WOMAN OF PASSION: A passion for play

“Three years ago, I was watching children playing at a party when it hit me that I always saw bouncing castles and face painting at all children’s parties.

Children were always jumping, never climbing or crawling through tunnels. Play was not interactive,” Jigna Parmar recalls the moment that a business idea took root in her mind.

At the time, she had been working as an IT expert with a regional firm for five years. She holds a science degree from Kenyatta University and she was enjoying her demading IT career.

“The field is male dominated and demading. I enjoyed the adrenaline and the challenge,” she says.

Jigna, who is yet to get married and have children of her own, enjoys the company of children. Every chance she gets, she has always liked having her nephews and nieces around but after this light bulb moment, she began paying close attention to their play habits. Variety was lacking.

The outdoor play items available did not accommodate toddlers.

The children needed a wholesome approach to play. Something needed to be done.

 GETTING OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE

In January 2012, she began researching the trends in the children’s entertainment business as well as looking into suppliers of the equipment. All this while, she intended to set up a children’s entertainment company as a side hustle alongside her career.

“Six months later, when I had all the information that I needed, I realised that I couldn’t start a business on the side.

My day job, which had me working 10 to 12 hours a day couldn’t let me. Also, I knew that to really grow my newly found passion, I needed to step out of my comfort zone,” she says.

In June 2012, armed only with a vivid vision of the company she wanted to build, she walked out of her job. The same month, she collected her savings and imported four pieces of play equipment which included a slide, a carterpillar tunnel, a ball pool and a climbing frame, all made from plastic.

“When I announced that I had quit my job to start a business, my family wondered about whether I was taking the right step but they were supportive.”

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

She had gathered all the information she thought she needed and she now had the equipment. But she knew nobody else in the industry. She had re-arranged her life and jumped right into the deep end with nobody to hold her hand.

“It was scary,” she recalls.

Her first challenge was to get other players in the entertainment industry to partner with her for events. She tried going up to a few large corporations but while they listened to her, the response was mostly apprehension. After a few failed attempts, she got someone to give her some space where she set up her play equipment and opened the little gates to the children for a day at no charge. Here, Jigna met her first client.

A week later, she hosted her first children’s event and it was a huge success. Slowly, word started getting around. At first, many parents were anxious about the safety of the equipment but the children loved it.

“So many children are spending their days indoors staring at screens. I want to get them out of the house. With my fully mobile play equipment hire service, I give parents the flexibility of having the options of hosting an event at home or at a hired venue,” she explains.

In a good month, she hosts up to 10 events. She didn’t get here overnight. After that first event, progress was slower than she had thought. When things got so bad, she would take up IT consulting jobs on the side to keep her business afloat.

She was working from home and doing all the activities ranging from accounting to marketing by herself when she started out.

Having started the business from scratch, she didn’t feel as if she could trust another person to take good care of it. All the activity however started getting to her, leaving her drained and distracted from her passion. In 2013, she acquired a team to help her run her business.

 In 2014, she saw a gap in the market and expanded her business to include importing play equipment for sale. To enable children from less fortunate backgrounds to also experience wholesome play, she hires her equipment at a minimal fee for those wishing to sponsor these children. “I wish we had more permanent play grounds away from the malls where the children can have interactive play,” she says.

The best thing about working with children, she says, is that when a child is happy, they show open appreciation. This is all the heartening she needs to get up each morning.

HOW SHE DID IT:

• Her business is seasonal. She has learnt to spread her income through the year.
• She stayed dedicated. Even when she started doing consultancy on the side, she never got her mind off her business.
• She reinvests in her business.