Patrick Mwangi, popularly known as Mwangi Mercedes is a top car dealer who has worked with several celebrities in Kenya.
Before setting up his exotic car dealership company, he engaged in other jobs including selling mitumba clothes.
He rose from earning Ksh 50 per day to open his own shop which would earn him up to Ksh 70,000 in profits and finally setting up his dealership company.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
In an interview with KTN, Mwangi noted that he started engaged in business while still a student in high school.
He was a Form Two student at Laikipia High School at the time.
During school holidays, he would work with some of his friends who ran second-hand clothes and shoes businesses.
“I would take a shoe from the shop, go sell it at an extra cost and make some profits for myself,” Mwangi explained.
Mwangi explained that he started engaging in business at a tender age to be able to afford things that parents could not afford.
“At home, we didn’t have enough money to buy some of these things that I desired to have; I had to hustle on my own, get some money and get myself whatever I wanted,” he said.
After completing high school, he was determined to continue with his venture but an altercation involving one of his friends forced him to flee from their home.
“I got into a row with one of my friends, it was so serious that it turned into a police case because it happened on someone’s property. I had to run away,” Mwangi recalled.
He flee from home and settled in Thika where he started working as an attendant at a friend’s shop within the small town.
He earned Ksh 50 per day.
Around the same time, Mwangi also started engaging in the mitumba business after being given Ksh 1,000 by a friend.
He asked his friend to get him 10 jumpers won by women, each costing Ksh 100, and he managed to sell all of the within a day, making a profit.
After working from the friend’s shop for a while, he branched out and rented a stall in Thika town, and got his own stock from Gikomba Market.
A while later, Mwangi ditched his mitumba hustle after landing a job with a Non-Governmental Organization in Malindi.
Despite getting the job, he went 7 months without pay forcing him to look for another job.
“Luckily, I got a job as a driver in one of the hotels. The job lasted three months, and I was able to save Ksh 25,000,” he revealed.
Mwangi later moved to Mombasa and used his savings to set up a mitumba business; starting off as a hawker before renting a small stall.
“In 2013, after the general elections, I had saved enough that enabled me to set up a shop along Digo Road. I later set up the second shop along Moi Avenue,” he shared.
While still engaging in the mitumba business, his father-in-law gave him his car, a Toyota Probox, and logbook and asked him to sell the car.
“He gave me the car and the logbook and told me that he needed money. Although it took me a while, I sold it and made Ksh 40,000 to Ksh 50,000 profit,” he said.
After selling the car, Mwangi developed more interest in the car business and he started growing into it.
Within a short time, he became a go-to person for anyone in his Nyahururu hometown who wanted to sell their car or buy a second-hand one.
“It was a difficult moment for me. Here, I was switching from what I knew best to something that I had minimal idea about. It took about an year to break even,” he mentioned.
Mwangi bought his first car, a Toyota Vitz, in 2016 at Ksh 270,000 and later sold if for Ksh 380,000, making good profit.
In the course of his job, he happened to interact with a Pakistani national who advised him to start selling new cars.
After considering the higher profit margins it had, he took the advise and imported his first new vehicle, a Mercedes Benz C200.
This marked the official beginning of his stint in car dealership. He has sold cars to among other local celebrities Dj Shiti, Otile Brown,Arrow boy, Cate Actress and Njugush.
