Lawrence Kagema: I Sold All My Personal Items To Start My Real Estate Firm

In 2014, sold all his personal items to start a real estate firm and moved in with a friend.

He was not steered towards business by a particular person or mentor, his inner drive and yearning to venture into business vastly intrigued him. It was something inborn of which he had to develop himself. Kagema is a 25-year-old, self-born and bred entrepreneur born in the coastal town of Mombasa.

With no exposure to an entrepreneurial upbringing or any steering factors, Kagema had always been drawn to the business aspect of life since the very start. He always had an entrepreneurial mind, constantly thinking about businesses and looking for avenues to venture his interest in.

He would read about business, biographies of great entrepreneurs and leaders, their histories, their journeys and interests. For Kagema, there was a fire in his soul that he was unable to contain. The fire was to venture into a business one day.

From as early as class eight, Kagema had already set out as an entrepreneur. Identifying a business opportunity and grasping at it. This was the beginning of his ventures that he did not know would spring into his present-day successes. The hotels in his neighborhood did not have freezers because the minimal electricity only went on when dusk set in. Kagema would buy polythene bags at 5 shillings each, put water in them then place them in the fridge at home overnight allowing them to freeze.

The hotels in his neighborhood did not have freezers because the minimal electricity only went on when dusk set in. Kagema would buy polythene bags at 5 shillings each, put water in them then place them in the fridge at home overnight allowing them to freeze.  They would then freeze into hard blocks of ice which he would deliver to the nearby hotels using his bicycle at a cost of 10 shillings per block of ice.

Learning The Basics

Because of his lack of knowledge in accounting and finance, the boy would spend all his hard-earned cash and not save any. At this stage, he had a    girlfriend of whom he would write down and show his business ideas to. All this worked towards growing his interest in the business.

When he joined high school, Kagema discovered Business Studies. This further perked his interest. He enjoyed and    excelled at it, becoming the best in his class in the subject. Despite all this, all he wanted was to be a doctor.

“Whenever someone asked me what I wanted to be, I’d say a doctor. Because it was something conventional.”

It was only when an Asian man pointed out to the now-teenage boy that medicine required him to be good in more than Business Studies did he realize that   medicine was not his path.

In form two, Kagema already had his business name figured out, he knew ‘Spectacular’ was his trademark. The name spectacular came to his mind and stuck. The seeds of business had finally begun germinating and when he joined a University in Eldoret, his path was set.

He had always been fascinated by property and he would frequent construction sites, speak to the workers, learn from them and even pretend to construct his own structures.

The Hard Nut

In his third year at the University, Kagema made a very controversial decision; He sold all his personal items in order to raise capital for his company registration. This was in 2014 and without an alternative to realizing his passion for business, he had to sell all he owned; bed, gas cylinder, carpet, smartphone and everything else he had in his room. Kagema then moved in with a friend who stayed in the campus hostels, where he resided until he completed his university studies.

The sale of the items fetched him about Ksh. 40, 000, an amount which was only enough to register the company and leave a few coins in balance. With the spare change, Kagema printed fliers to market his         company.

Building a startup for the first time is never easy and it was not either for his new business. After clearing his University education in Eldoret, Kagema had to decide to either fold up his business or relocate with it to Mombasa. Letting go of his few clients in Eldoret was a heartbreaking set back. However, Kagema was determined to explore greater heights.

Scaling Up

It was not a smooth ride for him in Mombasa, but about a year later, his company landed a good deal which was a step in the positive direction.

Kagema had ventured into a series of other projects even while still in University. He experienced a bit of success and even move failures which he chronicles each day in a book. The book, he says, helps him to reflect at things he could have done differently. He puts all down and reflects on these things each day. This helps him grow and become better.

“Property business is a ruthless one with major risks. The industry requires a lot of patience as things do not fall in place in a day. One must be willing to exercise patience and hard work.”

Kagema puts in that despite the fact that employment creates security, most times one has to sacrifice their true passions for security. The fear of financial insecurity causes many young people to settle for less and become comfortable while living short of their full potential.

“Young people have fluid minds that should be utilized before the currents of life sweep them over.”

As a company owner of a successful property firm, Kagema stresses that with the right drive, anyone can realize their dreams and live to their maximum potential.