Jayanoris » My Personal Projects

New Pet Project: Sales & Discounts in Nairobi

Kelvin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 07:09:55 +0000

One of my goals this year was to launch a “soft” start-up business. Something easy to run on the side without taking up too much on my time or resources. Some may argue that this is not the right approach when running a new business. That’s true.

However, this is something I want to do in my free time without worrying about budgets and deadlines and all of the other things that make life hectic at ‘normal’ start-ups.

After some thought, I decided my ideal soft start-up would be:

Powered by WordPress (and DukaPress if need be). Because it would then be super easy to launch.
Something that would take less than an hour of my time everyday
Something in which I could easily outsource the “kazi ya mkono”.
Something through which I could experiment any way I like. For example, I want to test new marleting ideas, site optimization, SEO methods etc.

I had all the above down by the beginning of the year. Now I just had to find a damn start-up idea. An idea presented itself one day when I had to kill two hours in the Nairobi CBD. I’m not known to love shopping but I found myself wandering the streets looking at shop windows. I noticed that almost every second shop had some sort of special discount on their products or some sort of sales offer.

And thus, Funua was born. Basically, Funua is a website which is where you want to go if you want to know about sweet discounts and sales offers in Nairobi. You want to go out shopping? Why don’t you open up Funua.com and see if you can save some money? Uchumi ni mbaya and if you can save something then you should. Funua is your friend.

What did it take to make?

WordPress
Genesis Themes
A bunch of WordPress plugins to help with SEO and other things
I hired someone to walk the mean streets of Nairobi lookin’ for deals-you-cannot-refuse.

The website development cost a grand total of Zero shillings. Though I wonder how much it would have cost if I did not do it for myself.

What do I think I will achieve with this?
No delusions of grandeur here! I am very alive to the fact that it could be dead in a month or two. But I’m hoping to:

See it grow to a respectable level of traffic
Maybe – and that’s a big maybe – a high level of traffic will mean that we can charge businesses to be “featured”
Primary method of monetization will be Google Adsense so that it can, at least, pay for its own expenses
Perhaps most importantly, it will be a test-bed for all my socal media, SEO and other ideas. I’m looking forward to this!

So, if you want the scoop on the latest and greatest sales and discounts in Nairobi, you know where you want to go.

Softie Can Cook

Kelvin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:43:10 +0000

Cooked by Wambere

Interview with Kelvin Jayanoris of DukaPress at WordCamp Kenya 2011

Kelvin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:06:55 +0000

Kelvin Jayanoris on TV?

Kelvin — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 05:44:05 +0000

LOL!

My New (And First) Office

Kelvin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:07:23 +0000

Earlier this month, I moved into my new offices. I’ve never had “offices” which I could call mine before. Big step for me.

Watermelon Happy

Kelvin — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 06:20:06 +0000

Imaginary Fight

Kelvin — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 05:41:55 +0000

Loving Her

Kelvin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:00:43 +0000

Listen to her, even if she’s not making any sense. Look for what she’s really telling you. If she’s complaining about something that’s never bothered her before, what she’s really saying is “I feel like crap and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’m looking for something else to change and hoping that will make me feel better.”

Other tips for that time of the month.

Of Superblogs, Tricools and Explorers

Kelvin — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 06:52:00 +0000

Time really flies by, doesnt it? I guess that would be an understatement when speaking of time on the internet (internet time?). You start something and before you know it, you’re celebrating anniversaries. Weird. Cool even.

Speaking of which, does anyone remeber tricool? You probably also heard(read) that I sold it (at a loss) and they bought it. They had big plans for it.

Well, things change. Tricool, as we knew it, ceased to exist on September 29, 2006. However, it is not (yet?) dead and has already been reborn. Watch this space, it’ll blow your mind away.

The rebirth of tricool coincided with the birth of another project, project superblog. I honestly think this is an exciting and achievable project. You want to join in, or you WILL want to join in.

Fortunately, anyone can join in. You just have to read this and get instructions on how to sign up.

Have a cool day.

Project SuperBlog

Kelvin — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 13:48:00 +0000

You Have to READ THIS FIRST

The idea that was born a few days ago is now in the process of becoming a reality.
This is your opportunity to get the opprtunity to regularly get links from a superblog. Join us.

Marazzmatazz said…: i like this idea definitely interested. i get the part about linking back to ourselves, am curious though how will the superlinking work if our own individual blogs have limited linkages? it will somehow be prudent to have massive links on our blogs first, then link this to the superblog. and on a calculative speculative plane, how many links would you say make a small fish blog a supeblog??? might help for devising the rollout strategy

I checked it out and as you can see, a superblog typically has 10000+ links to it so that means we have to work real hard real quick, and get plenty of people on board. I’m still working on a possible approach or strategy to the whole thing so I happily welcome all of you to chip in.

Have a cool day.