Tonnie Kamau, chief executive officer and founder of Ovotox. PHOTO | POOL
Summary
- At 30 years, he is the founder of Ovotox, a multimedia training, multimedia production, and media consultancy firm based in Westlands, Nairobi.
- Ovotox International School, its subsidiary is quickly making a name for itself in the videography and photography space training multimedia creatives.
- The school offers government-certified artisan, certificate, and diploma programmes with the integration of artificial intelligence. It is venture that is also offering full time employment to a staff of 10.
Tonnie Kamau has always had a nose for videography and photography. Growing up, he didn’t know what the future held in store for him, but if a camera lay ahead, he knew he’d naturally gravitate towards it.
Today, at 30 years, he is the founder of Ovotox, a multimedia training, multimedia production, and media consultancy firm based in Westlands, Nairobi.
Ovotox International School, its subsidiary is quickly making a name for itself in the videography and photography space training multimedia creatives.
The school offers government-certified artisan, certificate, and diploma programmes with the integration of artificial intelligence. It is venture that is also offering full time employment to a staff of 10.
But his path to entrepreneurship was not smooth.
While working as a studio technician cum radio production and music production instructor at Zetech University at the age of 21, he’d double up as a freelance photographer and videographer for weddings and small events.
His side hustle seemed to been doing well, so much so that he decided to start his first company and established a home studio in Ruiru Kimbo. That proved to be a mistake.
“I quit my job to focus on my start-up, but that did not do well after a few months due to financial challenges. I lost everything and could not even keep up with the rent,” says Mr Kamau.
He had learnt his business lesson. He decided to retreat to employment and secured a job as a part-time producer, documenting the events of bakery firm Emma Daniel's Creations.
“Still focused on my passion, I re-branded and started a second company based in Kahawa West. But tough financial times and lack of strategies led to the closure of this company as well,” he says.
The failure in the second time was painful and made him question whether he really had what it take to run a business. To address the doubt, he enrolled in an entrepreneurship workshop where he bumped into Mr Paul Mukoma, CEO Talanta Institute.
“Since I didn't have any capital to get me back to business, Mr Mukoma hired me as the chief producer, quality control manager and media instructor for a year,”he says.
However, the entrepreneurship would not let him be. He trusted his gut and resigned. He made up his mind to focus on his passion entirely and set up another studio, this time in town on Dubois Road.
“That was a bold and risky move as it pushed me to the worst and most painful phase of my life. Lack of a sustainable business model, low clientele, and poor strategies pushed me to re-brand four times in two years,” he says.
He landed a car wash job which could only cover his daily bills.
“At this point, it was all about survival for me, but even then, my focus never shifted. I was earning around Sh200 per day. I invested my time in properly researching online on entrepreneurship and general life issues.”
Looking back he says though this was the most psychologically painful phase of his life, it was yet the most beneficial because his research findings would later lay the foundation for his big turnaround.
Since the car wash job could only afford him internet bundles and a plate of food, he began managing his time effectively and developed a strategy that saw him work four jobs in a day. That was my breakthrough. After the long wait and the painful lessons, things began to look up for him.
Breakthrough
From offering music production classes at Music Inn Music school, video editing services at Sunrise films, Camerawork services to Richard Takim (Nigerian pastor at 680 hotel daily evening and weekends services), and from the side hustle as a videographer and music producer, he would to raise at least Sh150,000 a month.
He then joined a Sacco and after saving for a year, secure a business loan. With more financial support from his parents and friends, he started Ovotox.
“I decided to offer training as it is a sustainable business model. With time I approached venture capitalists that enabled my business scale to higher heights.”
Mr Kamau has grand plans for the school. To give its graduates an edge in the job market, they have partnered with Conflux AI to provide proper education and Artificial intelligence solutions.
“This has seen it integrate its creative multimedia diploma courses with artificial intelligence for such productions as animation.
“More than becoming an animator, an individual with Ai skills has analytical skills to process, identify, and automate object recognition in images and develop intelligent systems to understand human emotions and make a replica of it,” he says.
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