Safaricom’s Blaze; Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) entrepreneurial reality show that aired on KTN every Monday, 8 to 9 pm elapsed last night with the winner, Valentine Nekesa, a part-time designer, and model, bagging a grand price of Ksh.5M.
Valentine, 19, who was born and brought up in Kakamega, described her childhood as more of a struggle than comfort. With the demise of her mother when she was in Sixth Grade, and her father struggling economically, the gap between making it in life and the actual success was extremely wide.
At the moment she lives with her aunt together with other 11 relatives, many of them kids. Having had a successful admission to Mount Kenya University, her appetite for design and occasional modelling came as a “hustle” in regard to the challenges she faced during her campus life.
She said her original plan of buying sewing machines, renting a shop and purchasing good quality fabrics worth sh.2m remains intact.
Further, she wishes to employ talented workers with sh.500,000 and set aside half a million shillings for unforeseen emergencies. The remaining funds will be kept for personal fulfillment.
The two other finalists were David Kimani, and Joseph Mugweru Wanja aka Safe Joe, a music producer.
Perhaps it’s her business plan which created an ambiance of skill evaluation and ultimate knowledge from the judges to make a final decision. A decision that saw her emerge the winner.
Blaze BYOB show was all about young entrepreneurs who have shown immense strength in their diverse lines of business but needed more guidance on how to freely manipulate the surrounding economic space to successfully run their businesses.
Every week, one participant was sent home with quite some good cash and the amount increased by more than sh.20, 000 subsequently.
(The story is by Willie Inzobeli, willyinzobeli@gmail.com)
