Nail polish, nail buffer, and nail art brushes for manicure

Entrepreneur

About Me

My names are Rita Murugi. I am 25 years old. I was born in a small village in Embu county in Kenya. I am the fourth born child in a family of five. My parents became separated when I was 10 years old in the Luhya land where my mother had been married. This was the beginning of major difficulties in my life as my mother was left without land or a house to shelter us. Meanwhile, my two elder brothers and one sister left to go and fend for themselves in the nearby towns. This meant that my mother was left with no one to protect her as I and my younger brother were too young to support her. In fact, our future seemed dark and gloom as we had no idea how we would complete our elementary education.

After missing school for weeks due to the lack of school fees, my mother decided to migrate to Embu county where she was born. There, she had the hope of getting menial jobs to pay rent and buy food for us. Meanwhile, I was enrolled in a public primary school where I continued to school with many difficulties including missing exams for lack of fees and repeating classes. However, I realized that I had to be resilient and courageous if I wanted to make it through primary school. Moreover, my pastor in the local church used to visit us to encourage us and pray for us. Therefore, I developed inner strength and a great sense of responsibility from an early age.

After completing primary school, many people in our neighborhood were shocked by the very fact that I made it through and also I achieved good grades that gave me an opportunity to proceed to high school. Although I had achieved a milestone in life against all odds, I faced yet another hurdle since high school required a lot of money to be enrolled. After seeking government bursary in vain, the church came through for me as it sponsored my high school education in full. The joy of finally receiving a high school certificate was overwhelming for my mother who had really struggled with me and my younger brother.

After graduating from high school, it was very challenging for me to proceed to college, again, because of financial hardship. Therefore, I decided to contact a few of my friends in Nairobi who were in business for advice on how I could start a small business in my home area. After several consultations and visits to my friends' businesses, I came up with the idea of opening a small salon using the savings I had made during my high school years. My mother and siblings received the idea well and backed me up with all they had. The idea was to do business for about three years and then register for a course in college using the proceeds from the business.

Today, I have achieved this goal and I have managed to open one more small salon in Nairobi. The businesses are the primary source of income for my family. As a mother of one daughter, I want to give my child the best that I can in terms of education so that she can also support others in future. Moreover, she wants to be the minister of finance when she grows up because I have taught her a lot about money.

I have several hobbies including swimming and reading magazines. I like meeting with friends and exchanging business ideas.

My Business

My main source of income is the hair salon business. I decided to start a salon business because in my locality, only two salons were serving a large population of ladies and young girls who wanted to look smart. Additionally, I had always desired to look beautiful and presentable myself. As a woman who was brought up by a single parent for the most part of my life, I could not afford luxuries such as beauty products and different hairstyles. Therefore, I developed the urge to one day, transform my life in terms of looks and also serve other ladies as a saloonist.

In my hair salon, I have employed one lady who helps to style hair, do hair dyeing, weaving, plaiting, and braiding. The salon also generates about 15% of revenue from selling hair and hair care products including shampoos and conditioners. The services are offered both on appointment and walk-in basis.

The typical costs of the hair salon business include the money used to order various hair types and beauty products from suppliers such as the Best Lady Cosmetics and Angels. The profit from the business is used to pay my assistant a monthly salary, I pay monthly rent for the rented space, and I allocate myself a monthly salary. The profits also cater for my daughter's school fees, family expenses such as food and rent, and savings.

Loan Proposal

The requested funds will be invested in the manicure line of the salon business by buying more nail treatment supplies to make my customers look even smarter and feel more confident. I have already served the first few customers with the few nail treatment tools I had managed to acquire through a previous loan. However, the customers are requesting for even better service by refining their nails to appear great. For me to fulfill this need, I require high quality nail polish and nail buffer as well as art brushes.

I expect the investment to attract more customers to the manicure line of business from the current 3 customers per week to 5 customers. This will increase the overall weekly profit of the salon business by about 5%.

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