Another week passes and now the dollar millionaire dream is fading. Bills are piling and you are twiddling your fingers with loaded anxiety. Your ever curious friends are calling and asking about the grand idea as they had hoped you’ d sail with them into the world of unlimited cruises. You pick the phone and call the big manager who seemed very enthusiastic. At the last ring, he finally picks and you can hear his flat lined tone say,“ Let me talk to my director, he is the one with the final say. I’ ll get back to you by close of business”.
You are hopeful but that tone was not very encouraging. The day passes and he does not call. You decide to let the day pass in the hope that corporate honchos have a lot on their plates. The next day kills you with anxiety. You keep looking at your phone like a nubile girl who has been promised a chips and sausage date at Wimpy in town in the early nineties. You can almost smell the success like the girls did the coleslaw. Hope is your anchor, after all, your mother is praying for you vehemently in the village.
The next day is sending bad sensations to your stomach. You have the director’ s card and you are now bold enough to call him. Your wife has been giving you a bad look and the meals are not as delicious as they were on the day of the big announcement. Her sneers are back and the children are asking about your car which seems to be suffering from a chronic type of Covid. The coughs are a bit too jerky for their liking.
The director does not pick and the business development officer on the other side is acting dodgy. He keeps referring to the legal department and the big bosses who are still deliberating on the go to market strategy. The next week he assures you that they have received similar proposals and they are evaluating the commercials. It seems like you were grossly overpriced and the director who was given the role of re-evaluating is now favoring another company.
You pray harder and though you’ ve never attended church in many moons, you go and revise the rosary on YouTube to spiritually increase your chances of success. This is the entrepreneurs guide. All is not well and even your rather abused laptop is throwing tantrums threatening your source code. The letter‘ E’ has faded and your letter‘ O’ has long left the scene. Thank God for the QWERTY keyboard and your seasoned typing skills.
Days move on and the desired contract has not been signed. The entrepreneur with the
After all, what is credibility when you can buy the engineers to fix the small bugs? This world belongs to the stoic. Conscience is jacket worn by losers.
grand dream is no longer the confident man he was. His eyes are glassy, full of fear as his vision becomes blurry every day. He has met the corporate sharks who are deliberately slow in decision making or hawkers of ideas.
You review your presentation again and decide it’ s time to bite the bullet. You have an insider who is doing some investigations for you. It’ s now obvious something is amiss. He comes back with sad news that there is a director who is‘ connected’ and they are now piloting with another client who is a top honcho. You thank your ferret and quickly sink into your worn-out work chair. Your goose is cooked. Your dreams are invalidated at that minute. Your idea has been stolen, reworked and because you are not familiar with any of the laws of launching products, you did not copyright or trademark your work.
The big dream is as useless as your old laptop and you think of throwing it out of the window but commonsense prevails. You have met the face of corruption and your entrepreneurship skills have been tested invariably. Tech Guru is no longer a name you want to hear from today henceforth. You are a victim who is even doubting the level of your intelligence after being played so hard. It’ s time to go back to the drawing board.
Now you have learnt your lessons. Corporate fraud is not just about stealing or channeling money. It’ s about playing the game as it is seen. You were naïve and believed in a system. Your mole had hinted that the big boys needed a cut. One wanted to cash out your idea fast. You also needed to give the main guy a 10 % stake and one of the directors needed a down-payment of Kshs 10 million to approve the collaboration. You are now‘ woke’!
You need big boys in your company to protect your interests. You reach out to a famous fixer who will help you meet the big people. You take a quick loan to facilitate endless meetings and call it your last card. In the deep of the night, you are introduced to places where the
who is who dines softly. Posh homes that reawaken your dream.
You pitch your tongue dry and the boys allocate themselves shares in your company. The CR12 is changed the next morning and you now own a paltry 20 % of the initial shares. You are between a rock and a hard place. Bank accounts are opened here and there and you are not even a signatory because you are not significant.
In a week your deal is back in the boardroom and the only savior in the deal is that you have the source code. You are now back in business and the 20 % is bearing fruit. They even want you to develop another product.
A big public launch is done by a Government honcho and the history of the product is even foreign to you.‘ This product has been well researched and it is rolled out effectively in diverse countries across the world’. You are a semi big boy but now you know how business is done. You are on the business pages the next day. Weeks later, you can barely support the product because they promised more than you built. You enjoy your financial freedom. After all, what is credibility when you can buy the engineers to fix the small bugs?
You move on to the next project. The PR teams will deal with any crisis. You smile to the bank as you apply your little philosophy.‘ This world belongs to the stoic’. Your wife is begging to come back to your leafy suburb home but she is too old for you now. You smile at the brightness of your future. Conscience is jacket worn by losers.
Pauline Warui is the Founder of East Africa Customer Care Centre. You can commune with her on this or related matters via email at: PWarui69 @ gmail. com.