Meet Seanice Kacungira, CEO, Blu Flamingo
I met Seanice at the Women in Technology event hosted by Google and was immediately taken away by her presence. When she speaks, she really commands respect and I knew I needed to get to know her story better. Here’s Seanice’s story:
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Sure, absolutely! My name is Seanice Kacungira and I’m a radio presenter for 88.2 Sanyu FM here in Kampala, Uganda. It’s one of the leading R&B stations. I’m also the CEO and Founder of a digital media advertising agency called Blu Flamingo because we’re different!
What we do is we run digital advertising for various companies such as Uganda Breweries, Bell Lager, Airtel, PepsiCo and various other companies. Essentially we run their social media management; manage their social media accounts and buy ads online for them. We handle all their digital strategy, so whatever they do above the line, below the line in media, we put them on digitally.
What were some of the challenges that you faced when starting up?
Convincing people to get online! It was so hard. We spent a year just talking to all kinds of people, marketing ourselves and not having a single client. That was very tough for us. At some point, we thought maybe we should give up but we kept at it and surprisingly when one person came on board, they all sorta started coming on board. The biggest challenge was that.
Second biggest challenge; finding the right human resource; people who know about online and digital and getting the right people to work with us.
Entrepreneurship; passion, opportunity or a mix of both?
Definitely a bit of both. If you don’t have the opportunity, sometimes it doesn’t matter how much passion you have, it just doesn’t come. But I also believe sometimes because you have the passion, you are able to spot the opportunity faster to take advantage of them. Because sometimes they come disguised as problems, challenges so if you don’t have the passion, you can’t see through that so I believe it’s the passion and the opportunity combined.
Do you have any advice for budding entrepreneurs?
Yes, absolutely! Do your homework. It’s very important. It saves you a lot of money and a lot of time. I used to think that things like feasibility studies didn’t make a lot of sense therefore it’s only for people with a lot of money to throw away but I’ve realised its actually very important. Study your market and find out what they want and then give it to them. It cuts down a lot of the time.
Do your homework. The basics are very important. Please have an accountant or at least someone who can give you some financial advice! Taxes are very important. Some of the jobs we’ve only gotten because we are registered, tax compliant and there are other social media companies which don’t have all of that so it’s very important to do your homework.
And then share your ideas with people. People are willing to help you and give their advice if you’re vulnerable first. That’s the secret. You gotta put yourself out there FIRST before other people help you. So these are some of the really important things that I’ve learnt along the way that I’ll share with other people. But otherwise if you’re passionate you kinda go out of your way to find this advice.
About the Writer
Veronica is a free spirited change make, changing the world one project at a time. Read more about her projects and her experiences on her blog : http://vincairoland.tumblr.com/
