Transcript
Hello everyone. Welcome to the first ever episode of my tech story. My name is Alice Kanjejo, your lovely host for this podcast and my tech story.
Surely it was only right that this podcast just kicks off with my story before I share the amazing impactful stories that the guests that we're going to have on this season. Not sure if I'm going to split into seasons or just continually an episode as we go, but for now we have a bunch of episodes that we've already shot that I'm super excited to share with you guys. But I just thought it was only right for the first episode to be my tech story so that I can share my experience and why I even thought of starting this podcast in the first place, which you of course already got context if you listen to episode zero.
If you did not, make sure you listen. But no pressure today. I just wanted to share with you guys my story before I share the wholesome holistic, juicy, inspiring, thoughtful stories that are going to be shared on this platform as we go along from next week.
So, as I mentioned, my name is Alice Kanjejo, and I started this podcast for so many reasons. But the biggest one is because I wanted to have a space where I can share insightful stories with audiences that are in the tech industry or people who are not in the tech industry, but just to share about the products that are in the market from the products that are in the market to the people that are the trailblazers in the industry just to hear about people's success stories and success. Like I've been saying all throughout this podcast, as you will listen in the upcoming episodes, success to me is an individualistic metric.
It's personal. And to me, success. Everyone can be successful.
It's just what success means to you and to me, the guests that I have had on this podcast have been successful people in their own field. But I'm preempting too much. Let me get into my story so that I stop bubling out.
Now, where do I begin? Normally with my guests, I start with a basic intro. Not a basic, but a powerful intro on who they are. I've just been trying to debate whether I also have a powerful portfolio to share with you guys for my intro.
But just to begin, my name is Alice Kanjejo. I have been in the tech industry for as good as two years. Took a break somewhere in between for another two years.
But my first tech experience was my first product that I was in about four years ago, four or three years ago, give or take. I am a growth and marketing lead currently for a fintech startup here in Nairobi, Kenya, based, or rather based in Nairobi, Kenya called Honeycoin. And the experience has been amazing.
It's been fruitful. It's been the one that has an eye opening experience for me to say that hey, I'm learning so much about the tech industry. I'm meeting so many amazing people in this industry that have such thoughtful stories to share.
Why not start this podcast? So kudos to I mean, all credit goes to my experience working at Honeycoin and the people that I've met along the way that has made me realize that there is a space for such a platform to exist and there is a need for tech products or people to have a space where they could share what is in their market so that we are able to ultimately increase the global or African economy in a way that people adapt more into the tech space and adapt more to technology based solutions. Getting more and more into what this podcast is about and less about me. So it tells you a lot about where my I'm a bit nervous to share my story, but yes, back onto the main topic, which is my tech story.
Yes, I've been in marketing for about four or five years but really I think my tech journey started way long before that. I don't want to call it my tech journey. I want to call it my journey because my journey is a mix of me being myself in the speaking in front of the camera which is essentially why it led to where me starting this podcast in itself.
So my journey begins from the time I was small, even arguably since I was like three years old, I've always been the person to have the most upbeat personality, the person who is teacher's favorite or class presentation. I am there. I was never shy.
I was never a shy kid to be the one to lead in poems in, I don't know any presentations whether it came to acting. I was best at dress in high school more than once. Not once, not twice, I think even three times for regional sectionals.
We used to have those things in April 4 system if you know you know, I was an actor as well at some point and that was, I think, not just genesis of my talking but the revelation of that this might just be what I am meant to be or to focus on which is something to do with speaking. I think just from being younger, I think around high school is when I started to realize that wait, I kind of dig this attention grabbing, speaking in front of the camera, speaking in front of audiences vibe. I am not shy and I realized that it was different from people around me.
I think a lot of people had stage fright or talking to people was something that wasn't a norm for them but for me came so naturally from when I was younger and that also led me to now starting my YouTube channel which please do not go search for. Started my YouTube channel when I just finished high school or right about the last year of my high school experience. This also came right after I had the first I think the first kind of videos that I put on the internet were actually on Facebook because I used to be a spoken word artist.
There are people who know me because I used to be very big in spoken word. By big, I mean it was what I was identified by throughout my high school experience from not just my school, but even other schools, because I would gladly perform spoken words, even when we intermingle with other schools. I would put them up on Facebook, on Instagram, because I used to know how to rhyme words together, but still make them impactful.
So having a space for sharing impactful messaging or just a way for me to communicate to the world has always been something that was internal for me. So a spoken word was a huge and I mean huge guys. It was a huge part of me and who I was and I think it's what guided me to be like wait being in front of the camera is not something that is out of mind for me and that's when immediately I finished high school I knew I want to start a YouTube channel.
It was a big thing at that time to have a YouTube channel and it was a very audacious thing for me to do as well for me to start a YouTube channel of my own and it was also where I started learning. Starting a YouTube channel is one thing and being in front of the camera is one thing, producing the content is another. So that's when I started getting into my tech experiences or my tech journey because I had to really figure out how to use tools so that I can produce this content myself because at that time I didn't have money but I wanted to be a YouTuber so I'd use my phone and then go on Premiere Pro.
So now I knew I needed to learn how to edit on Premiere Pro. It's what people use, it's a software people use to do video editing and that's when now it all started coming in for me. That's when I started learning how to video edit and that's when I became consistent on YouTube as well.
It was a very depressing journey, though, because I would always have so much optimism on doing episodes and getting all my friends to come in and be part of my YouTube videos, but I never really got the traction. That I wanted or I just thought I think one of my guests that you will listen to as we go along mentioned that you need to have I don't rational optimism, but for me it was like a one on one. Like if these other YouTubers can do it, I can do it's.
As simple as starting a camera. I'm an interesting person, why is this not working out for me? So I would say it was a bit of a depressing journey, though. A journey that nevertheless was important for me and impactful to me as I continued with, as you will notice as we continue along in my journey.
But yes, I removed over 40 videos on YouTube. None of them got only a bit, one or two got above one K views, and those ones were, for me, insane. But what's interesting about the internet is that everyone knew I was a YouTuber.
So I'd go out there and we're going out to the different places for drinks or meetups with different people, and never once was there a failure of at least one person or two people telling me, oh, I love your YouTube channel. Oh, I watch your videos. So the numbers I'm seeing on the dashboard are 200 views or whatever.
When I go out there, people always identify me. So that is what kept me going. And even when my YouTube sunseted without my knowledge, I think it ended without me knowing that it was ending.
I think my last video I didn't think would be my last video, and it wasn't because I started venturing into other things, but yeah, that's when I became a really good video editor. And then in 2018, I found a new love for podcasting. And that's now where my podcasting journey began.
In 2018, I randomly decided to check my phone. It was my first time getting an iPhone, I had just come from my first time getting an iPhone, I had just come from a trip in New York, but that was 2019. I think it was 2019.
I came from the US with my iPhone and I'm trying to discover all these cool apps I'm seeing on this phone and I stumble upon this podcast app and I'm like, what's this thing? And I realize it's a place where people just put up a lot of audio content and different topics that you can be interested in. And I fell in love with about one or two podcasts that I then started listening to regularly. And in 2019 or 2018, somewhere along the lines, I can't remember whether it was 2018 or 2019, nobody was listening to podcasts.
Nobody that I knew or that I knew someone was listening to podcasts. Nobody. But for me, it became a very essential part of my life.
I think it was something that was getting bigger and bigger in the other more, quote unquote, progressive countries became something bigger. So in the US. Podcasting was a big thing.
Already in the UK. Whatnot? But in Kenya particularly, not many people were really into their podcast piece. So I was just that kid in first year listening to podcasts and people are listening to Spotify music and whatnot.
But that is when I knew this is actually something that I could do and pursue myself. Like it's just talking in front of a mic and just talking namimi. I was always that person with stories, me.
I've always been a talker. One thing about me, I was a talker noise maker. Number one, YouTube.
I'm talking this and that. So this is all part of the process. And then I thought I need to start a podcast myself.
And so I found someone to co host a podcast with me, which is my first podcast ever. And he was a great person to be a co host with. I think he really brought my ideas to life and I really got that fire of I really want this to be successful.
It's a new thing. I need to be part of the new change, the new content platform that is just coming up. And I wanted to be part of that transformative outlook of content and I was.
But I just quickly realized, I think three, four months in that we just had different goals. He wasn't as committed to the podcast mission as I was. And not to say that he was a bad person, he just was maybe wrong timing or he just wasn't into the podcasting as much as I was.
For me, I saw such a huge vision of podcasting. But at that time not many people are doing podcasting. But it was also now again related to my tech journey in that now I know how to video edit.
Now I need to learn how to do audio editing. So now here we are. Adobe audition.
I'm editing every single episode that we are doing. I'm learning about platforms like Anchor for you to rediseminate your content. I'm learning about how just more and more about apps and tools that I can use.
I'm learning more about canva, I'm learning more about just production in general. And because I didn't have money, once again I had to learn how to do those things myself. But I'm grateful because I now learned that is when now my interest in the tech things was peak.
And then I got my podcast. Didn't work out then. Now in my again uni journey, I'm starting a podcast.
I'm doing communications as a course, which means I also need to grow my career. What else can I do? I'm doing communications, I have a YouTube channel. So what did I do? My first job I applied for was actually for a tech company.
And basically what they were, it's called Many Active. And what basically they tried to build was a platform where you can pay a one time subscription and you can have access to different gyms across Nairobi. So basically you pay maybe 2000 and whether you are in Westlands or Kilimani, you can always just check the app which gyms you can go just walk into based on the subscription that you have, the different classes that they have and go in.
So one of my jobs was to try and scale that platform that also I got that job in the first place because they saw my experience of doing YouTube. And now I'm an editor and now I can do this. I'm a talker.
I'm not shy. So my personality itself carried me through. And, I mean, it was a great experience.
Great experience. It was a non paid experience. And that is when my interest in the tech industry grew more and more because I'm like, wow, you can build something like this.
There are people building such things like this, like apps for you to do such things. So that's when my interest in the tech industry started. And then right after that job, I got another job now in marketing for a marketing agency, Kalan.
Shout out to Kalan because I stayed there for a year and a half. And basically I was just learning how to grow organically in a marketing space. So my job was more content marketing.
And once again, it's the small things. I already built myself a portfolio before I got into my career space because the small things that I was doing I didn't know were leading up to me entering into where my career, basically. So remember, I'm doing all this editing.
I have a podcast, I have this, I have evidence that this is something I can do. So quickly, I got hired into the marketing space. And that's where now my journey began as well.
Walked in marketing, learned how to grow organically. Did that for some time, but also just felt this is not for me. I still felt that itch to still speak, to still be bigger than what this is.
At the same time, in two years ago, I started another podcast because just because one Ted did not mean that this is not my calling. I still felt in my soul that talking was something for me. And so Next move was to start another podcast, which is still currently running my lifestyle, one Banter Over Branch with my lovely co host Alexia Mosao.
And we have managed to do over 100 episodes, which has been a fantastic journey, but also just a journey for affirming that this is definitely a space that I want to keep doing. Whether it's podcasting, whether it's YouTube, I think my voice is my currency, and I've always been, and I think it took me so many years to figure that out, but I finally did. And whether this works out, whether the first podcast didn't work out, the second one, whether this works out or not, I still will be speaking because I feel it's something that I do enjoy.
Comes naturally to me. Flash forward. I'm doing a podcast.
I'm working for a marketing agency. I got into consultancy, but that's irrelevant. It was a good journey, but also just an affirmation that this is not where I want to be.
But then I got Honeycoin, and that is where everything blew up for me. Everything was a moment of realization for me. It was a moment of getting deeply into the tech space, listening to all these startup ideas, interacting with different founders from all over the world.
Not just Nairobi. You interact with Nigerians, interact with people from Europe, you interact with people from America, you interact with people from South Africa. And I've had the privilege of meeting all these kind of people.
And just from the beginning, my whole experience in this production and speaking just led up to this moment of me being getting the opportunities to be a growth and marketing person here at Honeycoin. Not here at Honeycoin, but at the company I work for, which is Honeycoin. And I think immediately interacting with all these people also showed me that there is an opportunity for a space like my tech story to exist for a space.
How can I integrate my love for technological solutions that can be provided based on the interactions that I've had with the people in this industry and my love for speaking and using my voice as a currency and putting inspiring stories out there in a way that can communicate inspiring stories, whether it's my own or people around me? How do I integrate both ideas? And that's why this platform came to be. And that's why my tech story came to be. Yeah, that's the story.
That's my tech story. And my tech story is continuing with this platform. While I still get the opportunity to interact with different people from the tech space, hear their ideas, share it with my audiences, and see that there are so many ways to make your life easier using technological solutions, but so many people in the African space still struggle to understand the products that are available in the market.
So I also wanted to give an opportunity. The Nairobi is basically, quote unquote, the Silicon Valley of Africa. So if so many startups are coming up, we need a space where all these startups can also be integrated in everybody's day to day life.
How do people know about these startups that are coming up? And so I felt, surely I can provide a solution with this platform where we can have more people interact better with technological solutions, get inspired. I'm getting too much into this. If you know, you know, you need to listen to the first episode to really get a feel of why I started this platform in the first place.
But yes, I think that is now where I am with my tech journey and my tech story. And I am just very excited to share with you, with all of you, the amazing guests and the amazing stories that we've shared on this platform so far.
