Goodbye Ghana! As our 5 week
adventure comes to a close, we excited for the future of Yenso, but equally sad
to be leaving. It’s hard to leave our friends, new and old, and our fledgling
business. In the last week a ton of cool stuff has been happening, making it
even more difficult to miss the excitement.
Business wise, the hardest part has
been getting more lamps. We had a series of obstacles involving money
transfers, shipping, orders, and such, but we finally got our hands on 50 more
Sun King Pro 2s. Within hours of receiving the shipment, they sold nearly half.
Hopefully in the near future, we will have the cash to buy in greater
quantities.
We’ve finalized all the hiring for
our management team. Sales operations will be run mostly by the marketing and
training managers, Jude and Ernest. Our country manager, Michael, will be
handling overall operations, accounting, partnerships, and more of the admin
level stuff. Our network of sellers will continue to distribute lamps in their
areas under the training and guidance of our managers. This set up has allowed
us to spend more time working with manufactures, importers, and customers.
We’ve been able to collect data from actual and potential customers; their
feedback is crucial to evaluating and improving our efforts.
We met with representatives from Little Sun, a German
company, who flew in to demo their products. They also produce solar lamps.
Little Sun offers a smaller and cheaper alternative to the Pro 2. Though much
less powerful, because the Little Sun is less expensive, it is a great option
for students as a small study light. We’re excited to see how this could fit
into our line up of products and help more students!
On the weekends, we have been able
to travel to more rural areas to visit Harrison’s friends and explore the
markets there. Visits to “the bush” have opened our eyes more to the greater
need that exists in villages. Though city dwellers also love the Pro 2, those
in rural areas sense a much greater value in the lamp. A village chief in
Nyenase was particularly impressed, wanting us to return quickly with lots of
lamps. He even offered to make Harrison a chief, official ceremony and all, if
we gave him a lamps for free. Too bad one of the mottos is “don’t give anything
away for free.”
Our objections to free handouts
originated a long time ago, but they have only been solidified during our time
here. If people, anywhere, get things for free there are a number of problems:
1) There is no sense of ownership or accountability, no thought of “I spent a
lot of money on this, I’m going to take care of it.” 2) If you give things away
for free and people actually want it, you probably won’t have enough to give
away, and people will just sell it to those who want it most. Thus the purpose
behind giving it away for free is defeated. 3) There is no sustainability. If
we were giving these lamps away for free, we would have helped maybe 100 people
maximum. Eventually, our money would have run out and we would have packed up
and gone home. Done.
As a social enterprise, we allow the
free market to drive our social impact. This resolves many of the above
problems. 1) A Sunking Pro 2 is a little expensive. When a customer buys one,
they understand that they are making an investment, and will take care of the
lamp until it “earns its keep.” With adequate care, these lamps will last 5
years, saving them a lot of money. 2) The people who really want it, get it.
Richer people buy it on the spot. Poorer people save or sacrifice until they
can get the money together. The free market gets these lamps into the right
hands. (Our installment payment method helps a ton with this.) 3) We are
sustainable. Not only have we helped the original 100 people, but we are still
growing, helping more every day. We employ 11 people and are still hiring. Our
impact is increasing. As a for-profit business, we have attracted several
interested investors. People interested in both social and financial returns
are draw to social ventures.
We are excited and humbled to be able
to work with one investor, Brigham Johnson. He is the owner of the Forever
Young foundation school in Ghana, owns several other schools, banks, and
microfinance institutions. He is interested in solar and is very well respected
in many rural areas. We are super stoked to have him with Yenso, bringing
experience, financial backing, and a ton of connections. Between him and our
management team, we are confident we will be able to keep Yenso growing after
we leave.
We spent a few days in Accra doing
business stuff. We set up Yenso Solar as an official Ghanaian business. That
had its fair share of legal fun. We are also worked on opening bank accounts
and getting a better way to transfer money between Ghana and the US.
Leaving
Ghana, we traveled to the airport early in the evening, planning to sleep at
the airport and avoid missing our early morning flight. As a classic end to our
Ghana adventure, we realized halfway through the night that we had never
actually checked the time on our tickets…and we were off by 12 hours. The good
news? We thought our flight was 12 hours earlier than it actually was – meaning
that we didn’t miss our flight. The bad news? We thought our flight was 12
hours earlier than it actually was - meaning that we unnecessarily slept in the
airport and handed ourselves an extra long layover. J
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