Karibu Loo Business Continues to Stabilize and Grow
October was the fourth profitable month in a row for Karibu Loo. The business seems to have found its footing and is now a growing young business in a pioneering area.

Winner of “Best Sanitation Provider in Kenya” Award
In September the team applied for and won the Kenyan hospitality industry’s MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) Award for the “Best Sanitation Provider in Kenya”. The team was presented the award at a dinner event, which all the managers proudly attended. Since winning the award, the marketing staff have blasted the news out as an email to all current and prospective clients, featured it on the website and on Facebook. It is a source of pride for the whole organization.

Social Media Marketing Fueling Success
While our Business Development Manager remains focussed on institutional sales (especially schools and construction companies), a growing part of the business is coming from our emphasis on social media marketing. Maureen Mulieve, our Executive Director, hired a Google expert who has significantly increased our online presence and effectiveness. Our phone started ringing so much that we have had to go to a new phone system to keep up with the calls from individual customers and businesses. That combined with our MICE Award have helped both institutional and event driven sales.

Our Staff have become a Marketing Tool!
One of the key differentiators for Karibu Loo is that we hire only our program graduates for field work. Our Senior Associates accompany every delivery and set up the units at the events or construction sites. To amplify our presence, we bought Karibu Loo branded overalls for the four young men who drive our trucks and deliver our units. Our customers gave us immediate positive feedback on having our workers in their new bright-red branded overalls. Associates have always worn red t-shirts with the Karibu Loo logo, but when the weather is bad the kids put on rain gear, which immediately covers up the logo. We are buying raincoats for the Associates to wear and gain exposure for the brand at the same time.

Karibu Loo (KL) has many exciting developments to report. Thus far in 2018, KL has gone from being a business struggling to secure long-term contracts to a business struggling with positive growing pains.

• Moving to profitability: KL has been profitable in each of the first three months of 2018, earning approximately $2,000 in January, $1,000 in February and $7,000 in March. April is on track to generate profits as well.
• Sound leadership from Maureen and Kenneth: The business has improved significantly due to more effective leadership (Maureen Mulievi), and the addition of a young, energetic sales professional (Kenneth Odongo). See all staff at Karibu Loo: https://www.karibuloo.co.ke/our-staff/
• Long-term business absorbing an impressive 46% to 94% of units: Maureen, Kenneth and the staff have been successful in securing more long-term contracts. The British Army (located in northern Kenya), has become an important client requiring extraordinary servicing and effort, contracting from 16 (currently) to 66 units at its peak in January. The construction business, with an April total of 17 units on monthly contracts, now includes Konza Construction, Nanchang Construction, TENSES, and Karen Construction. KL has retained the ongoing weekly Sunday-only rentals to three churches for seven units. Long-term rentals therefore absorb 17% (27% with the churches) of our units plus the highly variable British Army business, which puts absorption between 94% in January to 46% in April.
• More effective targeting: KL has learned that long-term rentals are primarily done by foreign corporations or government entities, and Kenneth is becoming effective at targeting important, long-term sales.
• Assets spread thin with inefficiencies costing over $15,000: Running the business has been a challenge as our assets are spread very thin. Current assets include 88 unit (including one VIP unit), a large truck, one exhauster and a pickup truck that can pull the VIP unit or the newly-built trailer to transport unit. KL had to pay for third-party trucks to transport the units to the British Army and is currently renting a large truck full-time (combined cost in Q1 was $14,000) to service the British Army business to which KL has dedicated the exhauster. All the units in Nairobi are serviced manually, which is unhealthy and unpleasant for our staff. The low number of available cabins has forced KL to rent units from competitors on occasion (Q1 cost = $615).
• Most urgent need – a reliable large truck. The biggest business challenge is currently the large truck, which has served KL well since the company’s inception but is now chronically breaking down. The portable sanitation business is not viable without a reliable truck and exhauster. We are working on plans to purchase a new truck, exhauster and 60 more loos and invite individual donations to make the purchase possible.

Today, KL employs five Ngong Road Children Association (NRCA) graduates full-time and has employed 57 high-school graduates part-time as Associates since inception. KL’s Associate Program allows recent NRCA high-school graduates to gain that very valuable first job experience and earn income. “Sales and Operations Associates” are hired to keep the cabins clean and stocked with materials at events and act as ambassadors for the organization. The Associates program teaches NRCA graduates how to be good employees – show up on time, do a good job, and dress properly – skills that students living in the slums never see demonstrated by adults in their lives yet are critical to the charity’s mission of transforming lives through employment. Associates make 500 Kenyan shillings a day plus transport and a meal. (For context, 500 Kenyan shillings covers about a quarter of a month’s rent in the slums). Almost 1,000 day-payments have been made, injecting $5,000 into the slum economy in earned wages.

2018 is off to a very strong start for Karibu Loo, largely due to several significant long-term rentals and having the right people in place. We are optimistic 2018 will be the year the business starts to earn profits and will pay a dividend to Ngong Road Children Association (our sister organization in Kenya). Here are the highlights:

• $2,000 in profit in January: The portable sanitation business in the U.S. is primarily based upon long-term rentals. It is virtually impossible to build a successful portable sanitation business by only supplying to events. However, events have constituted most of our business to date in Kenya. Long-term rentals are an essential ingredient to profits as they ensure a steady stream of revenue to cover costs.

In January, Karibu Loo rented out 66 of 89 units for about 15 days to a unit of the British Army that is training the Kenyan Army and another 10 units to a Chinese construction firm for the entire month. In addition, we have weekend long-term rentals at several churches. Together, these long-term contracts plus normal event business generated just over $2,000 of profit in January.

• Issues. As always, there are issues to be overcome. The biggest challenge faced by the business today is that our truck has become very unreliable. The truck has served us very well on treacherous roads since 2014 but is increasingly prone to breakdowns. We have had to outsource movement of loos and cleaning services when the truck was not functional, which cuts into our margins. We are building a new trailer that will be pulled by our pickup truck and can carry six loos.
  

A second challenge faced by the business is receivables. We have worked hard to reduce receivables, but getting customers to pay on a timely basis in Kenya is a recurring problem. We have the right staff and board in place to improve upon this issue in 2018 and beyond.

• Growing the business. We are preparing to order a new truck, as frequent breakdowns has become a real impediment to the business. Meanwhile, we are evaluating the long-term potential for the British Army business and will decide whether to order more cabins and an additional exhauster in April. Our sales leader is young, energetic and is getting results, so we must have loos available for him to sell. We are confident the business will contribute to our charitable mission of educating children in 2018 and that we will also be able to invest in growth.

If you are interested in supporting Karibu Loo with a donation to purchase the new truck and support business growth, please contact Development Director, Lacey Kraft, at lacey@ngongroad.org or 612-568-4211.

Paula Meyer
Founder and President

Karibu Loo is off to a very strong start in 2018, largely due to several significant long-term rentals. Here are the highlights:

Long-term rentals. The portable sanitation business in the U.S. is primarily based upon long-term rentals. It is virtually impossible to build a successful portable sanitation business by only supplying to events, however events have constituted most of our business to date in Kenya. Long-term rentals are an essential ingredient to profits as they ensure a steady stream of revenue to cover costs.

In January, Karibu Loo rented out 66 units for about 15 days to a unit of the British Army that is training the Kenyan Army and another 10 units to a Chinese construction firm for the entire month. Both of these clients are candidates for long-term contracts. In addition, we have weekend long-term rentals at several churches. Together, these long-term contracts plus normal event business generated just over $2,000 of profit in January.

Employment. Five of our graduates are employed by Karibu Loo in marketing (1), operations (3), and accounting (1). In addition we employ many recent high school graduates as “sales and operations associates” whose responsibilities include keeping the loos clean and well supplied at events around Nairobi. This is a good way to provide income for these students and teach them basic workplace etiquette – showing up on time, dressing appropriately, speaking confidently with clients, and following through on responsibilities.

Issues. The biggest challenge faced by the business today is that our only truck has become very unreliable. The truck has served us well for the past several years but is increasingly prone to breakdowns. We have had to outsource movement of loos and cleaning services when the truck was not functional which cuts into our margins. We are building a new trailer that will be pulled by our pickup truck and can carry six loos.

A second challenge faced by the business is receivables. We have worked hard to reduce receivables, but getting customers to pay on a timely basis in Kenya is a recurring problem.

Growing the business. We are considering ordering more cabins and an additional exhauster. We have had many days in January and February when the constraint on business volume was lack of available cabins and the logistics of having only one exhauster and truck has become too risky. Meanwhile, we are raising funds to replace the old truck immediately.