Delivering a Dream; How Njoki Waigwa Quit a Dream Job to Venture into Delivery Services

This article and story appeared on the January 2021 Issue of Inversk Magazine. Download your FREE copy here.

Vince Lombardi famously said that “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” However, Njoki Waigwa, the founder of Haraka Delivery Services is boldly defying this sentiment, proving that a good cause is worth quitting for.

Njoki has had to quit well-paying jobs to venture into business, a risk that not many have the guts to take. While many would choose to remain employed citing the job security among other benefits, these allures were simply neither enough nor satisfying for Njoki. She opted to leave it all behind to chart her own path.

“I do not even make a fraction of what I was making as my net income, and if I send out my CV, I will get a very good offer,” Njoki told us in an interview.

Thanks to this sacrifice, Haraka Delivery Services is in its 11 months of operation this October.

The finance, tax, and accounting professional is highly educated and posses’ rich experience from local and international companies which would land her a job anywhere in the world.

Njoki is an alumnus of the prestigious University of Nairobi, where she undertook her undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree as well as a Masters in Business Administration (Strategic Management) from the university. To top it up, she is a Certified Public Accountant by the Kenya Accountants and Secretaries National Examinations Board (KASNEB). In addition, she undertook a short course at Africa Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) & International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD).

It was during her years at the campus at Kabete that the entrepreneur in her was born. As early as her first year, Njoki says s a friend and the business setting in Kabete fueled her passion for business.  She would later venture into the business during her second year when she was 22.

The niche she ventured into was driven by necessity, true to the Greek philosopher Plato, who stated that necessity is the mother of invention.

Having been born and raised in Nyeri County, Njoki had observed that women in the village were struggling to move to different places and in this she saw a business venture.  She used her savings, HELB student loan money and help of an uncle to purchase her first motorbike and employed a rider. The bike would provide her with pocket money as well as assisted her mother with utility money. A decade later, this experience with the motorbike would inspire the starting of Haraka Delivery Services.

Soon after she left campus in 2012, she got a job with the Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (KPMG), Kenya where she worked for three years.  However, the entrepreneur in her kept calling, and she left to pursue her dream. She tried the distribution of snacks as a way of learning the logistics involved in the business.

Unfortunately, she stopped the distribution after five months when “things got tough, and she needed a job”. Njoki got a job with Liquid Telecom as a financial accountant for the Kenya Office, where she stayed for almost three years.  She later left and got a job as a Deal Operations Manager with a USA startup lending company Lendable Marketplace, where she worked for one year.

Njoki quit the well-paying job in August 2019 in order to take a break and think about the next venture in her life as well as actualizing her bigger dream.

“The dream I have is first is to break the cycle of poverty, and second to build a dynasty for myself and my lineage,” Njoki says

It is said that motivation can come from anywhere, but ambition is only drawn from within. This is what pushed the 31 -year-old business lady to pursue her dream of building systems and processes that would work for her instead of just staying employed.

After quitting the job, she returned to wholesale distribution of snacks (crisps and ground nuts ‘njugu’) for the same reasons for learning the logistics in the business world. She would buy njugu from Syokimau and crisps from the Industrial Area and distribute them to various shops around Nairobi.

“I have walked into every shop from Kangemi all the way to Reagan,” she said.

Later, Njoki went back to the University of Nairobi to pursue her master’s degree. It was during her coursework did a study on Alibaba which revived her passion to work with motorbikes to offer delivery services. She also noted that Kenyans were getting more receptive to online shopping hence her need o seek to bridge the logistics job.

Consequently, she registered her Company named Pata in partnership with two riders in April this year.  However, she still had an office job which created a rift between her and the riders who thought she “benefited more from the venture since she was not on the road”. This lead to the failure of the venture.

The failure forced Njoki to go back to the drawing board, she quit her job in August and took a one- month break to reflect. She bought a motorbike in mid-September and registered her company in October. That’s how Haraka Delivery Services was born, inspired by the meaning of the name ‘haraka’ which means fast and the mission was to provide fast and reliable services.

“Turning this idea into reality wasn’t easy.  I consulted with a few professionals such as IT experts and designers, the main task lay in my hands. This was my baby and I had to endure the labor pangs on my own.” Njoki had previously said when she was the main feature of Eve by The Standard.

She registered her rider with existing platforms such as Uber, Little, and Taxify as she looked for jobs. One month to the business, she got her first twenty clients mainly through referrals.  From here, Haraka has been growing overwhelmingly, bought two more bikes to bring the total to three, doing a total of three to thirty deliveries within Nairobi CBD and its environs.

Eleven months later, Njoki says that social media and personal referrals have helped her grow a personal brand she had no idea existed.

“I didn’t realize I have a personal brand out there, so many people believe in me, tag me on Facebook posts and I get goodwill messages from people I don’t know,” She says.

The success has also led to several proposals from investors which Njoki is hesitant to accept because she seeks first to grow the business before getting a strategic partner with the understanding and passion for the industry.

The future of Haraka remains bright as it draws customers from individuals, professionals and businesses.

“Future plans for Haraka Deliveries is to shift from manual to tech as well as seek to address the numerous requests from our customers to deliver small packages that cannot be carried on motorbikes.” Njoki concluded.

Meanwhile, Njoki remains committed to mentor others about business as she grows. Since charity begins at home, the first person she has mentored was her brother, whom he introduced to business while he was still a student at Maseno University. He started by selling earrings in Kabete with his sister, and later dust coats at Maseno.

Currently, he doubles up as a career man as well as a businessman employing more than 10 employees and 15 marketers. For Njoki, to dare is to do.