At 28, I rent shelves and offer delivery services for small online businesses
I offer storage space for small businesses as well as delivery services. This means that when you rent a space, you sell your wares online while I handle the pick-up and delivery service of things. This means I am the face of your business
We take this interview on a Friday afternoon. When we arrive, Lynn Kemunto Patrick’s work station on the third floor of Sawa Mall in the Nairobi CBD is a flurry of activity.
There is a constant flow of customers seeking to pick up a book they saw on this online bookshop or a dress from an online boutique or honey from a seller they saw on Instagram. The phones are also constantly vibrating with frantic customers seeking to get a doorstep or office delivery for a product from this or that online shop. In the middle of it all is 28-year-old Lynn Kemunto who makes sure everyone’s needs are met and apologises for the shortcomings of the small businesses that rent space from her. This is just one of three spaces she owns in the CBD.
“Kenyans have the most interesting shopping habits. Someone will make a decision to buy something online but will wait until an hour before they have to leave the office for home or to leave for the airport to make their order. Most purchases become emergencies this way,” she says later.
Stumbling into business
Watching her at work, one would imagine that this is an idea she has nursed for years which has finally come into fruition but No; she stumbled into the business.
“The only thing I have known about my career is that I want to help people,” she says.
Before she started her business three years ago, in the third quarter of 2019, she was working as a personal assistant to a CEO of a regional company. She had started at the company two years earlier as a sales admininistator.
“That was my first job. I studied human nutrition and dietetics at JKUAT. I took this course so I could help people,” she says.
But like for any other young person graduating university these days, a solid job in her chosen career field was not forthcoming so she got a job in sales. She did it so well that she was promoted to be a personal assistant within a year. But she wanted more out of her career. So she started talking to her bosses about a promotion.
“I asked for a long time but it wasn’t happening,” she recalls.
It was while in this state of dissatisfaction with her job that she stumbled onto the idea of setting up shelves to rent out to small businesses.
“It was the weekend, I was hanging out with my friend who was selling earrings online. Her sales were good but her business was not big enough to rent a space in a good location with the current exorbitant rent prices. She struggled with delivery and some clients would pull out altogether when they learned that her business lacked a physical location. I knew instantly that there was an opportunity to be tapped into there,” she says.
Setting up the business
She made her mind up immediately. She was going to spend another six months at her job during which she would save every coin she could. When the six months were over, in October 2019, she got a space in the CBD, set up shelves and opened the doors of her business.
“Starting a business was not hard or scary. I had sold bras and underwear all through campus so I knew a thing or two about sourcing for clients,” she says.
Problems for her began when she got clients and she began running their businesses for them.
“I offer storage space for small businesses as well as delivery services. This means that when you rent a space, you sell your wares online while I handle the pick-up and delivery service of things. This means I am the face of your business,” she says.
At the moment, she has over 100 hundred small businesses under her roof. This means that she is interacting with all sorts of people all day long something which she admits can sometimes be overwhelming.
“I try not to take things so personally sometimes,” she says.
Cash to keep the business afloat was also a problem especially the first year as her business relies entirely on her shelf tenants needing her delivery services.
“There have been many tears,” she chuckles looking back at how far she’s come.
Even as she sometimes struggled to please all her client’s customers, her business has grown to three branches, and a fully-fledged delivery company with a fleet of motorcycles. She employs 12 people.
“The hardest part of the job is managing my team. Especially the delivery side of things. When you have riders out in the field, so many things can happen from harassment by city council employees to accidents. It’s a lot of moving parts,” she says.
Living her dream
The best part of running a business is that she gets to help people just like she has always wanted.
“It’s so fulfilling to help run a small business from the moment they rent a locker here to the day they’ve grown big enough to rent their own shop,” she says.
Also, when it comes to hiring, she goes out of her way to employ young mothers.
“Sometimes they may need flexi-time to tend to their kids but I have found that they are grounded and working for a reason so they make better employees. And I am fulfilled helping these young women grow,” she says.
When she is not streamlining her fleet of bodabodas or tending to clients or balancing the books for this or that online business, she dreams of her business making it possible for small business owners to sell their products online all around Africa without having to worry about logistics.
Lynn’s entrepreneurial nuggets
- Businesses especially small ones lie a lot about what they have the capacity to deliver or not. While lying might get someone to make a sale, it will lose you customers in the long run.
- Nothing happens overnight. Especially not a thriving business. You will need to grow the patience to put in the money, time, energy and emotion required to grow your business.
- Anyone can open a business but it’s the quality of the customer service that often sets you apart from the others. BY DAILY NATION

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