A GRAND IDEA BY PETER NYAGA

At 3 am, most of us are sleeping and are at the final leg of an episode showcasing in our La-la land. And while that may be so, two gentlemen have sacrificed theirs to make some money. As one is preparing dough from 5 Packets of flour, the other is busy lighting up the jiko. With speed and accuracy, they both have to ensure that everything is ready to flood the markets before your first yawn before dawn.

As students, we often flirt with the idea of making that extra coin by starting a business. But only a few of us manage to put such encouraging ideas into being. For some time now, “chapo-pancake” has become a proverbial phrase that has almost gone unmentioned in our day to day conversations around campus. All this is accredited to two brilliant individuals namely: Peter Ndu’ngu and Rogers Nzivo, who own a new business that mainly deals in preparing chapatis and pancakes.

Peter and Rogers are just your ordinary campus “boys”, who you will often meet in class or anywhere else. Peter is 5’ 5, slim and has curly hair resembling a person of Somali origin (in fact some have mistaken him for being a member of the dreaded terrorist group- Al-Shabaab) to add to that, he is God-fearing and assertive. On the other hand, Rogers is a 5’3, well built guy of a dark complexion. He is serious in character with a hint of chattiness.

Birth of Chapa Investment
“How did Chapa investments come about?” I asked them. “Hii idea ilianza 2009” (this idea came about in 2009), Ndu’ngu replied. Both were concerned with high prices charged on students by local shopkeepers around the campus, who sold a chapati for ksh15. For them, Ksh 10 was quite appropriate and within the pocket reach of a majority of students.

Chapa investments (Chapa a word coined from chapati and pancakes as Peter tells me) did not commence its operations until 15th November, 2010. This was a result of the finances and logistics that were involved to jump start the business. The initial capital was a small sum of Ksh 700, an amount that was contributed by the two. This amount only catered for 6 packets of flour. However, they had to create means of acquiring cooking oil.

Growth of Chapa Investments
The growth of Chapa investments has been enormous with increasing demand for chapatis. Unlike before where Ndu’ngu and Nzivo prepared only 30 chapatis daily, increasing demand from customers has seen them prepare up to 150 chapatis every day of the week. In a bad month, they make at least Ksh 10,000, an amount they use for their upkeep and also save to expand their business.
Again, they have made a milestone step in upgrading their customer service. For instance they are now using Mocality (a mobile telephony service that allows one to send a single text to multitudes instantly), email and the usual short message service to reach customers. It is through this that customers are able to send complaints, make special orders or even compliment them on their services.

School work and business
And while you and I may fall victim of complaining about assignments or other related commitments, Peter and Rogers are like circus performers who manage to juggle commitment, after commitment. Their morning shift begins at 3a.m when they start preparing the dough, handle school work during the day and sleep at 12a.m after calculating their business profits for the day.
Future Plans
In 2009, the idea of starting and running Chapa investments may have posed a great challenge for Peter and Rogers, but not for 2011. This June, Chapa investments is set to go full blown as the two open a new hotel off-campus.

The hotel will not only cater for Daystar students but also the entire Daystar community. A great step indeed bearing in mind that the business is presently ran from Peter’s room at Visions hostel, located off-campus. “Tunasave juu ya hio story” (we are saving for that purpose) Rogers tells me.

As this year’s S.O.E.A (Star of Excellence Awards) draws near, the two have hope of winning the most coveted award for being students entrepreneurs of the year. Apart from our degree programs that we are so much attached to, business might just be another vocation that we might want to consider. Peter and Rogers have done it, what makes you think you can’t do it?