5 Quickest Ways Kenyans Make Money

A few years ago when Michael Joseph was still at the helm of Safaricom, he said something about Kenyans that left him praised and bashed in equal measure. “Kenyans are a peculiar lot” He said and since then the statement has made a lot of sense to many observers both in Kenya and beyond our borders.

Kenyans are indeed quite peculiar choosing to do things in their own unique ways compared to other nationalities and especially those inhabiting East Africa. Perhaps it’s one of the reasons mobile money M-PESA has enjoyed record breaking success in Kenya and failed to take off everywhere else globally. Yes another characteristic that stands out is their hustling capability which has enabled them do the extra and cross borders just to interact with the shilling.

It’s no surprise finding a young Kenyan juggling 2 or more jobs or businesses and doing it with the ultimate dedication and perfection. And what are some of these businesses that Kenyans are always prone to start?

Land Investments

Well, land is at the top of the chain of all the things Kenyans like to invest in. Shows like Maina Kageni in the morning on Classic 105 FM basically thrive on this premise where they move millions upon millions of parcels of land for sale across the country. And we can all understand why, land is very valuable to Africans and most importantly it’s a more than a sure investment. Land always appreciates in Kenya and thus you are always assured of a profit if you make any investment.

In a report recently released by Architect.com, the appreciation rate for land in Kenya currently stands at 20% per annum with potential to go even higher. And what does that mean? Let’s say you buy a piece of land Isinya for Ksh 450,000, it will be Ksh 540,000 in a year’s time. Very few SACCO’s in Kenya can guarantee such a return in Kenya.

And do you need a lot to make an investment in land? Probably not, there are many places with great potential where land can go as low as Ksh 200,000 or just slightly higher for a 50 by 100 meters parcel.

Multi Level Marketing

The other common pursued business in Kenya is Multi Level Marketing (MLM) known as pyramid schemes. The most common and recent one right now is Public Likes which has just recently collapsed after run ins with Safaricom. As synonyms with many other pyramid schemes, the business model is largely determined on numbers and networking where the more people one introduces into the scheme, then the more money one makes. Public Likes at it’s peak, the official website has moved from obscurity to number 11 on Alexa ranking in a span of just 4 months. While these schemes offer potential to make a tremendous amount of money for great networkers, the risks are very high as you are never sure when it’s all going to come crumbling down. Public Likes true to most MLM schemes collapsed leaving many distraught Kenyans who had lost significant amounts of cash.

The greatest beneficiaries however are always the proprietors or the first initial people to join who make a killing before it all becomes infuriated.

Online Writing

Then we have online writing which is very popular among millennials and young urbanites. It’s especially common among fresh graduates who are either unemployed or on their first jobs looking for that extra cash. And it comes in many forms but the most common one in Kenya is academic writing where students from abroad give out their assignments to be done by other people. They do this using various platforms which you apply for or register online. How the business expands is greatly determined by mostly the platform and secondly your work ethic as the more the clientele trusts you, then the more business comes your way. The only hitch with this is that the business is seasonal as it’s greatly determined with the curriculum. You don’t expect business coming your way when most students abroad are on summer holidays.

There are other common writing platforms like IWriter and Fiverr where Kenyans are making some extra cash. This is a business suited the intellectuals who are comfortable sitting on their laptops and desktops and producing great content given different topics.

Forex Trading

Forex trading is yet another common phenomenon among many Kenyans. And just to bring you up to speed, Forex is the foreign exchange market where currencies are traded. Currencies are important to most people around the world, whether they realize it or not, because currencies need to be exchanged in order to conduct foreign trade and business. Case example the importance of the forex market in play is when a tourist comes to Kenya and can't pay in euros or dollars to see our wildlife and as such they are expected to exchange the euros for the local currency.

However, most Kenyans participating in this are only doing so to speculate on currency movements and make a profit. Forex market is the largest, most liquid financial market in the world. It dwarfs other markets in size, even the stock market, with an average traded value of around U.S. $2,000 billion per day with a quite a sizeable amount of Kenyans at the heart of it all. All transactions occur via computer networks between traders around the world, rather than on one centralized exchange. The market is open 24 hours a day, five and a half days a week, and currencies are traded worldwide in the major financial centers of London, New York, Tokyo, Zurich, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and Sydney - across almost every time zone. This means that when the trading day in the U.S. ends, the forex market begins anew in Tokyo and Hong Kong. As such, the forex market can be extremely active any time of the day, with price quotes changing constantly.

Forex Trading is quite easy to get started, one has to sign up with an online broker and then deposit funds into their account. Using the principle of margin and leverage, one can stand to gain enormous sums of money although they could quite easily lose huge sums. The Central Bank of Kenya had to intervene in the market due to the absence of legislation, online brokers were feared to take advantage of Kenyan customers.

E-Commerce

With the event of the internet and social media, E commerce is also establishing itself as a force to reckon in the Kenyan business with many young Kenyans making a killing every day from the various platforms. Nowadays when you need a new pair of sneakers, then there is no need to visit a store in town or wherever. Or you need to do is log into the internet and there a myriad of online stores to choose from.

They could be on Facebook, instagram and other platforms like OLX, Jumia Market and what not where various merchants are competing for your attention with attractive photos and equally attractive prices. Others are even going that extra mile by making free deliveries just to make sure they offer as much value to the customer. With the improvement in the online ecommerce stores, payment methods, this business will be the business of the future. It is already multi billion dollar industry in the West, known as dropshipping. One has to acquire goods at a very low price, list them online and then let Amazon, Ebay, Alibaba take care of the rest.

Kenyans are indeed quite peculiar choosing to do things in their own unique ways compared to other nationalities and especially those inhabiting East Africa. Perhaps it’s one of the reasons mobile money M-PESA has enjoyed record breaking success in Kenya and failed to take off everywhere else globally. Yes another characteristic that stands out is their hustling capability which has enabled them do the extra and cross borders just to interact with the shilling.

It’s no surprise finding a young Kenyan juggling 2 or more jobs or businesses and doing it with the ultimate dedication and perfection. And what are some of these businesses that Kenyans are always prone to start?

Land Investments

Well, land is at the top of the chain of all the things Kenyans like to invest in. Shows like Maina Kageni in the morning on Classic 105 FM basically thrive on this premise where they move millions upon millions of parcels of land for sale across the country. And we can all understand why, land is very valuable to Africans and most importantly it’s a more than a sure investment. Land always appreciates in Kenya and thus you are always assured of a profit if you make any investment.

In a report recently released by Architect.com, the appreciation rate for land in Kenya currently stands at 20% per annum with potential to go even higher. And what does that mean? Let’s say you buy a piece of land Isinya for Ksh 450,000, it will be Ksh 540,000 in a year’s time. Very few SACCO’s in Kenya can guarantee such a return in Kenya.

And do you need a lot to make an investment in land? Probably not, there are many places with great potential where land can go as low as Ksh 200,000 or just slightly higher for a 50 by 100 meters parcel.

Multi Level Marketing

The other common pursued business in Kenya is Multi Level Marketing (MLM) known as pyramid schemes. The most common and recent one right now is Public Likes which has just recently collapsed after run ins with Safaricom. As synonyms with many other pyramid schemes, the business model is largely determined on numbers and networking where the more people one introduces into the scheme, then the more money one makes. Public Likes at it’s peak, the official website has moved from obscurity to number 11 on Alexa ranking in a span of just 4 months. While these schemes offer potential to make a tremendous amount of money for great networkers, the risks are very high as you are never sure when it’s all going to come crumbling down. Public Likes true to most MLM schemes collapsed leaving many distraught Kenyans who had lost significant amounts of cash.

The greatest beneficiaries however are always the proprietors or the first initial people to join who make a killing before it all becomes infuriated.

Online Writing

Then we have online writing which is very popular among millennials and young urbanites. It’s especially common among fresh graduates who are either unemployed or on their first jobs looking for that extra cash. And it comes in many forms but the most common one in Kenya is academic writing where students from abroad give out their assignments to be done by other people. They do this using various platforms which you apply for or register online. How the business expands is greatly determined by mostly the platform and secondly your work ethic as the more the clientele trusts you, then the more business comes your way. The only hitch with this is that the business is seasonal as it’s greatly determined with the curriculum. You don’t expect business coming your way when most students abroad are on summer holidays.

There are other common writing platforms like IWriter and Fiverr where Kenyans are making some extra cash. This is a business suited the intellectuals who are comfortable sitting on their laptops and desktops and producing great content given different topics.

Forex Trading

Forex trading is yet another common phenomenon among many Kenyans. And just to bring you up to speed, Forex is the foreign exchange market where currencies are traded. Currencies are important to most people around the world, whether they realize it or not, because currencies need to be exchanged in order to conduct foreign trade and business. Case example the importance of the forex market in play is when a tourist comes to Kenya and can't pay in euros or dollars to see our wildlife and as such they are expected to exchange the euros for the local currency.

However, most Kenyans participating in this are only doing so to speculate on currency movements and make a profit. Forex market is the largest, most liquid financial market in the world. It dwarfs other markets in size, even the stock market, with an average traded value of around U.S. $2,000 billion per day with a quite a sizeable amount of Kenyans at the heart of it all. All transactions occur via computer networks between traders around the world, rather than on one centralized exchange. The market is open 24 hours a day, five and a half days a week, and currencies are traded worldwide in the major financial centers of London, New York, Tokyo, Zurich, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and Sydney - across almost every time zone. This means that when the trading day in the U.S. ends, the forex market begins anew in Tokyo and Hong Kong. As such, the forex market can be extremely active any time of the day, with price quotes changing constantly.

Forex Trading is quite easy to get started, one has to sign up with an online broker and then deposit funds into their account. Using the principle of margin and leverage, one can stand to gain enormous sums of money although they could quite easily lose huge sums. The Central Bank of Kenya had to intervene in the market due to the absence of legislation, online brokers were feared to take advantage of Kenyan customers.

E-Commerce

With the event of the internet and social media, E commerce is also establishing itself as a force to reckon in the Kenyan business with many young Kenyans making a killing every day from the various platforms. Nowadays when you need a new pair of sneakers, then there is no need to visit a store in town or wherever. Or you need to do is log into the internet and there a myriad of online stores to choose from.

They could be on Facebook, instagram and other platforms like OLX, Jumia Market and what not where various merchants are competing for your attention with attractive photos and equally attractive prices. Others are even going that extra mile by making free deliveries just to make sure they offer as much value to the customer. With the improvement in the online ecommerce stores, payment methods, this business will be the business of the future. It is already multi billion dollar industry in the West, known as dropshipping. One has to acquire goods at a very low price, list them online and then let Amazon, Ebay, Alibaba take care of the rest.