BY VICTOR ADAR
Gloria Michelle’s is not the ordinary run-of-the mill entrepreneurship story. The 29-year-old founder of Recours Four Kenya Consultants did not diligently put aside her savings or even marshal funds through harambees to start her venture as is the almost now cliché script of most start-ups.
On the contrary, she has achieved what so few others have- starting a company without capital and building it into a thriving multi-million business. All it took was a Facebook page, a vision and four years down the line; Recours For Kenya or R4K as it is commonly known is a Sh10 million annual turnover enterprise.
R4K started by offering and Curriculum Vitae writing services to jobseekers who wanted to maximise their chances of catching the eye of a prospective employer.
That was back in 2010. It has since branched out and is today offering recruitment services on behalf of corporates and small businesses. It also offers psychometric testing, a special test required by some employers. And once successful applicants find jobs, the company notifies them whenever better job openings come up provided they are on their database.
Ms Michelle says before she started, she identified a gap in the professional CV writing sector and could not wait to gather ‘enough’ starting capital before running with the opportunity. Equipped only with her laptop, she started charging Sh200 for a CV and Sh150 for a cover letter. Making the price affordable, she says was a strategy she opted for to draw more customers to her firm. And with Kenya’s unemployment rate being high, within a short time her database was bulging with customers.
“When candidates came for interviews they didn’t know how to compose themselves. Successful candidates would give testimonials on our page making it very interactive. In so doing more people knew about our services. And that’s how I built my customer base,” she says.
She scaled up the prices to Sh1,000 and Sh500 for a CV and a cover letter respectively.
“We charge job seekers for CV writing and because I know what is current in the job market, I know what a good CV looks like, thereby putting them in a better place to clinch the prospective jobs. We also teach skills and train them in groups charging Sh1000,” says Ms Michelle adding that she is most proud when candidates get more interviews, jobs as well as better training. The customer base enabled her to net agreements with Small Medium Enterprises and corporates. Right now R4K has a list of over 100 companies subscribed to its services while the customer base has over 100,000 candidates (and keeps increasing.)
When the company grew too big to operate from her home, Ms Michele approached a seed investor who gave her Sh100,000 as venture capital. The amount, she points out was enough to pay for an office space on Ngong Road, salaries and buy furniture. Eventually she made enough money to acquire her own office at Kipro House in Westlands.
Keeping her staff lean- four permanent and three temporary employees has not only helped her cut on operation costs, but also ensure that she runs an effective organisation, she says.
“It is important to save. I don’t just throw money anywhere; I’m all about saving,” she says.
It is her conviction that there is something wrong with Kenya’s education system and hence R4K tries to educate jobseekers as much as it can to align them to the expectations of the market. She completed her undergraduate university education in 2008 and came to Kenya ditching her training in pharmacy.
She says she wanted to do what she does best: human resource, being a holder of Bachelor’s of Management and Leadership (HR Management). She applied for a job at Kenya Airways and started working at their customer service centre.
“I like talking to people about positive things. I didn’t want to tell them about diseases and other negative things,” she says.
Her two-year stint at KQ did not only sharpen her customer care skills, but also helped her learn how to deal with clients. Growing up she was shy, a contrast to the confident businesswoman she is today. “The experience I got while at KQ gave me that confidence.”
Ms Michelle says most of her clients are SMEs, and that at times it is a bit tricky to work with corporates who do business by floating tenders only to give no consideration to companies run by youths. And as if being overlooked because of her young age was not enough, she says she has to contend with being discriminated on the basis of her gender.
“Being a woman sometimes is a challenge. It’s not easy for people to take you seriously. Sometimes I have to hide behind an older director,” she says.
Her advice to anyone looking to go into self-employment is: “Have a plan, do your research and know your competition. Know what will set you a part from your competitor. Have competitive pricing,” he says.
For instance, to set R4K apart from other organisations, before placing candidates they do thorough background check to ensure that a particular organisation is credible. A reference check is done on candidates as well.
But just who motivates her? “My father is an entrepreneur. Sometimes he tells me it can get tough. He supports ideas that I have, tells me to do this and that. He believes you have to be able to do something for your self,” she says.
