Going it alone now a trend but at what cost?

During the Apprentice Africa competition in 2008, Joyce Mbaya made a name for herself. Even after she was ‘fired’, it seemed that her future was safe.

Back at her job with a leading telcoms company, she was a rising star on the fast track to management status. Then, in 2009, she quit.

“I had to make a choice. In the end, I knew that my place was not at the company,” she says.

According to experts, the Kenyan workforce is becoming adventurous. More people are leaving well-paying jobs with great benefits to start their own businesses.

Ms Mbaya chose to forsake a path that seemed to guarantee financial success at one of Africa’s most profitable corporations for an uncertain future at a her own start-up company, Gibébé.

In some circles, what she did would seem nothing short of certifiable insanity. But she was seeking personal fulfilment.

“People are more flexible with employment than they were three decades ago. Today, a job is part of a larger journey. Back then, it was the end of the journey,” says Dr Hazel Gachunga, a human resources professor at the Jomo Kenyatta Institute of Agriculture and Technology.

Modern workers want freedom to fit their lifestyles and a job, not vice-versa. Money seems to be a distant second to this all-encompassing desire to do something they love and appreciate.

The ease with which people can access financial resources is helping to fuel the trend. According to the Financial Access Survey of 2010, 67.2 per cent of Kenyans had access to financial services, formal or otherwise.

This has been complemented by government efforts to extend loans to vulnerable groups at cheap rates, especially the youth and women.

“The young are the greatest risk takers. So when you have them accessing money, you have more independent business ventures,” said Dr Gachunga.

Even with more money available, new entrepreneurs have to perform tricky financial manoeuvres to survive.

When Kariuki Gathitu decided to leave his bank job to start a mobile technology company, he saved almost every penny of his earnings and still had to take odd jobs to support it.

Mr Patrick Wameyo started his business in what he terms to be “the worst financial period of my life”.

After 20 years in the banking industry, he left weighed down by heavy debt that he had to get rid of before he could embark on his new life.