Skip to main content

How Munyuki Manatsa Created and Launched a Website from an Internet Café in Zimbabwe



Posted by  on Apr 22, 2012 in Start Ups, Success Stories | 0 Comments and 0 Reactions
By Munyuki Manatsa
After my last interview with a big mining firm,I got fed up.I had gone to many interviews with big companies , and the result was always the same.With unemployment at a staggering 80% , one can imagine the stiffness of the competition , now add corruption and your chances are next  to none.
I graduated with a Bsc Information Systems from Midlands State University of Zimbabwe in December 2009.When I graduated I had high hopes of a good job , two years later I realised that no one was probably going to give me that chance any time soon.
Confronted with a not so rosy future , I decided I was going to build a web application.I had read so many stories so I was optimistic plus it was the only chance that I had to be noticed.
I needed an idea , so I brainstormed a couple of ideas but none of the interested me.Then it dawned on me that I needed to solve a problem that I  know ,if people didn’t like the idea , I would just use my application for my own good.
I visit a lot of  hip hop sites and sometimes  a site might have one good story or content.I decided to build a  hip hop link aggregator with social networking featurers .Besides it will also give me an opportunity to sharpen my programming skills.
My programming skills were a bit rusty , I did not have a Internet connection ,there was no one to help if  I encounter a problem and I did not have  a debit or credit card to purchase a domain  name or hosting.It seemed impossible but I had no choice.
Firstly to solve the domain name problem I contacted a friend who had a debt card.He purchased the domain name http://www.mixdem.com for me.With that solved I searched google for a good free web host and found capnix.
Having purchased the domain name and  the hosting I began development of the website.I would work mostly during the night because during the day the would be no power most of the time.If I encounter I challenge , I would work at it until I found a solution.I would  go to the Internet café to download websites that I needed to scrape and also search for a solution to a problem that I had failed to solve.The social networking part  was difficult but I managed to pull through , it had features like voting on content that you like , you could follow people like on twitter , share your thoughts , comments , algorithms to rate content and messages between members.Three weeks later I had a working prototype and ready to test it.
I now wanted to launch , I went to the internet café and created an account with capnix hosting.Logged to my godaddy account and set the nameservers to point  to my capnix account.Uploaded the website and set up the database.Then I waited for the nameservers to propagate. After two days I checked and the website was not yet accessible.I had made an error in  created  the account so I had to do it again.After hours of trying to figure it out , I finally managed to set it up and my website was now visible.
The time to promote the website had come , I set up a twitter account and engaged with the hip hop community there.I also posted on Facebook about the project and a couple of classifieds websites.I was just looking for feedback and was not expecting a  lot of traffic.
After about a week after the launch the response has been humbling.Considering that I did not much marketing other than tell few friends ,the site had 500 unique visits which is quite impressive.A lot of people have contacted me with business ideas and others want me to freelance on their projects.
As a result of this project,my future now seem bright and  I have started getting a lot of opportunities that I did not have before.If you find yourself in a position like me , don’t lost hope instead start a project and tell people about it , it doesn’t have to perfect and use all the resources you can get - http://munyukim.wordpress.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An interview with Zimbabwe's most successful mathmetician

Interview with a mathematician. A human mathematician. by Tawanda Gwena Professor Heneri Dzinotyiweyi is probably the most successful mathematician produced by Zimbabwe to date. He was born on March 15, 1950. We skip the next few years of his life, only pausing to say that he went to Fletcher High School for Form 6. Then we come to his university life which started in 1971 when he enrolled at the then University of Rhodesia. There he first studied Mathematics, Physics and Geology, and then went on to Honours in Mathematics. Unfortunately, due to the 1973 disturbances following student demonstrations against racism in the country and at the university in particular (student demonstrations here have a very long history!) he was arrested and imprisoned for the latter half of the year and had to complete his degree in private study outside Harare in 1974. He was the second (the first was J M Harvey, mentioned later) Honours student in Mathematics here, having been taught by p...
1 comment
Read more

Binga women in Zimbabwe make history on the Zambezi River

22 March 2012, Unwomen.org “I used to sell fish under the trees, and carry fish on my head. I would wake up at 4am to walk a long distance to buy fish from the fishermen. Now I sleep and wake up normal hours, and have my tea before the Captain comes. I never thought I would have time to sleep, eat, work and rest like this!” So reveals Kuli Mungombe, one of ten women who are making history in Zimbabwe by owning and operating a fishing rig in the country. The women, from the Tonga ethnic group, formally entered the male-dominated industry last year after being provided with the rig, equipment and skills training. They have since been working to scale up the venture in Binga, one of the country’s least developed districts, so that it can sustain them and their families, as well as create opportunities for other women in the area. This is the first time since the 1950s that women from their ethnic group have been able to fish at all.  Although it was traditionally the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hard work the secret to success: Zimbabwean mining magnate

Sitting on the executive committee of one of the world’s biggest multi-national mining companies, July Ndlovu, refuses to let power go to his head. July Ndlovu is one of very few blacks to hold senior mining post in SA. “I am no different from the ordinary man on the street and I would not call myself a successful person,” he says with true humility. “I am just an ordinary man working very hard and I have been pretty fortunate to have the opportunity to work with people who believe in me. If the truth be told, there are many other people who are as qualified as I am and others who are brighter, but are still nowhere near where I am now.” In his fourth year as Executive Head of Process, Member of Executive Committee and Member of Operations Committee at Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Anglo Platinum Ltd, Ndlovu (45) is one of very few blacks to hold such a post in mining here. With Anglo-Platinum being the world's leading primary producer of platinum group met...
Post a Comment
Read more