Lauren Russell Nkuranga: GET IT
This is a series of accounts on how entrepreneurs made the leap into the wonderful, challenging — yet fulfilling! — life of entrepreneurship in East Africa. They stuck it out in both the exciting I-have-a-brilliant-idea-that’s-going-to-earn-me-lots-of-money phase and the not so exciting no-one-will-actually-buy-my-product phase. Here is how they did it!
Lauren Russell Nkuranga is the founder of GET IT, a food delivery service company in Rwanda. The company has grown exponentially since its inception in 2014. Starting with one employee, they now have 70, work with 25 farms and hundreds of farmers. They are also the first food service delivery company in the region to receive ISO 22000 food safety certification. Lauren was gracious enough to speak to us about their journey!
On Starting out
“I came to Rwanda in 2012 with the Nike Foundation. Nike was supporting a project called the Girl Effect, in collaboration with DFID, to invest in adolescent girls in poverty and stop poverty before it starts. I lead the advocacy function alongside the Government of Rwanda to highlight the country’s investment in girls as a catalyst for how other countries in the region could do the same.
“After 2 years with the Girl Effect, the opportunity in Rwanda and East Africa for business was just too contagious. Coming from a philanthropic and social impact world, I often saw foreigners invest in “social enterprises that were more like NGOs than good companies. And so long as any organization relies on financing from abroad, it won’t create true impact in the country where it operates.
“While many foreigners look at these markets to ‘help,’ the real opportunity in Africa is to create companies in a way you can’t in any other part of the world. The lack of infrastructure in frontier markets means that the opportunities for innovation are greater than anywhere else in the world. A lot of people within the region see this, but I don’t think the rest of the world shares this view. Foreigners therefore direct their funds to places that aren’t productive. I am most motivated by the power of scaling financially sustainable, inclusive, companies; to prove that ethical companies at scale create more impact than traditional “social enterprises.
“Starting a company is hard no matter where you do it. In some ways having a lack of infrastructure made it easier because we got to start from scratch, but in other ways it made it a lot more difficult. Anywhere you start a company, you will run into challenges and Rwanda has been no different. However, we are in a particularly good business environment because Rwanda is a bit more predictable than what you see elsewhere in terms of government interaction. Everybody here follows the rules so it’s a great place to start a company.
“The original idea for GET IT was to supply groceries to households. Customers would send SMSes requesting for food delivery to their homes. At the start, I did our first 500 deliveries myself from the back of my car. As the company grew, we started getting retail grocery orders from restaurants. When I asked why they weren’t using commercial food delivery companies, I learned no such thing existed in Rwanda. That’s when we got the insight that there was a big opportunity in the food service space and in 2017 pivoted to being a 100% food service distribution company.
“After the pivot, the core things we do haven’t changed. We deliver a variety of fresh, frozen, and dry foods sourced from farmers in Rwanda. However, our customers have changed. Instead of delivering to households, we now deliver food to anyone cooking for people eating outside their homes. This ranges from hotels and restaurants in Kigali to schools and company canteens. While we have a smaller customer base, the ticket size per customer is dramatically larger than a retail customer. It has been a lot easier on our staff to manage business clients than it is to manage a set of retail clients.”
On Building Teams
“The team has grown from only one employee in 2014 (myself) to currently 70 people. In a fast paced company, it’s easy to hire for the job as it is today. Our biggest challenge hiring has been that jobs quickly out grow our team’s capacity I have made hiring mistakes by recruiting people that can’t keep up with the pace of the job. What I am trying to get better at now is hiring for the job they will be doing in 2–5 years’ time versus the job as it looks today.
“We are very picky in terms of who we hire. We have a long recruitment process and probation period before someone becomes an employee. We look for people who are self-starters; who don’t need a lot of hand-holding in order for things to happen and can take direction to get things done. We are in a particularly great period now where we have a critical mass of staff who are reliable and able to manage themselves.”
On What’s Most Exciting about What We Do.
“The biggest opportunity in Africa is the ability to innovate. In the markets here, the lack of infrastructure is used to innovate in ways that you can’t in the rest of the world. For example, because of the lack of access to consistent water and energy, our pack house and warehouse are off-grid. At the same time, working in a frontier market is difficult. Innovation is messy and you never have enough of what you need. It takes a certain kind of personality to be successful here, especially for foreigners because you have to think outside your traditional structure to get things done.”
On Fundraising
“We have raised a nearly over 1.5 million dollars from over 15 angel investors I connected to through my network and through my investors’ networks. I was very lucky that my investors opened up their networks to us and introduced us to other people. We have used a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) Note for fundraising — a tool created by Y Combinator as an alternative to convertible notes. It helps early stage companies maximize the amount they are able to raise and not give away too much equity. This is important especially when the company is at the idea phase.”
On Learning the Culture Here
“In my first two years in Rwanda I worked closely with the Government who taught me about the culture here. They also advised me on how to run a business here in the early years of my company. They have been a huge asset to us because you can get a lot done when you align with their plans — particularly Vision 2020. There is a specific way of doing things here and if you follow the rules, it’s a great place to live and get things done.
“A lot of foreigners come to places like Rwanda and talk about all the problems without recognizing the progress the country has made. It is important to recognize the progress before identifying the areas that still need to be addressed and talking about the opportunities as a result of solving those problems.
“To get more traction in the domestic market, involve all the stakeholders in the work you’re doing; working on your own doesn’t really work here. Neither does imposing your own ideas of what you think is needed without a good product-market fit and alignment with Vision 2020.”
On Utilizing resources
“Debt has been a huge constraint for us as we grow. In Rwanda, the National Bank requires any formal line of credit to have a 100–150% collateral against it. So if you want to get a loan for a truck, the truck isn’t enough to collateralize the loan — you have to put up a mortgage against the truck to be able to get the loan. So the biggest constraint for us has been accessing working capital for our inventory. None of my suppliers will give me credit for my goods, yet all of my customers are expecting 90-day payment terms. So your customers aren’t paying you for long periods and yet your suppliers expect payment right away. In situations like these, there really isn’t much you can do except hustle. Hound your clients for payments or ask for forgiveness from your suppliers. We have had to slow down growth several times due to liquidity issues because we would have tied up all our money in receivables. Now we are at a size where we can access formal working capital facilities that have allowed us to grow again.”
On Resilience
“At the start, you are constantly trying to make ends meet. That really is the test of an entrepreneur; how do you make the resources work when you’re still an early stage company? One of the things that make a successful entrepreneur is experiencing long periods of intense discomfort to achieve a goal. I walked across Spain and went to a Wilderness Survival school for two years where I spent weeks without access to anything. In such situations, you can’t quit in the middle but have no choice except to keep going till the end. When you’re starting a company, it is those periods of intense discomfort, particularly when you are resource constrained, that prove whether you have the guts to make it work. This is when a lot of entrepreneurs fail. Situations of intense discomfort — which are different for everyone — help develop emotional resilience. To some it is walking long distances while, for others it is overcoming an intense personal struggle that proves to you that you can survive anything. The more resilience you have, the more successful you will be.”
On Thriving As an Entrepreneur
“It doesn’t get easier. It actually gets harder, so there is a real need for founders to take breaks. You need to step away and reset. When you aren’t resting, create an environment for yourself where you are able to focus on your company and don’t have any other stresses in your life. The more stress you have, the harder it will be for you to develop the emotional resilience you need. I didn’t anticipate how emotionally difficult running a company would be. I knew it would be exhausting from a physical perspective with long hours, a lot to do and not much time for anything else. As an entrepreneur, everybody wants something from you — your board, investors, clients, suppliers, employees — yet there’s no one looking out for you as an individual. I am lucky that my parents moved from the United States and live in Rwanda with my husband and I. It’s nice to leave work and go home to my family. Having emotional support infrastructure is very important for an entrepreneur.
“As a founder, it is also important for you to understand your personal financial situation and have people you can rely on for help when things get tough. A lot of founders get into situations where they have to choose between paying rent and having their company survive. Build yourself a support network because the stronger this network is, the more successful you’ll be.”
On Why I keep Doing this
“Having a farmer say that because of GET IT, he has been able to increase his yields or take his children to school shows me that we have been able to make tangible impact in the country. We are feeding up to 70 families, creating stronger infrastructure in the country and demonstrating how off-grid technology can be used in really practical ways. Seeing the people we support thrive helps me get out of bed every morning.”
What’s Next for Get It?
“We will be raising our Series A later this year and want to expand into the rest of Rwanda and one other country in the region. We currently operate in Kigali and supply many of the high-end lodges in the far reaches of the country. We look to continue to grow our footprint all over Rwanda. We also plan to have a full product portfolio and export revenue by the end of the year.”
*Crates of gratitude to Lauren for sharing her story with us!
