Interview With Esteeri Kabonero

1. What are your names?

Esteeri Kabonero

2. Where did you go to school?

I grew up in the US so I had all of my education from there for my

undergraduate.

3. What did you study?

I went to Boston University where I measured in business management. Then,

for my Masters, I got a Masters in entrepreneurship and global innovation

and I receive that from Emlyon University in France and partnership, and it

was a program where I got to travel to China, the US and Europe in order to

really understand, global innovations with local perspective.

4. Tell us about what you do?

We hear that you were recognized for your social enterprise work?

I am the founder of Powah Ltd. We are a solar company that uses Solar for

productive use and this really means that we provide solar solutions that can

assist businesses and people to increase their income generation. So our

focus is to provide the infrastructure to power Internet, phone charging

computers. We do this in Kampala and off grid areas such as refugee

settlements. In the refugee settlement of Nakivalwe we created The first

Powah hub which is a solar run container that charges phones, computers

basic office equipment, such as printing and scanning. This enabled

refugees to be able to access these specific tools. We had even Opportunity

Bank which didn’t have a home at the time in the refugee settlement and

they utilised the Powah hub there in order to start providing agent banking in

the settlement. We also provide trainings within the Powah hub for women

businesses so they’re able to utilise the hub for skills development but also in

to provide energy solutions for their particular businesses, whether it’s

basket weaving, tailoring or catering.

5. What are some of the major influences in your past that are determining

what you are doing now?

When I graduated university I was interested in the business and innovation

works, so I knew I wanted to start off in the entrepreneur ecosystem, so that

introduced me to Innovation, where people can really take ideas and make

them into real businesses. As a a creative myself I enjoy business. Many

people might see Business not being creative but you have to see something

that’s really forward-looking. You have to visualise a product or service

before it’s been made you have to understand how a customer thinks and

really determine your product market fit and so I think being in that sector in

at industry really inspired me to join the entrepreneurial route. I started to

consult a lot of start-ups in Uganda. I work with United Social Ventures as the

program lead and we take entrepreneurs in different stages of their journey,

so they can be investment ready and that’s something that I think, Uganda is

still really learning.

6. Tell us about some of the projects that you are involved in?

So at USV, we have done a lot of support for different programs and different

hubs. We’ve worked with most all of the ecosystem players in support of their

entrepreneurs to get them investment ready so we do workshops we do oneon-one 

coaching and our approach is really tool based so even with our

workshops entrepreneurs get the tools in order to implement them for the

businesses. For example, we have a financial modelling workshop and at the

end they learn break even points, there are variable or fixed costs when they

become profitable how much they need to sell, which is something that a lot

of start-ups or even companies in general do not have that resource and

they really don’t even have the unit economics. How much does it cost to

create one unit of their product or service.

Their pricing strategies as well something that a lot of companies face

difficulties with and we really pinpoint some of the pain points for the startups

in order to give them tested approaches to be successful in the market,

and we distinguish different companies based on the level and stage they

are in so we have three pillars focused on design Companies that have yet

to really define their model that they go through each design stage and it

really helps them to define what their model is and to define different parts

of their business model. Then the next phase is what we called build and that

increasing your sales so eventually you’ll be able to be sustainable the

market this is really where are product market fit it is and then we have

growth businesses and those are businesses are scaling. They know what

their model is their increasing sales and now they’re looking to be

sustainable and high growth businesses in their market and really capture a

sustainable really capture a part of the market. We then help you to reach

those levels and investment to go onto the next stage.

8. What do you think about the Technology and Innovation Ecosystem of

your current State? What role does your current employer play in the

bigger picture of investment?

Most of the hubs in the country are not even 20 years old, so it’s still a very

virgin ecosystem and I’m inspired to be part of it and to help it grow and

develop and I work with so many different start-ups,Who really want to take

their businesses forward. This ecosystem is very brand-new sometimes

when you do look at some of the bigger ecosystems around the world, you

wanna take what they’ve done and put it here in Uganda but its very

different . The ecosystem here is in startup stage. You might find that

another country has those that friends families finds Part of it but many

people don’t have that access to raise $20,000 before they enter the market

and that’s where we play a role at USV. How to get those start-ups from

Early-stage to growth stage where they can have a model that works in

order to grow sustainably and to get those investments where they do go

into series A where they do have investments worth over $1m and beyond.