Episode 235 - What Can Africa Teach the World? with Joram Mwinamo
You’ve heard the phrase “it takes a village to raise a family.” Well, Kenyan entrepreneur Joram Mwinamo thinks it applies to businesses as well.
Joram founded and runs SNDBX International, a collaborative co-working space unlike any other. Entrepreneurs who join the community gain access to over 30 expert consultants in non-competing fields, from digital marketing to law. It’s truly a one stop shop for founders to build and scale their businesses.
He joins the show to talk about his uniquely African approach to business and to show us what the rest of the world can learn from the continent.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone, to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Whether you've been with us for a long time or this is your first time downloading us, thank you so much. In the early days, you remember that what we used to do is we talk about, hey, we're going off to someplace where we really never went off to, someplace. We would always virtually go to places like we're going to Kansas City or we're going to Dallas or today, you know, we're in Cleveland. Well, I'm going to do it again because today we're actually in Kenya. We're not actually in Kenya, but we're going to Kenya. And I think that's really cool. So come with us to Kenya, because our guest today is Joram Mwinamo. He's the co-founder and CEO of the SNDBX at Sandbox International. If you're looking it up, its capital S N D B X Sandbox International, it's a one stop shop for entrepreneurs and truly is a one stop shop. It's a village model. The village model of SNDBX is globally unique as they bring together over 30 professional services under one roof so that entrepreneurs have the expertise they need to scale up their businesses. Joram also co-founded Grew and ultimately exited Wylld International. That's w y l d e. That was an innovative business strategy and consulting services organization based out of Kenya. Joram is passionate about uncovering the potential of Africa and having a global influence. He's a mentor for the Impact Startup program in Berlin and sits on the board of Amnesty International Kenya. He joins us today to talk about the value that a village mindset. And I want you to hang to that a village mindset, the value it can bring to entrepreneurs around the world. Let's listen in.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur. I'm here as most of the time, almost always with Rusty and William. And we won't trouble you with all the college football talk that we've had. We probably won't even air this until February, so it won't matter then. But I'll tell you what will matter than the fact that we did the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast and conference from Africa this year is something that's still being talked about and I think it will be talked about for years and years. In fact, we're headed back there in February for yet more events, just really excited about what God is doing on the continent of Africa. And many of you listeners may also know that we have a sister podcast called Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa with Ndidi Nwuneli as a co-host along with Richard Okello and Efosa Ojomo. We also have the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Asia podcast. So we have regional site with regional content, but this is the original podcast, and from time to time we want to take some really interesting stories that give our primarily American audience as we have gone ahead and people who are just focused on Africa have gone off to the Africa podcast and those are just interest in Asia. We've gone off the Asia podcast. So what we're left with here is more of a global movement set and what we want to be able to do is make sure that they too understand what God is doing in both Asia and today in Africa. And we have one of those stories with a new friend of mine named Joram Mwinamo and I, we get the chance to meet Joram when we were with the film crew in Kenya, when we were filming the Faith Driven Entrepreneur conference, and I was just really encouraged by what we saw. And so as we thought of a crossover episode, we thought of this one. And so Rusty and William, we're going to take our team. We're going to take our audience, if you will, to Africa today. Rusty was there just a couple of months ago and has developed an appreciation for the continent what God is doing there. So Rusty and William, good morning.
Rusty Rueff: Good morning. Good morning. This is going to be great. We had such a phenomenal time. We've been on a visiting safari. It was just fantastic and it was the first time I'd been to Kenya and as a runner that was a big deal for me. It was a big deal. It's sort of like the running Mecca, right? And I actually got out and it was able to run in the wild with a guide. And our guest today will appreciate it probably more than YouTube guys do. But I went up a hill around the corner and there was standing a black rhino. And so the black rhino is not one that you want to mess with.
Henry Kaestner: You can mess with the white rhinos apparently, though.
Rusty Rueff: Well that..... Rhinos. No, no, no, rhinos. But now is a what a fantastic country. What an amazing amount of things that are going on on the continent. And I think today is going to be a fantastic way for us to just get a little bit of peek and to what God's doing in Kenya.
Henry Kaestner: Yeah, indeed William we need to get you to Africa.
Willam Norvell: I'd love to have never made it. It's on my list.
Henry Kaestner: One of the things Ndidi talks about in her podcast, as she has done such a great job of hosting, is her motivation and encouragement to change the narrative of what people think about Africa. And as you listen this podcast today, I don't know whether your perception is one of a safari or if it's one of fair trade coffee or if it's teaching handicrafts. And all those things are absolutely part of the African story. And the beauty and the diversity is incredible. But the other thing that many people may not have a really good sense of is the economic dynamism of the launch of some really neat category defining businesses in a region in what I'm talking now within Africa, of East Africa, in particular in Kenya, Nairobi, some incredible technology entrepreneurs that have been really able to come out of this sense of leapfrogging over existing technology and really much of the innovation coming out of payments, even some telecommunications, but definitely financial services that's defining how the world thinks about these sectors is coming out of Nairobi. And some of that is coming out of what God is doing through Joram. So, Joram, without further ado, welcome to the program. Welcome to the show. Super encouraged by you and your story and for you to share with us about what God is going through SNDBX.
Joram Mwinamo: Yeah, Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to be with you guys.
Henry Kaestner: At Faith Driven Entrepreneur. We talk a lot about the problems we have with a lone wolf mentality that many entrepreneurs experience, but what you've implemented is something you call a village model of sorts at SNDBX, and it's based on an old African proverb. Could you tell us about the proverb and how it shaped the vision for SNDBX?
Joram Mwinamo: Yes. So this is an African proverb that is found in actually a lot of African communities in all the different languages and tribes. It'll be stated differently. But at the end of it, the proverb is that it takes a village to raise a child. And what that basically meant is that the child had never belonged to one individual, but basically belong to the village. So that gives the leeway for everyone to parents the child, like everyone, had permission to discipline the child if need to be without permission from the parents. But even when it came to things like ensuring the child got through school and university, then everyone would come together, contribute money and make sure that, you know, they get a good education. So we took the same proverb into the SNDBX where we say it also takes a village to raise a good business. And what that means is that entrepreneurs can walk into the SNDBX and they find this whole army of like 33 different experts with different areas of expertise that all passionate and focus around helping that one business succeed as much as they can. And so every entrepreneur who walks in here is basically not alone, but has an army of people, you know, trained on them to basically succeed. And it doesn't just go as far as the entrepreneur succeeding, but even together, like with each other at the village, all the experts also make sure that every other expert also nobody is left behind. We collaborate to also make sure that everybody is succeeding in their business. So it's almost like bringing a different model that says it's not just about one person, you know, succeeding or, on the flipside, failing by themselves, but ensuring that everyone succeeds together in the village. And so there's so many things we do professionally and socially that just ensures that we move together as one unit and as a group and that everyone gets to succeed at the end of the day.
Henry Kaestner: So that's really interesting to me and I want to get into that a little bit more and just understand how broad that buy in is of the village, whether it's of fellow entrepreneurs, whether it's just your staff. But before I do that, before I ask that question, I want to give a little bit more of a backdrop. And I really wish we could take our listeners on a tour of the facilities. They could get an appreciation for it, but I just try to do it a bit verbally here. So SNDBX is more than a co-working space. Many people listen this in America are gonna think co-working and I understand that concept. But with SNDBX, it's a space for entrepreneurs can go and be supported by people who are experts in the fields that entrepreneurs need help with to scale and grow from insurance to tech marketing systems development. In some ways, you've really become like this one stop shop for entrepreneurs. With that as abackground, is it the staff that's all trying to make sure these entrepreneurs succeed, or is that sense of the village? Does that extend to your fellow entrepreneurs in a part of your cohort and just riff on that a bit? Just what is the village mean? Is it just the village elders to do this, or is it the fellow schoolchildren in the village?
Joram Mwinamo: Yeah, So the village is really, you know, bringing together different companies. So each of these experts run a consultancy of their own. So it could be a legal firm, it can be a marketing firm, it can be a HR firm or a financial management firm. So all the 33 companies I mentioned are actually small firms, but then get into an agreement with the SNDBX itself. We ensure that in the model we have non competing professionals coming together under one roof. And so that creates the perfect conditions for collaboration because everyone has something they bring to the table, they bring a different expertise. They bring that company on their networks, they bring their clients to the SNDBX and at one point or another, every client will need to one or another of the services that we offer the SNDBX. And so we've managed to like split up the areas of expertise into these focused areas where we get people who are really, really good at what they do. So if it's branding, they have this depth in branding and being able to capture the, you know, the brand strategy of a business, if it's legal, they are able to go all the way into like the corporate legal that, you know, entrepreneurs need. If it's risk management, being able to break down the complex concepts of risk management, for an entrepreneur to understand what value to bring to their business. So, you know, bringing all this together, what it means is that a Kenyan entrepreneur can walk into one space and find access to all the different services instead of running to 33 different offices to find the different services, they can find it in one location that the community is very integrated means they get so much more value than one siloed view. You know, in the traditional sense, you'd get somebody go to the accountant and they get all these great strategies on how to cut costs. But then when they go to the HR, the HR says, Look, we need to train our people, which means you're going to be increasing costs. And that could confuse the entrepreneur. But at SNDBX, the HR and finance would sit together and talk about, you know, what the value that is to be created this in line without [....] are and then the HR and accountant would then agree on what the best strategy would be to help the entrepreneur. So in a sense, we've created like the collaboration brings much better solutions to the entrepreneur, and then we end up forming this one big community. It's not uncommon to come to the SNDBX and find our entrepreneurs. Just maybe they came for consultation, but after that they just choose to hang around and talk and have conversations with other different experts and part of the community. Sometimes we have social events where you'll find that they become part of it and we are building like this club of entrepreneurs who are part of the larger village. And so it really is unprecedented. Like by the time we finished designing this, we hadn't seen anything like it in the world where you'd find legal accounting, marketing, background, you know, insurance, travel and everything under one roof just collaborating to help brands. And out of that, we began to see amazing stories of people getting helped, you know, around the clock and from different angles such that they're able to get really the best strategies that help their businesses to grow. So we increasingly think this is something that's going to take root more and more just based on the value that we've seen ourselves create.
Rusty Rueff: So, Joram, I'm really curious about the whole SNDBX thing, because I think you're right. It's a very unique model. You don't see other people trying to do this. How did you operate during COVID?
Joram Mwinamo: I think COVID was one of the times when we really saw the power of the village working together. It was a difficult time. A lot of the people in the village had either parents or friends or family members either go get sick. We did have, unfortunately, a few incidences where people were bereaved, but it was just amazing how the community, the village, rallied together to be there for each other, which was powerful because then it meant we were not just there to be together when making money, but also in the difficult times are also, you know, just through challenging times. They could also stand together. A lot of us are actually majority of us are Bible believing Christians, and we would pray together, We would visited each other. We would support each other a lot during the difficult times. One of the things that defines a lot of things that happened during COVID, because we do collect a lot of data of how the businesses are doing, is that one, despite the fact that we have a coworking model and nobody felt the need to not be part of the community during COVID and continue to pay, because having the community together one was encouraging. We shared a lot of strategies on how to stay alive, you know, how to thrive. And we did actually help businesses grow like 70% in the first year of Covid that was 2020. And in 2021 we had like a further average growth of about 80%. And so not only were we very resilient, but it showed that the model was able to create a lot of value in just keeping everyone strong and growing during the COVID time. And a lot of people were able to keep up the payments that kept the coworking space alive during that time. So something about the village model and working together has really created a lot of value during this time. And now that we are out of that period, the growth is like on steroids now. And so, yeah, like people are really busy hiring and growing and can't have enough of serving the entrepreneurs that come through our doors.
Rusty Rueff: And that's awesome. That's awesome.
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Rusty Rueff: You know, you talk about these non competing experts and bring them together. And look, everybody listening on the podcast today is not going to have the gift of having a village around them in the way that you've done SNDBX. But I think everyone should be creating their own village. Right. We always talk about don't go alone. You know, you need people and you want to surround yourself with experts. What are two or three attributes that you use to qualify and to evaluate these non competing experts so that you know that they're going to be generous with their time and they're going to be authentic and they're going to, you know, follow up with what they say and be Integris. Because I think any entrepreneur that's listening could take these attributes that you're going to give us here, hopefully, and begin to assess and evaluate their own set of experts, our village that they're trying to put together. So what do you look for?
Joram Mwinamo: I think one of the big things is just looking at people who are passionate about helping others' growth, serving entrepreneurs or SMI can be a labor of love. You're not going to grow rich overnight. You know, having to create new business models, kind of serve people on a smaller scale, but it can pay off really big with time if you're, like, focused on it and committed. But the other thing that we've seen, we realize not everyone has grown with an abundance mentality. Not everyone has grown with the mentality that, you know, collaborating can bring the greater good for everyone rather than just some benefit for a few, and many others suffer. And so we've all learned to be giving of ourselves. You know, you can't do everything in the village based on a commercial. This is the time that you find people exchanging value or knowledge or just walking together to help each other grow so much more. And because it's fulfilling to see the kind of growth that can come out of the kind of things that we are doing. I think we've seen amazing, amazing stories of growth of even some of our clients growing to be the kind of businesses that are not just doing business in Kenya or in East Africa, but across Africa and some have become so good that they even have clients from across the world. And so earlier we had talked about just changing the narrative about African businesses. And I think one of the big things that we've been able to achieve at the village is helping Africans to have a different perspective about themselves. And what I keep saying is, you know, God created us in his own image and likeness. And I think sometimes Africans may struggle to see themselves in that image and likeness of God, where he was, you know, very creative at the beginning of, you know, creating the world, our humanity and putting everything together in the different days in an orderly fashion. And I just encourage a lot of the experts to see themselves as in that very image and likeness of they can be creative, they can come up with amazing creative solutions for African problems, they can come up with creative and amazing companies that can create stuff in Africa that the rest of the world wants to learn from, wants to copy from, wants to, you know, get some ideas from. And I think like SNDBX are the forefront of that. This village formula is one of the things that I've seen a lot of companies just get very excited about from the West. I lived in Norway once, I've lived in Europe and worked there and kind of came back, you know, with a sense that life could get quite individualistic when everything is catered for you. But while I was there, I would encourage a lot more community into what it is that was happening around me. And I could see other people get excited about that whole community aspect. I think the village or the community is one of the things Africa may reintroduce to the rest of the world as a mainstay of doing business or just living life together.
Rusty Rueff: That's awesome. Yeah. I don't want us to leave without reinforcing a couple of points you've made there about, you know, these non competing experts. This village that you create. One is I heard working with people who have a spirit of abundance, right. Who have an attitude of abundance. And the second thing I heard was people who are creative. Right. And so I think sometimes what happens when we surround ourselves with people, we say, oh, you know, I really need a great attorney and I need a great accountant. I need great you know, this is they end up staying, I'm going to use the pun. They stay in their own sandbox instead of coming to your SNDBX and being creative. Right. They think, well, because I'm an attorney, you know, I only give my legal. Well, no, let's surround ourselves with people who have great expertise, but also bring creativity to our businesses. And therefore, the SNDBX is bigger than we all can play in it. Right? So I love that. I love that. I'm going to turn this over to William in a second, but before we do that. So you went to Norway. You've been to other places, but yet you came back to Africa and have been a part of creating a thriving entrepreneurial environment, economy. And I want you to dive a little more into that, because we'll have listeners here who feel like, well, I may be in Kansas City and I need to go to Silicon Valley to succeed. Right. Or to get to where that is. Instead of saying, Well, what if I tap into the ecosystem here and I just stay here in Kentucky or Indiana or Virginia or any of the other places that we might have listeners. So just open that up a little bit for us.
Henry Kaestner: Or for the Africans that are in Kansas City right now.
Rusty Rueff: Yeah, that's right.
Henry Kaestner: Come on back. Come on back. There you go. Because otherwise, the African diaspora is an amazing, amazing thing. But as the listeners here, motivated by their faith, have a heart for Africa, I think that maybe the Africa that they see might be different than the Africa they left ten years ago. And it could really use them right now.
Rusty Rueff: It's good. I think it's good.
Joram Mwinamo: Definitely. I had a very deep conviction that we were on the cusp of something different happening in Africa. All the fundamental statistics seem to show that there's just this latent potential bubbling under the continent and on the surface. I also had a very deep conviction that, you know, I have a deep belief that entrepreneurship is all about problem solving. And I keep saying that where you have the most problems then should create the next billionaires. And Africa seems to be the point where there are all these problems that need to be solved. But I don't think that Africans themselves, for a very long time have seen themselves as the problem solvers of the immediate problems around them. But something seems to be shifting where there seem to be an increasing realization that there's all these resources, there's a youthful population, you know, there's growing Internet connectivity across the continent by mobile phone, and there's different types of innovations, like the mobile money in Kenya started coming to the fore. A lot of people then began to see that, look, we can create solutions that are unique to ourselves, that are so amazing that the rest of the world wants to copy from us. I remember traveling around the world and just having to explain and show people how our mobile money system works very simply over an SMS system, and I would see people completely amazed by how something so simple can be so powerful. I could do transactions online when I'm in the U.S. or anywhere in the world and send money back home to somebody. And now I can see, you know, you have your Apple pays and Venmo and everything and sort. I've come up after that and largely lending and borrowing from what it is that had happened on the African continent. And so with such examples, I think it's clear that there is a lot that we have to offer, But I think a lot of it has to start with us seeing ourselves differently, seeing ourselves as creatives, seeing ourselves as problem solvers. And as we've begun to solve this problem, there's so much value that has begun to be created on the continent. I think out of the last in the last five years out of the top ten fastest growing economies, I think eight out of ten have been African economies. We've had a lot of regime change is a lot more stable economies and political systems. And so I'm really bullish about the African economy for the next ten, 20, 30 years. I think the next great stories of this world, of companies, of growing economies, are going to be coming out of Africa. And so, I mean, we are pretty open. We are pretty hospitable to working with the rest of the world to make this a reality. But I think a lot has changed where the Africans are really confident in themselves and working hard to build these solutions that change their economies.
Willam Norvell: Hmm. That's amazing. Joram, thank you for taking us on that tour and reminding us where some of these things have come from. Really amazing to think through that. And I want to shift just a tiny bit here as we move towards the back half of the podcast to your own personal journey. And, you know, obviously a lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs that find themselves at various levels of discouragement. Right. There's some great mountaintop moments, but there's many more that are not. How has even in the midst of success, how have you wrestled through the discouragement that can come day to day or week to week or month to month? And how has your faith and or other people helped you through that journey?
Joram Mwinamo: Yeah, I in the story of building my company, I'm one of those who at one point, you know, because of how difficult things were when I was running, my previous company actually ended up having to deal with depression and anxiety like mental health issues through some pretty discouraging times. I think just, you know, having to fight through some of the challenges that our business environments still have to offer. Like corruption, like, you know, difficult economic environments or difficult government protocols and the like. They do drive me to a point where I really struggled, you know, dealing with some of these issues and getting into really dark times and business did not seem like it was watching out and then having to get into a place of just the documents that comes with depression and anxiety. But one, I do believe quite strongly that if it wasn't for a village and just having to admit that, you know, in the midst of the challenges that are happening and having to be open and vulnerable with other people and have them step in and cover for me and the times when I was completely incapacitated and couldn't, you know, function well, but also getting the encouragement that would come from the village and being able to seek help from people like specialists in therapy and the like, and then being able to walk that journey back to a place where the business has succeeded. You know, prayer for me during those very dark times was quite helpful. I think a lot of people in my situation would probably have given up or shut down or something. But just having, again, communities around me in from church, from my family, my wife encouraging through that period help to shine a light when things are quite difficult, I find because I do coach a lot of entrepreneurs as well and I did quite a lot of that. I do find that people tend to isolate themselves even more during the dark periods, and so my encouragement is like, be proactive about creating that village around you that will encourage you in dark times, that will help lift you out of the dark times. Don't isolate yourself. And even as you pray, you know that times, maybe in the darkness, you are not able to treat yourself better and you have a village of people around you who can uphold you just in prayer and encouragement can make things a lot more bearable than if you choose to go the lone wolf route. And so that really would be my encouragement. Like don't try and be a hero to try and do this all by yourself. I know the media tends to celebrate people as self-made, but I strongly believe that without a village around you, you could not go through such difficult times.
Willam Norvell: Hmm. Thank you for walking us through that. It's it's amazing that last point you made, I think is so important. I feel like I hit that point for the first time four or five years ago in my life. I used to not understand when people said, I can't pray anymore. So what do you mean you can't pray anymore? And four, five years ago, some things just happen in my life where I finally, for the first time recite. And I remember sitting in those text messages and those notes saying, I can't do it anymore. Can you pray on my behalf? And I didn't think I'd ever reach that point. So thank you for sharing that and reminding us that we are made for community. And there are those times when we need people to pray for us, when we can't do it ourselves. And God so gracious to answer those moments. So drum with that. At the end of our podcast, we were going to shift to something we call the Lightning Round. If there's a cultural distance there, I don't know if there is, but what it means is quick questions. I think you got it from the smile. Quick questions. Quick answers. Henry tries to encourage people 30 to 60 seconds. We've rarely hit that, but we try our best. So you're going to get it from all sides here. Rusty and Henry invite everyone back in. But we're going to run through some quick questions and try to get some great comments. First would be what's your audience know about the state of business in Africa that they don't know today?
Joram Mwinamo: Yeah, I think the next greatest business is to come out of this world, are going to come out of Africa. I think you're increasingly going to see with a 1.2 billion population of young people, you're going to see a lot of opportunities for creating value, creating innovations. Yeah, just creating infrastructure and creating opportunities for the large populations of Africa, for job creation, for economic impact. I am like dead set, convicted about the fact that that's going to be the case. And so if you're not part of making it happen, you're going to miss some.
Willam Norvell: Awesome If food happened to be 80% of someone's reason to travel to Africa, where should they go first for the single best food?
Joram Mwinamo: Oh wow, I say I would say Kenya at that coast has some of the most amazing food you could come across. And so I would encourage them to come to Mombasa and get to eat things like Pilau. And they just have a lot of amazing cuisines of the different types of foods. I think they spent the most time of all the different tribes of Kenya perfecting how they cook.
Rusty Rueff: All right. I'm going to stay with food. Why can't I make good ugali? I've tried. What's the secret?
Joram Mwinamo: It needs a special flour for those who don't know. Ugali is a special food in Kenya made out of maize meal, and so it needs a special flour. The one you have in America is not going to cut it. You need to get the special one in Kenya [.....] I can ship you some.
Rusty Rueff: I will follow up with you. I love Ugali.
Henry Kaestner: Okay, I've got one before I hand it back to William for the final close. Is there a ministry or a charity that you like to give to one that you feel that when you give to it, you see God working through your donations in a way that brings you joy?
Joram Mwinamo: Yeah. So I've just come off the board of an organization called Nakuru Children's Trust, where we've been able to take quite a number of kids, now numbering the hundreds in Kenya through educational opportunities, all the way to probably tertiary education where possible. And yet just seeing the lives of those who would not previously had the opportunity to go all the way in their education for one reason or another, and being part of an organization that is supported by both Kenyans and Americans. Making that a reality has been quite fulfilling.
Willam Norvell: That's amazing. And as we do come to the close of our show, what we always love to ask is try to invite you to share a piece of God's word that may be coming alive to you today. It could be something. This morning he spoke to you, could be something you've been meditating on your whole life. But we just loved to always continue to see how God's Word is alive and moving and invite our guests to share with our audience something that's stirring in their heart today.
Joram Mwinamo: Yeah. So it's interesting. We have been going through in our church. I attended Nairobi Chapel congruent in Kenya, one of the big non-denominational churches here. And yeah, so we're going through a study of the Book of Ruth and it's very interesting. Like this past Sunday, it felt like God was speaking directly to me. Even my wife kept turning to me and saying, You know, this sermon is specifically for you. And it's basically about how, you know, just Ruth made herself busy in a foreign land and active and using what she had just to work and then got spotted during that time. And what's his name is Pastor Ondachi was telling us was basically a lot of us because of fear would hold back from trying out something that's in line with the talents that God has given us and therefore we end up missing out on so many opportunities. And he drew so many parallels even to the parable of the talents and just a parallel with Ruth's life. If she sat back and said, I'm affraid, I'm not qualified for this, I can't do anything useful, she would end up just having not been spotted and elevated to a place where I think there's a lot of things said about her industrious nature, a lot of things said about her loyalty, a lot of things said about how hard working she was. And if you translate that, whether it's to the entrepreneurship space or to the career space, if we don't have fear, if we are industrious, if we throw ourselves into taking up opportunities and doing things in line with our talents, that could end up opening up new opportunities. It could be writing a book, it could be, you know, authoring something new, it could be starting a business. It could just be doing something that we've been passionate about, that God has put in us. And it's basically in line with that, that people begin to notice what you're doing and you get elevated opportunities. Basically come to those who are already in the field doing something. I'm a living testimony of that. If I had never taken the step to, you know, set up a business that was helping entrepreneurs, I would never have come across the opportunities to have people fund the set up of a SNDBX. I look where I am today telling my story in this podcast and who knows what other opportunities could open out of this to make our global vision a reality. So I tell people don't have any fear, you know, step out, have courage, do that which God has placed in you and you don't know who will pick that up and amplified.
Henry Kaestner: Fear of God and don't have any fear that something profound that just came to me, Joram, I'm just I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for the way that you've been able to share with us a different vision for Africa, what God is doing there. I love how have you come back and done something with the village concept that is absolutely African origin and bring it to bear in a way that allows entrepreneurs to succeed at scale in a world class way, showing excellence along the way. I'm grateful for your friendship and your leadership in your partnership in the Faith Driven Entrepreneur movement. Thank you.
Joram Mwinamo: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to all these spaces. It's been amazing how my life has changed since I got into this movement and networked. And all the friends I have rebirth and the synergis of this movement. We collaborate quite a bit here in Kenya and it's been amazing the things that we've done together to help entrepreneurs grow.