I met Mbogo in 2004. He was selling newspapers at Bellevue junction on Mombasa road. At the time, he had been contracted by a registered vendor to sell as a sub-agent.
A few months later, his boss was hit by a matatu and died. Mbogo was left without a job.
Luckily, Mbogo had saved sh30k and he went to Nation newspapers and paid a deposit to be registered as a vendor. BTW: you need to pay for one week supply of 100 papers daily; cost comes to about sh20k.
Within a month, he had raised enough to register at the Standard as well.
For the next 3 years, Mbogo worked hard and increased his area of operation to cover almost half of South B. He had six sub-distributors selling a total of almost 1,000 papers daily.
One morning in 2007 as I picked my paper from him, he noticed a Toyota Corolla 90 passing by and said "If you know some one selling such a car, tell me".
I asked him what he wanted to do with it and he said he wants to provide taxi services to the local people. Some of his newspaper customers had asked him to get the taxis on several occasions...
A month or so later, he told me that he had found one and bought it at sh200k. It was parked across the road from his mains newspaper stand.
He operated this vehicle for about a year and one fine morning I saw him driving a newly imported Toyota Fielder. He stopped and gave me a lift to town.
As we talked, he let it out that he had imported it from Singapore at a cost of sh850k. "What about the old car?" I asked him.
He said he had employed a driver to run it....
About a year ago, I moved out of the estate and didn't see Mbogo for several months.
Last Friday I visited a friend at my old estate and while there I saw Mbogo's Fielder taxis parked near the main gate.
I called him to say hi and catch up... he told me that he was at the airport picking up a customer in his taxi.
I retorted: "Come on, Mbogo I can see your car parked here in South B!"
"No; I am in my new car. That one is with my driver" He replied.......
I was very happy to see that he has grown his business, now to three taxis and still runs the newspaper distribution.
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I expect that in another 10 years, Mbogo will have about 20 vehicles in operation and if the media gets wind of his story; many people will find it hard to believe that one can build an empire from selling newspapers.....
Nothing is real unless it can be named; nothing has value unless it can be sold; money is worthless unless you spend it.