We need novel ideas that significantly IMPROVE lives 

Catherine Mahugu, 27, is the co-founder of rising fashion brand, Soko. Soko, meaning ‘market’ in Swahili, is an e-commerce website that markets Kenyan jewellery and fashion accessories in the international market.

 Catherine adorns numerous accolades; a 2016 Forbes 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneur, 2015 Forbes Africa’s “Most promising Young Entrepreneur”, one of Kenya’s top 5 females under 40, BBCs Top 30 under 30, 2015, top upcoming tech women in Kenya to watch, 2014, and at the St. Gallen’s 44th Symposium in Switzerland, she was selected “Leader of Tomorrow”. She is also one of World Bank’s top 11 inspirational women.

Catherine was always interested in science and loved physics, and hoped to become an engineer like her father.

The year before she got her Joint Admission Board (JAB) letter to University, Catherine worked at a bank, where she learnt about finance and how the machinery of corporate organisations works. 

“The work experience gave me great insight of where I wanted to be once I completed my education,” she says.

And so she chose Computer Science, because “it is innovative, and you can teach yourself.”

Catherine made it a discipline to work at different organisations during holidays, to get further work experience and knowledge in various fields. Meanwhile, she steadily found herself having a bias toward ICT (Information Communication Technology) for development through mobile applications. 

“It hit me that entrepreneurship could be a viable career, instead of getting employed like most graduates,” Catherine observes.

Through the University of Nairobi’s partnership program with Nokia, the international Technology firm, and Stanford University in the United States, Catherine produced several functional mobile solutions with her colleagues.

One of them was M-Maji, a mobile application which assisted water vendors in informal settlements to advertise their location. There was also KamataKab, that allowed users to hail a cab to their location.

“I think it was too early to implement the idea then,” She says of the KamataKab app, which was similar to Uber and Easy Taxi. Catherine further built another application to assist the visually impaired to use their mobile phones more extensively.

WINNING PROJECT

In 2010, she met her co-founders, Ella Peinovich and Gwendolyn Floyd at an ‘ICT for development’ workshop in Nairobi. As they got to know one another, the ladies realised they shared the same interest in using mobile technology to assist entrepreneurs grow their business.

A visit to the Maasai Market and conversations with artisans opened Catherine and her team’s eyes, to a possible solution to the artisans’ woes. 

“Some [artisans] would sit the whole day yet sell nothing and still be required to pay the city council.”

The team believed they could come up with a solution to this, and they began to create prototypes for the ideal application. After months of revisions, they finally got the right prototype and began to apply to various startup competitions in search of funding for their project, then called Sasa Africa.

In 2012, they applied for a business plan competition at Rice University in the US. The team was shortlisted and Catherine had the opportunity to pitch their business idea to potential investors, winning a grant of Sh2.6 Million (USD26, 250). This was a boost to an earlier grant of Sh1.01 Million (USD 10,000), she won at the Technology Prize for Global Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition (UW GSEC) sponsored by Microsoft®.  

In 2013, Soko won the Young Entrepreneur’s startup of the month and received an undisclosed amount from Rio Technology Partners and other angel investors to expand across Africa and Latin America.

Soko has since run pilot projects in Mexico and India as they seek a suitable business model for artisans in those regions.

Th company now has a staff of 40 based in Kenya and the US, and works with close to 1,000 artisans, most of whom are from informal settlements across Nairobi, with a few residing outside of the capital and also from Ethiopia.

Catherine says that artisans with Soko earn up to four times what they would normally earn, thanks to more exposure for their products.

“We have artisans who can produce up to a thousand products a week. If we get an order of 7,000 items, we are comfortably able to deliver within a month.”

The firm has partnered with the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women (UNTF) to support physical and financial safety of women in developing countries – it has created bracelets for this campaign, which now has Brazilian Supermodel, Gisele Bündchen as the brand ambassador. This has seen Soko accessories and jewelry on some local fashion events in London, Germany and the US.

In November 2015, Soko also partnered with Pencils of Promise, a US-based nonprofit that builds schools across Asia and Africa. Through this partnership, Soko has created a dedicated collection of products with 20 per cent of sales on the collection going toward global education programs.

Over the last year, the company has partnered with large global brands and fashion retail stores to broaden access of their products globally.

Some of these brands and stores include, Anthropologie, Forever21, Nordstrom’s, Fossil and TJ Maxx from the US, Beymen from Turkey, Nano Universe from Japan, and Jaeger from the UK.

Catherine’s intention is that Soko competes with international fashion brands like Dolce & Gabbana and Chanel.

“Something fantastic and of high quality can come out of Africa. That is the story we want to tell.”

She further believes that local artisans, given the same opportunity, can participate at the same international level of trade. And the numbers do prove that. Since Soko’s inception in 2012, it has raised Sh65.5 million revenue for local artisans.

“We want Soko to be right up there with other renowned international brands. It is Africa’s time to take the spotlight.”

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Quick facts

Name: Catherine Mahugu

Age: 27

Company: Soko

Institution: University of Nairobi

Course: Computer Science

Employees: 40

Position: Co-founder, Soko