At 24, he earns KES. 75,000 monthly from some simple innovation.

24 year-old Ken Kamanja holding his 'tools of trade' during an interview with Thika Town Today. Kamanja earns an average KES. 2,000 daily from labeling personal documents.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. In the realisation of how the loss of a national identification card, passport, automatic teller machines card or a student’s ID card can throw someone into real disarray, one young man came up with an innovative method to assist people get back their lost documents.

24 year-old Ken Kamanja from Thika town saw an opportunity and with the ensuing innovation now earns him tens of thousands of shillings monthly.

Kamanja earns an average KES. 75,000 monthly from labeling, not only office equipment, but also national identification cards, ATMs as well as job cards using a sticker printer machine.

While narrating his innovation to Thika Town Today, Kamanja reckoned that without certain crucial documents, one was edged out of doing certain things such as making mobile money transactions from banks and agencies.

“My work is usually to insert one’s phone number on their personal cards so that in case they get lost, anyone can trace their owners via the contact.  It is a problem-solving business and the response is very good. If you take for instance when one loses their passport, they end up paying up to KES. 10, 000 to replace them. An ATM replacement goes for KES. 500 notwithstanding the headache one undergoes through to replace the ID,” he explained.

Kamanja was bitten by entrepreneurship bug in November last year and since then he has never looked back.

He has already registered a company called Anjamak Empire Ventures for his venture.

“The market is really demanding since it is a new thing. It’s just a removable sticker that you can peel it off at will without interfering with the original status of the card,” he says.

This journalism and mass communication Diploma Certificate holder from Nairobi Institute of Business Studies (NIBS) did not have deep into his pockets as he just started off with an initial capital of KES. 12,000 which to purchase one printer which ironically is simply a portable gadget that can fit in a sling bag just comfortably.

“I started with only one printer which I just moved around with without the worry of any office space or bills,” he laughs off.

Kamanja explains that the cassette contains 150 stickers with each bundle going for Ksh. 2000. Should you charge a minimum of Ksh. 30 on a good day, you are capable of making a profit of Ksh. 2,500 because in a day you can use a range of two to three cassettes.

Kamanja's hand-held printer that he uses to label documents. INSET: An already labeled national ID Card.

“It costs between Ksh. 30 to Ksh. 200 depending on the client and also the type of card that is being labelled. When labelling passports, driving licences, student school cards, ATM’s I charge a minimum of Ksh. 100. If you aim at the target of a 150 documents which is very easy since most Kenyans have identification cards, you will be going home with not less than Sh. 2,000 in a day,” he says.

His challenge

“We are now into the electioneering period and some of our clients tend to think that we are stealing their votes when we ask for their identification cards,” he explains.

He added that he can also label materials such as school uniforms as well as office files as the labels cannot react with water or other chemicals. Still, about the uniform, what is used is a sticker but one that is applicable on washable materials.