Name
James
Member since
February 2015
On-time repayments
290 installments • 54%
My name is James Kariuki, born in Nairobi city in the sixties and brought up in Nyeri County. Nyeri is in the central highlands of Kenya where farming is the main activity of the local community. My father was a businessman while my mother was a housewife engaging in farming of coffee and tea.
I went to primary and later secondary school in Nyeri and later joined a technical college where I did a course in building construction. I did not get a job related to the course I did and I decided to start a hardware business where I sell building materials such as pipes, taps, locks etc. This is what I doing to date.
I am married with two children, a boy and a girl and they are both in college after clearing their secondary education.
As stated above, I am in hardware business specializing in plumbing materials. I started this business in Nairobi but later relocated to Mombasa. I started as a hawker where I would sell the hardware items from door to door but with hard work and serious savings, I managed to establish a store which serves as an outlet for my hardware items. However, I still have a challenge in that my store is in upstairs and therefore no visibility. I mostly rely on my loyal customers, referrals and occasionally a stray buyer.
For this reason, I have started another hardware store in a place called Ukunda – 20 Kilometers from Mombasa where I am operating from down stairs and the visibility of the business is excellent. This is a much smaller town but my market share is good due to low competition in this field. My main challenge right now is to buy adequate stock for this new branch since getting credit from the local lending institutions is very difficult and also very expensive.
I want to leverage on Zidisha loans to grow my business and take it to higher heights.
As stated earlier, my business deals with sale of hardware items where I normally target construction workers who work within my region. This business requires a lot of capital because I need to stock a wide variety of these items so as to attract more buyers.
With this loan, I intend to buy an assortment of items like
3 dozens water taps at a cost of $150
1 dozen ceiling fans at a cost of $ 180
An assortment of small hardware items will take up the balance.
Positive
3
Neutral
None
Negative
None
Project Type
Classic Loan
Disbursed amount
$365.00
Date disbursed
Nov 29, 2015
Repayment status
On Time
Projected term
8 months
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