Loan to purchase a pop-corn machine

Entrepreneur

About Me

I am a 24-year-old lady, working in Westlands, Nairobi Kenya. I am originally from Taita Taveta County in the Coastal Region. I moved to Nairobi immediately after secondary school to pursue college education. After training as an administrative clerk at Intra-Global College Nairobi, I found a job at an international Kindergarten in Westlands. My day would involve data entry of attendance lists into the school management system, Digitizing of children trip itineraries for parents to view on the online system, Filing and retrieval of children insurance details, among other administrative chores. After working for a while at the institution for a while, I got exposed to how many people working in offices and some of their daily needs at work. This is how I got to venture into selling of light snacks and drinks around offices for extra income.

My Business

I sell light snacks in administrative and business offices around the shopping center. I found out that many people around the center work in offices. Many do not manage to go for lunch either as a result of dietary issues or intensity of work. I took the opportunity to start selling light foods, fruits, drinks and snacks in the offices especially in Waumini House, Stonebic House, The Mall and adjacent Offices. I buy disposable plastic utensils in which I package the food and with my helphand, I move the foods around the offices as I sell them. During Lunch Hours, most clients purchase fruit salads which go for between 100 and 200 Kenyan Shillings (1 to 2 USD). This variance is as a result of the quantity and fruits incorporated in the fruit salad mix. During the evening, I sell more of Potato Chips, Crisps, Popcorn and Indian Chevda. Many people who work late prefer them with coffee or Tea. These light foods allow the people to worry less about their diets and at the same time have it in convenient ways courtesy of our delivery. Having worked in a sit-in office environment, I got to understand the stress many people in such environments go through to get affordable and quality food during the day. The one place that offers these foods in not close to everyone especially the "The Mall, Waumini House" Section along the highway. This is why I found it as a good opportunity to deliver the food to them. I usually spend averagely Ksh. 5000 shillings on the fruits and snacks. I also spend Ksh. 800 on labor for the preparation and distribution of the food. I hire a popcorn generation machine daily at Ksh. 3000 a week. This brings my daily expenditure to around 6200 a day. After sales, I manage to make a profit of Ksh. 2500 a day. With this, I pay my helphand Ksh. 600 a day, city council hawking tax of Ksh. 200 a day, fare with Ksh. 200 daily to and from Uthiru. I manage to Save at least Ksh. 1500 a day.

Loan Proposal

I hire the machine to make popcorn at a weekly cost of Ksh.3000. This significantly reduces my revenue. A new machine goes at Ksh.30,000. This is the machine that I intend to purchase with the loan money. I currently have some savings that I will use to fill up the Ksh.15,000 difference. With this loan, I will be able to save the Ksh.3000 I spend on hiring such a machine weekly. With this machine, I'll be able to create enough popcorn to supply, together with the other snacks, to the office blocks. This therefore, will increase my daily income by approximately Ksh. 420 (4 USD). With the increased income, I can get to save a bit more daily. I can also give my help hand a small daily raise (Ksh.150) to help with her transport expenses. Besides other methods of increasing sales like exploring new office blocks, purchasing this machine will help me reduce business costs and also increase the quantity of popcorn when I need to, in a more flexible way. There are more blocks to which I can market my food and the ability to satisfy demand is important especially when more workers request for deliveries. I'll really appreciate any help I get to raise the loan.

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