Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Talent shortage prompts entrepreneur to start a tech school in Kenya

[Bulls n Bears]

 <http://www.nedbank.co.zw/> 

 

 

 

The journey to establishing Moringa School almost had a false start: at the
time news on fake education institutions was being highlighted by the media.

However, Audrey Cheng’s drive could not be stopped, and she has now grown
the company from only four students in January 2015 to over 600 students
this year alone.


Take us back to the beginning of the business


In 2014, Cheng was working for Savannah Fund, a venture capital firm that
invests in early stage technology companies across Africa. “It was based in
Nairobi at that time, and I had the pleasure of running their second
accelerator class. We had companies from all over Africa,” she says.

Her work there – nurturing growing companies – would point her to the
biggest challenge the startups were facing: finding high-quality tech
talent. These companies needed highly skilled employees who could accelerate
the growth of the company.

“As I was helping them source those candidates, it became clear that
finding high quality talent was hard in this market,” she explains.

After doing her research on university courses, Cheng realised that there
was an education gap that she could fill – she had found out that the
curricula for computer science at universities were mostly theoretical and
outdated and could not prepare students for the workforce.

“Students struggle to find jobs, and in Kenya it takes an average of five
years for a university graduate to get a full-time job,” she said. “On the
other hand, employers cannot find the skills they need. I realised that if
we talk about building the ecosystems, we need to build skills first. So
that’s how we started Moringa.”


How did the she grow the company into the business it is today?


When Cheng drafted her plan to put up a learning institution, it aimed to
not only offer skills but also to provide job placements for hundreds of
students who would be churned out every year.

“We really hustled to start the first class. We didn’t have any stories to
tell: it was all based on our ability to sell the courses to potential
students, Cheng recalled.

An infamous story on fake certificates being offered by unauthorised
institutions posed a great threat to their launch, since her concept was new
in the market. However, her resilience and belief in the company pulled them
through.

“We started our class in January 2015 after spending time doing a lot of
research in understanding what partners we should be working on, building
the content and finding teachers to start our first class.”

That class started with four students but has grown quickly.

Moringa School now has a team of about 55 employees and over 600 students.

This year, the school was honoured by business media brand, Fast Company,
as one of the world’s most innovative companies and it was also a runner-up
in the 2018 Pan-African Awards for Entrepreneurship in Education.

Currently there is a campus in Rwanda running programmes with the
government and GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale
Zusammenarbeit), to train 150 women in tech.

Cheng says there is great demand, but they are trying to be realistic on
how to grow in a responsible way while offering high quality experiences for
students.

The company has a 95% job placement rate and has provided talent for the
big companies in and around Kenya.


Surely it couldn’t have been that easy. She must have faced some
challenges?


Keeping her focus with the advent of success has been challenging. Even
with growing demand, Cheng has to steer the company away from propositions
that would interfere with her plan for the future.

“When we take an opportunity, we have to ask: is it in line with our
strategy and how we would like to grow? Is it distracting? Even if a
proposition involves a lot of money, if it’s distracting, we have to say
no,” she commented.

“The challenge right now is to ensure the team is aligned on the decisions
and opportunities we have to make good long-term decisions for the company,”
Cheng said.


Anything we can learn from her experiences?


Introducing a new concept in any market comes with challenges as well as
lessons. For Cheng, growing a competent team can get the hard work done.

“Having a really good team matters. We spend a lot of time communicating
with the team,” she said and stresses the importance of having the team buy
into the strategy and future plans.

“Ultimately our frontline team members are the ones who are implementing,
so we need them to be excited and to push our strategy.”

She encourages other budding entrepreneurs to create a culture of focus. “I
see a lot of entrepreneurs trying to tackle five things at a time, which is
really hard. If you are trying to do more things, it is hard to scale and to
serve more people.”

Her one reason for success can be summarised into one word: Resilience.
Cheng says there were many times that she thought the company would close
due to the challenges she faced, including doubts about the market fit for
her product. “But there has been an amazing amount of focus and resilience,”
she said.—howwemadeitinafrica 

 

Invest Wisely!

Bulls n Bears 

 

Telephone:    <tel:%2B263%204%202927658> +263 4 2927658

Cellphone:      <tel:%2B263%2077%20344%201674> +263 77 344 1674

Alt. Email:    <mailto:info at bulls.co.zw> info at bulls.co.zw  

Website:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AF
QjCNH8LYgdY55h-XKseuM8Kpr-JKdfhQ> www.bulls.co.zw 

Blog:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bulls.co.zw%2Fblog&sa=D&sntz=1
&usg=AFQjCNFoIy6F9IXAiYnSoPSgWDYsr8Sqtw> www.bulls.co.zw/blog

Twitter:                  @bullsbears2010

LinkedIn:               Bulls n Bears Zimbabwe

Facebook:
<http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FBullsBearsZimba
bwe&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGhb_A5rp4biV1dGHbgiAhUxQqBXA>
www.facebook.com/BullsBearsZimbabwe

Skype:         Bulls.Bears 



 

 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: winmail.dat
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 77649 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listmail.bulls.co.zw/pipermail/bulls/attachments/20181120/2162396e/attachment-0001.bin>