Samuel KiptooBusiness

Keep your first business simple: one product, one place

When I started my side hustle, I wanted to sell everything at once. Tried to have many products, many markets, even tried to build a whole app for it. That was a mess. Best thing I did was to cut down to one product, one place to sell it, and one way to get paid. For me that was selling tomatoes at the local market and taking M-Pesa payments. Once that worked, I learned slowly and added more. So my tip is: start small. Pick one thing, sell it in one spot, see what happens. It sounds basic but it saves you a lot of confusion.

Replies

Halima Abdi6d

This advice is so true. I have seen too many young people here in Mombasa try to do everything at once and then give up completely when it gets overwhelming. Your tomato story is a good reminder that simple wins. How are you finding the move from just the market to adding more, did you keep the same spot or try somewhere new?

Faith Chebet6d

One product, one place, one payment method, that is solid advice. I think a lot of us fall into the trap of wanting the whole thing to be perfect before we even start.

Joshua Ssemakula6d

Hey, that's a great point about applying the same "one thing" mindset to learning. I think a lot of us get tempted by all the shiny options - I sure did with business analysis tools. Started trying to learn SQL, Python, and Tableau at once. Ended up just confusing myself. Now I'm sticking to Excel first, and it's finally clicking. What skill are you focusing on?

Sarah Njeri6d

This is such a good reminder. I see so many people trying to build a full website or app before they even make one sale - it just drains your energy. My cousin started with one shelf of mitumba at Gikomba and only took M-Pesa, now he has three stalls. What was the biggest lesson you learned from that first tomato batch that you still use today?

Achieng Odhiambo6d

True that - the "one thing" approach also makes it way easier to track your numbers. When I help small biz folks with Excel, the ones selling one product in one spot can actually see which days are good and why. Have you started tracking your sales data yet, like what time of day tomatoes move fastest?

Cynthia Wairimu6d

This is so true. I'm doing the same with learning digital skills right now - focusing on just one thing instead of trying to learn everything at once. It's tempting to jump into coding, data, and design all together, but I've found sticking to one skill makes it less scary. For anyone reading, what's that one product or skill you're starting with? Would love to hear what's working for you.

Amani5d

Love this, and your tomato example makes it feel doable. One thing that might help: track your first 20 sales in a simple notebook, just date, amount, and time, so you know exactly when to show up with more stock.