EP18 | The Moment Our Business Model Clicked | Leonard Mcharo & Emily Mcharo (Founders, Tsavo City) – Transcript

00:00So, architecture was not moving the way we thought it would move. >> [snorts] >> Interior design without Just Bank is there and a few other things. Just Bank was moving banking, not Just Bank. Banking was moving from the place you go to to the things you do.

00:15>> Mhm. >> To digital that you were helping them with. >> Yes. Yes. So, you you you are the enemy of the state. >> >> You are the enemy of my interior You are the reason they're not getting interior design work. So, this thing was not working.

00:28>> >> You truly never know people until you take the time out to get to know people.

00:47Again, in life when we see people, we judge. When we hear, we judge. So, for example, and it's who we are as humans. I have no time to ask you, "So, how did you become wealthy?" When I see you, I just think Sabo.

01:02Cuz that's what maybe the point of which you meet people at life. The epiphany for me in this on the past conversation was there's a part of your mind honestly speaking, as much as the there's there's a passion that there's an obsession, let me use that word, yes. There's an obsession to get financially [clears throat] free uh that breeds creativity.

01:29But, there's a blockade that not being financially free does to your mind. There's a way you can't think, dream, or see reality. Because there's always this but how will this be paid?

01:42>> Yes. >> Sabo, even the vision of it and the coinciding of it with the loan being paid sounds like freedom was truly attained, and now we're about to hear the possibilities that can happen in freedom.

01:57That's me just thinking. Over to you. Who wants to start? >> Um I can start. >> Okay. >> Again, as I said, when you attain freedom in one thing, you have broken one sphere.

02:16You are at the top of one sphere, you get into another sphere. And you start at the bottom. I'll give you an example. Even when you're raising our children, we always wanted to be at the bottom of everything. So, you're living in one neighborhood where we are the most broke.

02:32We rise. Immediately we think we're going to be at the top, we look for another neighborhood. Kids are in this kind of school. Even as you are maintaining our lifestyle, the issue about taking our kids to expensive schools was not for us to spend the money.

02:47It is for them to learn a different way of thinking. >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah, when you move to a different neighborhood, it's for us to have another way of how do we how our our neighbors, how what are we learning from them? You know, and they're older than us, they're 10 years older than us, 20 years older than us. What are we learning from them? So, so getting financial independence was our life goal.

03:07From when you are children, from when you are young. >> How do you put a date to when you wanted to attain this by? >> 45, 40. Half a million, 45, 40. By 43, we had surpassed.

03:22But there was the issue of >> No. >> We had paid the loan off. >> No, by by 43, by by me 42 actually. 2016, eh? We were done. >> All that was left was 11 11 >> The 11 rooms.

03:36>> 11 rooms. And all that we'll do, we'll add more. Yeah, yeah. But but the 11 rooms were The number of rooms was not the issue. It is how much cash. >> Mhm. >> Remember, it's all about cash flow. >> I get it. >> So, the first seven or so years, we were way behind schedule.

03:52It was a terrible run. >> Mhm. >> We are working so hard. We are not going for holidays. We are always broke and we have absolutely nothing. Things pick. But in the second set of seven years, our 15-year goal was now achieved in 12 and 12 13 years.

04:08>> I get it. >> So, again, giving yourself a long time enables you to push. So, we have done all that. It is 8th of August, 2015. >> Mhm.

04:22>> I have come into Savvo. And we have started. Hold that thought. Remember I explained that Savvo is a triangle. The tip of the iceberg that everybody sees.

04:36The apartments, the number of apartments built, the the residents, the face social media comments, the problems, the things we do right, the things we do wrong.

04:51Uh, the haters, the lovers, everything that is seen is a little tip of the of the iceberg. >> Mhm. Of the triangle, yes. I get it. >> But by the time you are coming to Savvo, when Savvo, remember we formed Savvo City in 2014 and shelved it. It was not an It was not It was a beautiful name.

05:11Forgot about it. We came to form Savvo Architects. >> Yes. >> So, I have moved to Savvo Architects. >> With seven people. >> With seven people. We knew our idea is to do epic in whichever field.

05:25>> Completely. >> But in the meantime, the Bible always asks, "What do you have in your hands?" What did I have in my hands? What did we have in our hands? This time, even the idea is not for Emily to join us.

05:41She's not an architect. >> Mhm. >> What is, you know, she's in Sudan paying the loan. So, we are doing this thing here. What's in our hands is skills in architecture, skills in interior design, and what we have learned from Good to Great.

05:58And the day I met my mentor at at Cafe in in in in Lavington, he gave me a book called Running Lean, which showed So, Good to Great tells you how to build a culture and how companies built. Then from Good to Great, I learned I we got another book called Built to Last by the same author.

06:16Um and Great by Choice by the same author. So, we got a number of books from the same guy, which had explained different ways of doing culture. Then we are done that book Disrupt, which just made us that we need to disrupt. That was And this mentor [clears throat] had given me a PDF of a book called Running Lean of how to create a business model.

06:40Um and somewhere along the line we got a book called Blue Ocean Strategy. Um and and a few other books. So, one of the things So, skills in architecture, come again?

06:55>> Seven habits. >> And Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. >> It's given >> the a training manual that Emily had had in 2005. >> It was Yeah, it was 2005. >> Around around 2005 she went for training. She came back and showed me something and told me, "You need to study this." Then I became obsessed with that manual. So, I think the other people must have gone for the training, read the manual and threw it away. We are using the same manual, photocopies of the same manual to date.

07:24>> Wow. >> Yeah, actually that thing is more than 20 years, eh? >> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. >> So, architectural skills, interior design skills, and culture, and a hunger for developing a culture, and a strategy, and a business model.

07:37>> Mhm. >> We did not know how to do these things, But we knew good to great at all of us that once you have the right people in the right place, you can learn >> [clears throat] >> and create this thing yourselves.

07:52So architecture was the thing that would keep us moving at that time. It was not the goal. >> Mhm. >> So as Emily's coming every week, she's not coming to work at Servo. >> Mhm. >> She's coming so that we sit in these strategy sessions and just discuss.

08:08So at this time all the clients who had promised me that they will because as you as you're telling telling my partners I'm leaving, I'm also talking to the clients I had brought to the business. >> Mhm. >> So everybody who had told us that they will support us with work did not come through except one client.