Open Book: Donald Rusimbi
Hear from Doni about growing up in Tanzania, starting his own business, and how advertising can do social good.
Open Book is a series of interviews where you get to meet our creative design team at Opendoor.
What do you do at Opendoor?
I’m a Senior Art Director on the brand design team, where I support marketing campaigns for both home sellers and buyers. Recently, I helped launch our talking houses campaign — one of my first projects here.
Our objective with the campaign was to address low awareness of Opendoor in a number of our markets. Because we’re creating an entirely new category, many people don’t know that we can make selling a home easy, and stress-free. (I can’t even begin to tell you how many times we’ve been confused with Glassdoor or OpenTable.)
Our approach was to let our product speak for itself. More specifically, we let two homes speak for themselves, comparing the experience of being sold to Opendoor against selling the old way. It was so rewarding to see the project through from initial ideation to polishing the final details.
How did you become an art director?
I was born and raised in Tanzania, East Africa. Back then, the older generation in my country did not encourage anyone to pursue art/design as a career. The expectation was to become a doctor, a lawyer, or go into business. Drawing came naturally to me and, fortunately, my mother was extremely supportive. She encouraged my brother and I to develop skills that felt natural to us, and even let us paint the gate outside our house every Sunday to foster our creativity.
When I was a teenager, my brother studied graphic design in Australia and came back to Tanzania to work in advertising agencies. After that, I realized that design was a real career — one where I could be both strategic and artistic.
You’re a cofounder of your own business, Smart Kaya. What made you want to start the business? And what are some unique considerations of the African market?
Over the last ten years of living in the US, I’ve been growing and learning from leading companies and top professionals in advertising and tech. I’ve always planned to pass on some of this knowledge to my community back in Africa.
I believe Africa is the next big thing. With this in mind, my partners and I decided to set our sights on the ambitious goal of bringing smart home technology to Africa. Our mission is to turn every African house into a smart home. With a smart speaker powered by AI, we aim to solve African challenges with solutions made specific to the region.
We also see this as a platform that innovators can build apps, services, and hardware around. Back home, there aren’t enough economic opportunities to go around, and because of that, many young people work in silos. We want to change that mindset and convince people to collaborate and build together.
In terms of unique considerations for the African market, there’s a bigger focus on education, healthcare, and localization. We’re planning to create educational services on the platform, where children can learn through the smart speakers. We’re looking into the mental health space, where we can connect people with local support groups in real time. For localization, we’re supporting Swahili and five other languages at launch, but there are also regional accents to think about for the speaker’s voice. Check out our website — there’s a lot more to come!
Can you tell me about your work in the social impact space?
A lot of people see advertising as a bad thing, but I believe it doesn’t have to be. We can use the power of art and copy to rally people around worthwhile causes and have meaningful impact.
When I was living in Florida, I worked with a local publication, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, to create a fundraising campaign for their Season of Sharing initiative, which raises money to prevent homelessness. The campaign focused on “the fine line” between between having a roof over your head and being homeless.
The campaign raised a record high $1.8 million for homeless shelters and won best of show at the Sun-coast Addys award. To me, this was a testament that adverting can be used for good.
I’m also involved with a non-profit in Tanzania that seeks to reduce social stigma around depression and other mental health issues. I helped develop their brand and I serve on their board of advisors.
How do you want to grow in 2019?
I’d like to step into a position of creative leadership. I’d also like to demonstrate how design can directly impact business metrics. There was a phase in my life where I focused solely on making things look beautiful, but now I find myself drawn to business strategy and understanding why certain things work.
It’s a tall order, but I want to grow Kaya into a household name, and elevate Africa on the global stage. My dream is for for Kaya to be of such high quality and have so much social impact that it brings more voices to the table, and inspires people around the world.
P.S. If you liked what you read and are interested in learning more, check out our jobs page! We’re always hiring.
