A young Kenyan man has recalled a time when he ran a cyber cafe while still a student.
Kaka Ruto said he started the cyber cafe at home during the long holidays in his first year at college.
He revealed he couldn’t find a job so had to take a loan in his father’s name to start the business.
Ruto bought all the equipment and refurbished the shop and when he closed the shop he slept inside.
It was at the cyber cafe that he also learnt to write HTML.
“Many people do not know this, but yes, at 19 I ran my cyber cafe at home during the long holidays in my first year of college since I couldn’t find a job for upkeep before the next school year,”
“It was called The Kyle Computer Centre. I took a loan in my dad’s name, bought all the equipment and refurbished the shop. I was cash-flow positive from day one,”
“This was also where I learnt to write HTML at night after closing shop. I slept here as well, crazy how God can take people far,” Ruto said.
Kaka Ruto currently is the founder and CTO of Autohaven and Headportfolio.
He is a trained software developer, programmer and software engineer.
WoK recently published an article on Danson Muchemi an entrepreneur who built a multi-billion business empire from a cyber cafe.
Muchemi is the CEO of JamboPay, an online payment gateway founded in 2009. It won the Google Innovation Awards in Financial Services in 2013-2014. By 2015, the company had 1500 institutional clients and processed over $50 million annually.
In 2014, the company also got a huge boost after getting a contract with the Nairobi County government. The company partnered with the county government through Ejiji Pay, an e-wallet service.
What started as a small operation in a cyber café has grown into a big business that employs more than 100 people in Kenya and also has a presence in Senegal and Tanzania.
