and contact info coming our way. We’ll be leaving for southern Tanzania in a week.
Also, East African Community passed a law for free trade across East Africa, which will take effect July 1st. This is particularly exciting as we can conduct across borders without taxation. Already, we have been contacted by an agricultural implements distributor from Kenya, who personally came from Nairobi to meet me and purchase a sample, and now we are working through a distribution agreement.
As for hiring, let’s just say I’m starting the interview process. There’s a lot of things in the works, and I can’t wait to see what happens. Plus, to be named by BusinessWeek as one of America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs was really exciting. And to close the first round of investment over $200K has been a weight off my back! And, Bernard is in Zambia right now working with Amy Smith from D-Lab on a Pedal-Powered Pavilion with Peace Corps. It should be exciting.
Well, that’s most of my updates from Tanzania. I’m busy as ever, but loving it all the same. Oh, and pretty cool, but it looks like I’ve made some new friends from Volunteer Service Abroad…the New Zealand version of Peace Corps. It’s been fun as there’s like six volunteers here in Arusha for the long term (the next two years).
Jodie | Tanzania
South to North
A lot has happened over the past month. I arrived in Sumbawanga in southern Tanzania on Tuesday, May 18th to join CNFA on a field day demonstration. We spent the first few days making arrangements in preparation for Friday’s demonstration. On Friday we arrived to the site, a large field in Malonje Village, and got to work assembling the sheller. Allam, my CNFA contact, had previously informed the villagers that I needed a Phoenix brand bicycle, and they had two waiting for me. I immediately ran into difficulties with the first bike because it had an aftermarket rear rack which was too long for the sheller to fit on. Luckily, Malonje had an abundance of Phoenix bikes and we went through 3 more before finding one that worked. After installing the sheller, we moved it onto a tarp where a group of villagers were eagerly waiting. The demonstration went over fantastically and we shelled half a sack of maize with plenty of audience participation. Once we finished, a group of villagers gave us a wonderful ‘thank you’ musical celebration full of song and dance. It was a great ending to the day.
Daniel at Unreasonable Institute (Part 1)
After 18 months in East Africa, I’m back in the states for the first time. I had a quick visit with my family before heading to Boulder, Colorado for the Unreasonable Institute, which is working on business incubation for social entrepreneurs.
It kicked off on May 30 and has been action-packed since then. There are 22 fellows in the area from all different regions and sectors sharing ideas and working to support one another. On a typical day, there are workshops, office hours with mentors and open group sessions. I’ve pitched the venture to public audiences twice and received some really positive feedback and made some useful contacts.
We had a really interesting session on company structure with Joy Anderson from Criterion Ventures. I had a great conversation with Paul Polak from Windhorse International (formerly he founded International Development Enterprises, which has a presence in eleven countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America) about the direction of the company and how to successfully grow. Ross Baird from Gray Ghost Ventures gave a great session about investment in social enterprises. And I sat down with Lindsay Clinton from Intellecap about how we can make better use of our social media (keep your eyes open for improvements in the coming weeks).
Most importantly, I’ve sat down with other Unreasonable Fellows working in Africa to establish relationships and plan how we can best collaborate. We’ve had both one-on-one sessions and whole group sessions. Maria Springer from Kito International works with street youth in Nairobi and wants to work with us on finding opportunities for them as salespeople. Pierre Bataille from APAID works on strategies for empowering the physically disabled in eastern Africa and is interested in attaching some of our products to wheelchairs. Raina Kumra from Light Up Malawi has a lot of contacts throughout Malawi and has given us a really good perspective on the business climate there. Ben Lyon from Frontline:SMS Credit is working on mobile banking and is going to be a great resource for figuring out financing schemes for our customers. We’re also eagerly awaiting the arrival of Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu from The Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio to discuss ways of using media on the ground to reach more customers.
I will be here for another 3.5 weeks, and I’m really excited about where things are going 
Daniel | Boulder, USA
Leaving East Africa
Well, after my whirlwind tour of southern Tanzania, I had to rush back to the office in Arusha. I was hastily catching up on tasks that I had fallen behind on while I was out in the field. Then, as soon as that was all finished, I had to set a whole bunch of tasks in place before heading back to the states.
Now, getting back to the United States is really exciting for me, though I’m a little disappointed in my motives. Sure, family and friends are a big part of the draw. But so is high speed internet. I have a few research projects that I will be undertaking while I have constant electrical supplies and much greater bandwidth so that we can expand our connections and our knowledge of the market. And I’m really excited about the imminent new perspective I can gain from looking at our work from a greater distance.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back in Arusha, I was tying up a series of loose ends (I got all the ones I needed for work). The most important one was to meet with the Tanganyika Farmers’ Association (TFA) head office about bringing them on board as distributors. I decided to make an unscheduled visit to the office, and I’m really glad that I did. When I explained who I was and what our company does, they seemed uninterested and were probably about to show me the door. Then I jumped in and explained to them how excited their branch managers were (I even included a few testimonials from different branches) and they invited me back to the chair. We talked a bit and are about to begin negotiating terms. I was really glad that I had visited 5 shops and formed relationships with the branch managers at each one. I’m really excited about where this is heading with TFA.
The day before my flight, I went to Nairobi to take care of some business. I met with a businessman who is very interested in our work and had a long conversation with him. Then I visited a few of our manufacturers who produce parts for our bicycle powered phone charger. In the afternoon, I visited the Peace Corps Kenya office and talked with some staff there. They were really excited about including our maize sheller in their upcoming training for Small Enterprise Development volunteers and some of the staff seemed interested in machines for personal use. I also tracked down some of the volunteers in the program and they were blown away by the video of our technology. We are in the process of figuring out how we can sell to all these customers who want to introduce our design to their communities. It’s a really exciting time and really hard to leave.
Daniel | Kenya
