How Eugene Mbugua’s Relentless Pursuits Creates Award-Winning TV Shows

This story appear as the Cover Story for Inversk’s August 2020 Edition. Get your FREE copy here.

With a vision to create wealth and empower his local community, Eugene Mbugua has always believed it can only be done through steady growth and stability.

While the focus can’t solely be on income when it comes to business, Mbugua admits that there must be a balance between income and impact on society. He believes that the key drivers to his businesses, is his team of 30 and tens of his clients, they must all share in the success of the company.

At 29, he is a man who wears many hats, he is a content creator, writer, producer, director, the MD of Documentary and Reality TV (formerly known as Young Rich Tv), the Managing Director of Nairobi’s Number 7 club and a farmer.

At a tender age of 23, in 2014, he was featured on Business Daily’s Top 40 under 40 and went further in 2017 to be recognized as the Top 30 Promising Young Entrepreneurs in Africa by Forbes Magazine. A year later, he was one of the two Kenyans to make it to the cover of Forbes Africa for Top 30 under 30.

His production company (Documentary and Reality Tv) is credited for producing top shows for major media houses in Kenya; Young Rich, Get in the Kitchen, Our Perfect Wedding, Foods of Kenya, Being Bahati and most recently Concert Nyumbani as well as the Sol Family, a reality show by the musical band Sauti Sol which is exclusively airing every Sunday on Maisha Magic plus since on the 2nd of August 2020.

To Mbugua, “patience has been very instrumental” for his success, he told Inversk, adding that “a lot of people get into business thinking there’s a formula to success and in most cases, there is not.”

Creative, innovative, ambitious and bold risk-taker are just some of the qualities that define him. When it comes to risk-taking, he is as bold as any entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.

In his early pursuits, he lost money in many ventures such as travel consultancy that failed, he never lost hope. He loves to tell a story of how he and one of his friends started a production company to train students on film with basically no equipment, premises or manpower. However, they managed to pull it off after a period of rejection to run the show for three years.

“There is no secret in making it as an entrepreneur.” He told Inversk’s Kimani Patrick in an interview. “It is the good old attributes of hard work, ambition, and networking and the relentless pursuit of singular goals. I have inculcated hard work into my work routine. I am also always seeking to partner with people in fields where I am not very able and try to always be honest. Being honest in business ultimately gives you the score of reliability, which is a key character of the most successful entrepreneurs. Also, you will go far if you form the right business partnerships with people who can lend help in areas where you are not as talented.”

If you’re building a business and think that “something will happen in a year it will probably take three. Nobody tells you that it’s all about managing expectations. I learned how to negotiate better, and about giving value in my work. Sometimes you only get one shot, and when you are poor you never waste any opportunity because it might be the only one you get for a long time. So from early on, I ingrained self-discipline as part of my character. I showed up on time and gave my best. I do that do date. Of course, some situations may be out of my control but I am a stickler for time.”

While not new to success, Mbugua keeps adding feathers to his already decorated cap. On July 19 2020, he made history with Concert Nyumbani, a show that aired across 11 Kenyan TV stations as well as in all major social media platforms consecutively. This made it Kenya’s biggest entertainment show ever hosted.

His journey is also one for the ages and a classic grass to grace story, arising from an idea got while trekking to work due to lack of bus fare to become one of the most celebrated production companies in Kenya.

In 2009, in his usual go-getter attitude, Mbugua was a part-time student at the United States International University (USIU) and at the same time a tutor at Makini School. It was during this period Young Rich was the idea was hatched.

The actualization of an idea is mostly never easy as not many people tend to believe in it and Mbugua’s was no different. He had to pitch the idea to many media houses before it was finally picked up by K24 in 2013, after two years of trying.

Doors opened for him and he became Kenya’s youngest producer at 22, making close to KSh 1 Million a month and ultimately becoming one of the youngest millionaires in Kenya. Better still, he graduated with a degree in Television and Print Media from USIU the next day after his first show aired. The show would go on to run for nine seasons and 100+ episodes.

For someone who had to grow in poverty and worked as a boom holder for a year after high school, this is no mean feat, it’s inspiring on so many levels.

Mbugua narrated to Inversk how he would lack while residing in Roysambu during his school days. “I remember I used to have no curtains, I used to cover my windows with newspapers.” He says.

Even when he did not have a lot of money, he was still able to utilize the entrepreneur in him and started a movie shop and a videogame arcade to supplement his income. It underlines how far Mbugua had come until his first show Young Rich aired.

Our man did not stop there, two years later in 2015, he produced another major show called “Get In The Kitchen” where men who can’t cook got training from experienced chefs to surprise their family and friends, airing over 140 episodes in both K24 and KTN.

Under his impressive collection is the Our Perfect Wedding show that airs on Maisha Magic, which went on to win the Best Reality Show at Kalasha Awards 2019. This would add to the Best Editor award he won in 2014 Kalashas for his
work in Child for Hire.

Mbugua would go on to have major shows across leading media houses in Kenya, start a company employing over 50 people (now scaled down to 30 dues to coronavirus challenges) and recently go international where he is airing shows in India, South Africa and the USA.

His star is only brightening with the upcoming reality show of one of the leading band in Africa, Sauti Sol, with whom they have partnered to create a docu-reality show named Sol Family.

The twists and turns in Mbugua’s intriguing life are endless, probably enough to make a film, however his hard work, dedication and friends helped him pull through difficult periods for instance when he battled depression in 2014. He says that most of his ventures are jointly undertaken with friends who together make them successful.

This is how Mbugua found himself venturing into other businesses, stressing the importance of friends as well as diversification. According to him, the value of innovation cannot be underestimated, “it is what separates successful businesses from those that go under.”

Mbugua continues to dream big as he has ventured into other forms of business. “I’ve realized that innovation is the key differentiator between sustainable companies and those that go under.” Mbugua created a publishing business called My Yearbook Kenya Ltd, which publishes yearbooks for schools, companies and governments.

His success in diversification did not come without a measure of challenges, he had to close one of the Number 7 bar branches a few months after starting. He says that being new to business saw him face difficulties in marketing the new ventures. He has also invested in beef farming after him and his friend, Victor Kagema, realized that Kenya often does not make its quota for beef. To meet this demand, they decided to join the industry to improve Kenya’s standard.

Before joining his three partners to pool resources and purchase a tractor for tilling services, he had tried bean farming in 2014 on a two-acre farm in Njoro with Ksh 100,000 capital but ended up making a loss of Ksh 40, 000.

This losses, however, he says, taught him the value of friends as well as the need to carry a post mortem of a business when losses occur to determine where the mistake happened to correct and learn.

Venturing into the retail space has been one of the biggest challenges he has encountered. He did this through the Number7 chain of bars and car washes. Mbugua says that he remembers the business closing one of its branches a few months after getting launched.

While he did not consider the retail venture a mistake, “going retail came with a lot of challenges especially in their marketing and pilferage. Being new in the business, I have lost some money but the lessons have been more valuable than the money lost. Nevertheless, the loss was very disheartening. But over time, I have learned to carry out a thorough post-mortem of the business whenever a loss occurs in order to identify and correct what has gone wrong.”

His life philosophy is best captured in tattoo in his arm, “Life is just employer, He gives you what you ask, but once you have set the wages, you must bear the task. I have worked for a menial’s hire, only to learn dismayed, that any wage I had asked of life, life would have willingly paid.”

It is through this that he encourages everyone to change their perspective on the emphasis placed on monetary value, especially in an era where everyone’s focus is to make millions and replace it with aspirations to achieve happiness. Mbugua also urges people to be true to themselves and strongly believe in whatever they do, even if at times it means going against society.

Mbugua advises young people to strive to make their path in life as success stories are hardly similar and not use money as a measure of success. “So follow your path and stick to what you are doing, what works for me may not work for you. Success is not all about money.”

Work with no play and fun makes anyone dull, Mbugua knows how to balance business and pleasure. He is well travelled globally, visiting historic places in France, Italy, United States, and Norway among many others. He is also a fitness enthusiast, using it to wind up and remain fit. He insists that it necessary to maintain a healthy social life, he maintains a group of friends and lives with two dogs, Ziggy and Suki. “Even when I was starting Young Rich, I was alone. I would shoot all day, edit all night and still find time meet up with friends,” He says.

Mbugua echoes the essential principle of everyone winning when you win the right way as he attributes his success to sheer hard work, reading culture and believing in shared growth. “I am a strong believer in shared success. Any business that I get into, I strive to ensure that I win, my investors win, our employees win and most importantly our customers do too.”

Interview done by Kimani Patrick, story by Christabel Airo and Philip Mwangi, Edited by Kimani Patrick.