Kenya's success story on the world map continues to spread after a start-up founded by Diana Muturia, a one time homeless immigrant in US, emerged among winners of the Impact Accelerator for Underrepresented Founders by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Her company, Clyn, which is slated to receive a payout of Ksh27 million (USD225,000), emerged victorious in the programme's first cohort alongside 24 other companies.
In an interview with Bizjournals, a USA-based publication, Muturia noted that her rise to the top has not, particularly, been a smooth-sailing one.
The start-up founder first arrived in the US from Kenya to attend college but her dreams were scuttled towards the end due to lack of tuition fees.
She dropped out of the institution and was at some point homeless before her friend, living in Phoenix at the time, took her in.
To get by, she took on manual cleaning jobs where she got the idea to start her own company, Clyn, a company that connects cleaners to their customers and has a user-base of 2,000.
“I started to see other cleaners in the same community and get to bond with them. Their experiences were similar; It's not as though we're not smart enough or they're not hardworking enough.
"It's because society kind of pushed them to the corner because they're different. And so I decided I'm going to do something about it," she told the publication.
She hired individuals to help her come up with the application but overtime, no notable strides were made when she decided to learn coding herself and work on the app.
Today, the company has five employees, two based in Kenya and the rest in the United States.
In April, AWS announced an accelerators fund valued at Ksh3.6 billion targeting under-represented founders where each qualifying start-up would receive up to $225,000 in combined cash and credits, training, mentoring, and technical guidance.
“What I want to learn from this is just how to scale. We want to really expand in Phoenix; Phoenix is home to us.
“We've been busting our butts. We call ourselves roaches for a reason: We never die. But we really want to gain some wings and be a nice little bird," she told the publication.
Spotting a seafoam green branding and a mop as part of its logo, the company seeks to change the perception of how home service providers and janitorial jobs are looked upon.
The company also runs an online store that sells branded cleaning merchandise ranging from sling bags at Ksh3,600 (USD30 dollars), anti-fog face cover (Ksh1,000), cleaning gloves with silicon scrubbers among others.
