Kyalo, Gathii and Their Koncepts

There are many articles and books that pop up on a simple online search on how to critically choose a business partner.

While it is obvious teaming up with unemployed fresh college graduate is not a consideration, the risk is even bigger when the starting capital is a borrowed Ksh 1,500 and the first dive into a mega corporate agreement delivers a Ksh 400,000 loss.

This is exactly how Cephas Gathii and David Kyalo started. Their story featured on Inversk Magazine cover of the August – September 2019 edition. Head on to this link here to start reading the magazine now.

A mutual call to meet up in Thika town was a determined move to deal with the giant of unemployment for David Kyalo a 29 years old Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management Degree holder from Moi University, and Cephas Gathii, a 28 years old computer science and mathematics graduate from Jomo Kenyatta University of Technology and Science.

The two are the founders of Koncepts and Events who meet back in 2004 in Thika High School but it was not until there was a need that they synergized to earn a living and survive the high cost of living.

The duo started off with an IT company, Afrique Ventures, which majored in developing websites for schools and other small businesses. When not developing websites for their clients they would walk around Nairobi city seeking to find   anyone who was in need of business cards and company logos so they could design for a small fee.

“We could to sit at the Kenyatta University food court and help ourselves with the campus Wi-Fi to run our business,” says Mr. Gathii.

The business however conceived and bore a company for concepts and events development for products and organizations when they visited a prospective client and though their request to design a website for them took a rain check and they left with a better deal; to plan a kid’s festival.

Inversk Magazine Cover ( (Issue 1 – August/September 2019

Smart or Hard Workers?

“If you are working hard and smart at the same time that is a double-edged sword,” states Mr. Kyalo the CEO of Koncepts and Events who was listed on the Top 40 under 40 men list in 2016. Mr. Kyalo says that in their business they are on toes to work hard smart and hard to outsmart competitors and changes in the technology sector.

Yet, at the on onset of the business partnership the pair was marked with hard but not smart results as they lost close to 400,000KSH after they executed the kid’s festival as demanded by their client -a huge corporate business in Nairobi.

It was after the well-attended sponsored event that they realized that the sponsored event was not to pay back the money they had borrowed from friends to organize the event leave alone yield profit. The grand mistake was as a result of communications which were done on Email ignoring the signing of the deal which required a written and contract.

“Our mistake was our big break and our major retainers came from this event.” Points out Kyalo

Having been classmates in High School and even participating in the competitive Science Congress Contexts as a team while in form three and emerged third at Provincial level, the team eyed for a bigger price as a reward for cutting ties was at zero guarantee.

The hard work applied on the well planned and executed open to public kid’s festival, had a ripple effect on the market earning them referrals and attracting clients of all cadres including World Bank, Mountain Mall, Garden city among others. Through these events they were able to pay back the borrowed money and made to a near KSH5 million turn over in the 2015/2016 fiscal year.

“Some of the World Bank’s staff had attended our event and recommended us to their bosses,” said Gathii who was also listed in the Daily Nation top 40 under 40 men in 2017.

Rebranding

Since its inception in 2014, Afrique faced a brand misinterpretation where people easily confused the contents in the package with Travel and Tours Company, making them shy away from the brand. Like many entrepreneurs’ hunt for profit, the company had to face-lift by rebranding to Koncepts and Events, a name that say it all, in order to penetrate the market and attract more germane clients.

Reinventing the wheel is a risk that Events Companies suffer through handling different clients with same needs.

Hitherto, the success of Koncept and Events is attributed to a great team of young talented and creative personnel who are dedicated to give a unique experience, not showing up during the event, but engaging the clients from planning to completion of their event. Their oldest employee is 29 years of age. The company claims that young employees are more innovative and creative which is a vital quality in the industry.

While quality goes hand in hand with the price tag, Koncept has devised a way to deliver events with lowered pricing without sacrificing quality of events or client experience getting ahead of their competitors in the aggressive market of events.

“Our Goal is to launch and be grounded in a number of African countries in the next five year as we are looking for dominance and not only competition with a million dollars turn over,” says Kyalo.

With expertise in events management, Public Relations, marketing, live screens, décor and information technology Kyalo and Gathii are passionate and prefer events to IT business because it gives room for creativity and innovation, enabling them to create platforms where people interact with brands while brands network with brands.

The duo says that they love to be in events and have held successful World Bank Fun and Talent Day events, organized the Annual Young Entrepreneurs Expo drawing top industries and corporate among other event like press conferences, dinner parties, Annual general meetings, corporate and team building events and road shows.

Koncepts and Events have had it all figured out and they look forward to empower more than 100,000 successful SMEs by 2030 which will have fairly unraveled unemployment crises which the co-founders, who now do not regret this partnership, are victims.

This article appeared on the Aug – Sep 2019 Edition of Inversk Magazine. Head on to this link here to start reading the magazine now.