Ian Muthomi, founder of Vision Drill, an online learning platform. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NMG
Self-taught computer programmer, Ian Muthomi possesses a wide range of skills, varying from programming, marketing, crafts, singing, songwriting, and playing musical instruments.
But it is in the tech world where he is making a mark. In August 2021, he launched Visiondrill, an online learning platform birthed out of his desire to create a space to encourage and equip young people with skills to be creative and become job creators.
This passion for creating opportunities for all saw him shelve his original ambitions to be a musician.
The platform is easy to use and is a fully-fledged e-learning platform meaning it does not rely on external platforms to aid the learning experience.
It can support conference calls, live one-on-one sessions with instructors, an in-built whiteboard for interactivity, and pre-recorded self-paced learning sessions without having to leave the site.
Mr Muthomi, 23, saw an opportunity to innovate as learning institutions in Kenya mostly use multiple platforms outside their in-house learning management systems to fulfill online training.
Passion project
He formally began developing Visiondrill in 2018 as an offshoot of Muthomi EDu , an innovation he came up with in 2015. Muthomi EDu was a free e-book android app that enabled students to access textbooks, especially those which were expensive.
At this point, he didn’t have any prior programming knowledge so he began by using a drag and drop website, one that requires no technical expertise. During the school holidays, he would improve his skills using the computers at KNLS (Kenya National Library Service - Buruburu) where he would pay Sh20 per day.
What began as a passion project slowly turned into the business it is today through a lot of encouragement from his mum.
“The mission has evolved from just providing ebooks to a personalized talent and creativity-based e-learning platform. Visiondrill aims to create a society where everybody is using creativity because creativity is in everyone,” he says.
So far Visiondrill has 150 courses uploaded, 576 students, and 110 instructors on the beta site. On a daily basis, his work involves pitching to different instructors across the world, best-selling authors, and expert professionals across various fields.
When selecting courses, they look for instructors that are not only teachers but also practitioners in their respective fields. They offer free and paid-up courses. The price ranges from Sh1000- Sh2,000 and premium courses go up to Sh10,000.
He runs the platform on a 50/50 revenue share model where the instructors' courses are uploaded on the site for free. His first capital came from a friend in church and so far, he invested approximately Sh3 million in the business which he has raised from family, friends, and reinvesting profits.
Sourcing local content is challenging because most of the instructors don't have professional equipment for making quality videos. Mr Muthomi insists on high standards and has to manually review all the content before uploading to avoid poor reviews resulting in fewer users and ultimately decreased revenue.
“I want to prove that Kenyans can create software that is as good as one created in Silicon Valley.” he says. He names Steve Jobs as a major influence in his innovation journey. Business Lecturer, David Ngigi of Kenyatta University also played a key role and is now the Director of Operations on the platform.
His achievement in the past five years is a striking contrast to his performance at school where he was not considered a bright student.
“I was in a school system that punishes you for failing. In the real world, breakthrough comes from failure and iterations. The truth is, I used to be bored of how the school system was,” he says.
“The training we received limited our creativity. The system then taught people to be perfect in all aspects and therefore collaboration became a challenge. If we all focus on what we are good at and leverage on our strengths, we shall move faster.”
He adds: “If you want to disrupt a certain area, you need to focus more on your talent because it is what you are passionate about. And passion gives you perseverance. It is not easy to run a business or to perfect an idea because there are many distractions,” he says
Challenges
He cites the heavy capital investment, making cold calls across time zones in between copious cups of coffee, and a lot of red tape in initiating collaboration with institutions of higher learning as the main challenges he has faced.
He also plays multiple roles in the business including programming, sales and marketing, administration, research and quality control which are quite draining at times but he seems to be juggling his swords well.
His words of advice: “It is very important to network with the right people early on because you may have limited resources but they may know somebody who can help you.
It doesn't matter where you come from, when you meet the right people, your vision can come to light. I have learned that you can start a business without capital, just leverage your skills with partners who have capital. It is important to add skill on top of talent.”
gawino@ke.nationmedia.com
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