You call it ice cream, I call it a popsicle. Let's call the thing JuICE

Well today was the first day our micro-enterprise hit the streets. We don't have a name yet but the partnership is between myself and Alex Ambani. It all started with Alex pulling me out of the path of a wayward truck.  In return, I've helped him look for work - he's trying to put his sisters living in western Kenya through secondary school. Having no luck, I offered to help him start a business that we could do together until he could "buy me out" - which we've found works better than just gifting the money or giving a loan outside a membership in savings group.

With that background...Alex and his cousin went out this morning to test the market with 15 popsicles we made from juice. They returned with all sold. The only problem is they were forced to sell them barely above cost due to a competing product selling for one third our intended selling price. Our product was superior, but with cost conscious customers they preferred price over quality. This evening, we regrouped and decided to reduce the size of our popsicles to the competition's size but keep the orange flavor strong and sweet.  This way each unit is significantly less which will increase our margins at this lower selling price.  We hope to get the right product at the right price and then begin engaging others to sell the iced juice.  I'll keep you updated but feel free to give suggestions in the comments.  

Marketing Seminars

This is another post appealing to my extremely intelligent and experienced friends and family members nice enough to check in on this blog.  Our largest business group, Gitithia Rural Agrofinance Group, has organized branch meetings once every other month for its 2,500 members.  Members are organized into smaller groups called cell groups that meet monthly for fellowship, peer mentoring, and guarantying each other's loans.  

These bimonthly branch meetings are used to keep members updated on the business group and are an opportunity to train small business owners.  The high unemployment in Kenya has a huge effect on the makeup of businesspeople.  Because there are no jobs, many people have no choice other than entrepreneurship.  They would otherwise be content to work for someone else because they lack the education, an entrepreneurial spirit, and the finances to start and run successful businesses.  This isn't always the case though.

All this to say, we are going to be putting on marketing seminars following the branch meetings next month.  If you have any ideas about what we should include, please leave your ideas in the comments section.