Entrepreneurship is all about taking risks and applying acumen.
Take the instance of Jerome Lapaire, a Swiss-born entrepreneur and the founder & CEO of Lapaire Glasses who came to Africa spotted opportunities, and decided to go all in.
The problem is that most of the time, entrepreneurs tend to take the wrong risks or end up recruiting the wrong employees who end up stealing from them causing the business to fail.
Lapaire came to Kenya in 2015 when he landed his first job with the investment firm, AlphaMundi.
He would later proceed to work with Sagaci Research, an opportunity that gave him a bird's eye view of the African market since he worked on various projects in Nigeria, Madagascar, and Senegal.
But being employed was just a short-term indulgence for him as he had always dreamt of setting up his own business.
At that specific moment, he sat down and asked himself which opportunities were viable for him to pursue.
The first idea that rang in his mind was digitising the transport sector. Having commuted within the capital, he felt that the idea was ripe and an opportunity waiting to be tapped.
After a while, a second idea crossed his mind which was the provision of insurance coverage. He believed that there was a lack of players within the market that could guarantee transparency.
The holy grail came to him while he was conducting research. He stumbled on a study on the market size of eyeglasses in Africa.
After crunching the numbers, and doing his independent assessment, he settled on this as his preferred idea.
However, there was one problem, his knowledge of this industry was limited. He didn't even know where to get the glasses that he wanted to sell.
“I was ready to try anything,” Lapaire said in an interview with a continental business news publication.
Sourcing Glasses
Now that he had the business idea in hand, the next step was to figure out where he would source the glasses.
He came up with the idea of ordering glasses from European stores in 2018. At first, he just ordered thirty glasses which he pitched as his initial original Lapaire range.
The whole process was inexpensive, efficient, and suited to his startup.
Marketing
Having surmounted the importation hurdle, the next challenge was getting people to buy them.
According to Lapaire, manufacturing glasses is not expensive. The hard part lies in marketing. He poses that if a pair of sunglasses costs $500, only $10 is the actual manufacturing cost, and the rest goes towards marketing.
“What’s expensive is asking Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to be on a massive billboard in Times Square,” he stated during the interview.
Part of his initial strategy involved reaching potential customers through their employers instead of depending on direct sales.
At this juncture, he sent numerous cold emails, which to his surprise, many CEOs warmed up to.
As his business started to slowly pick up, he employed the low margins, and high volume business model, similar to IKEA, to propel his idea.
The company also cut out middlemen, dealing directly with manufacturers which worked out very well in the end for the business.
To further make its offerings more appealing, the company introduced the option of paying for products over time to allow customers to make purchases at their convenience.
Expansion
After some months, the business which only had one branch in Westlands, Nairobi, gathered steam and started doing very well.
The attention now turned to expanding. At the back of his mind, he questioned which was more prudent, expanding the business footprint across Kenya or expanding across the continent.
He decided to go the continental route and the business now has 56 branches across seven African countries with 350 employees.
The company has also raised funding from international investors over several rounds as the company continues to grow.
Trusting Kenyans
Recalling his journey, Lapaire recounted setting up a shirt tailoring business while still in law school, which he revealed failed spectacularly.
“It totally failed. I burnt all my savings,” he stated.
It was at this point that he decided to relocate to Africa. Lapaire had been informed that Cape Town was an ideal destination because of its beauty. He was also aware of the fact that Lagos was a difficult nut to crack which prompted him to settle on Nairobi which he stated offered the perfect middle-ground for penetrating the African continent.
After arriving in Kenya, he hired 2 people and after working with them for 3 months, he gave them full control of the entire business including access to the business bank account.
His trust was vindicated when the employees ran the business diligently.
“If you want to scale, you need to trust people. You can’t scale if you’re on your own and you want to control everything,” he stated.
His business is now a major retailer of glasses both in Kenya and across Africa offering prescription eyeglasses, sunglasses, fashion eyewear, and lenses. The company also offers custom testing and optician services.
