Enterprenuer
Amelia is the founder and CEO at Somo. In 2012, she began working with a school in Nairobi and a youth group in an informal settlement.
While still a student at UC Berkeley, she launched Somo and its pilot training cohort.
She graduated with a focus on international studies and global poverty.
After graduation, she moved to Nairobi to expand Somo’s operations there.
Somo has founded 138 businesses and trained over 600 entrepreneurs in the past five years.
This has created over 2,500 jobs. They provide direct support for entrepreneurs from marginalized communities through their hubs in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu.
Somo offers long-term support via training, funding, and assistance with market access.
Their entrepreneurs can access digital tools to improve their business skills, as well as a Somo-designed reporting tool to track their financials.
Amelia has been running Somo since 2005. She also founded design thinking and entrepreneurship programs in Bujumbura and New Delhi.
Now, she is focusing on Somo’s expansion in East Africa.
Somo has recently opened an incubation area for food and hygiene products.
This centralized production facility allows entrepreneurs to increase their capacity, lower costs, and be certified for greater market access.
What is the story of Somo?
In 2012, I began my work in Nairobi. My experience at an educational nonprofit has shown me the inability to sustain many NGO models.
These models relied on foreign donations, with some assistance from the local community.
The projects on the ground suffered when foreign donations stopped coming in.
I was able to work with many youth groups in the region.
Many of these youth groups came up with different revenue streams to pay their expenses.
One group set up a recycling company that used trash to create other products.
They were able to hire the youth members through the income from recycling and the sale of their products.
These experiences led to the creation of Somo.
We wanted to create an investment program that would invest directly in low-income communities to make sustainable changes.
How do you stay productive?
My day is varied. It can be working at a computer or immersing myself in entrepreneurs’ businesses. Other days, it’s a lot of both.
How do you bring ideas to life?
They are written down on a post-it note and placed on my wall and my other ideas.
I then look at it for a while, sometimes for several days or weeks.
It will often gather sticky notes over time if I like it.
Then I go through my sticky notes and create a plan that others understand.
What’s your favorite trend?
Africa Investment. Although it’s only scratching the surface, some companies have emerged from Africa. I hope this will lead to more investment in other types of initiatives.
What habits make you productive?
I allow myself to be lost and disconnected.
I can think clearly and see the bigger picture through adventures.
What’s your advice for the Noob?
To lean into the pain. My most difficult experiences allowed me to learn the most.
What is one thing we can all agree on?
Creative thinking is limited by our inability to control ourselves.
It is possible to have chaos and organization in one space.
To force our brains and behaviors into conforming to what we’ve been taught is a way to restrict creativity.
What do you recommend as an entrepreneur?
Listen. All of us have something to share.
What’s your rich strategy?
We are investing in people. Somo has grown to the point it is today because of both the investments made by entrepreneurs and those we make in the growth of our team.
How do you overcome Failure?
A CV is not enough to hire someone.
Not everyone is prepared to learn and accept new challenges at a prestigious university or big company.
Can you share a business idea?
To allow better integration with reporting tools, a business will combine apis from banks and financial institutions in Kenya.
This would enable Somo to verify financial reports from companies and provide additional funding.
This is possible in other countries.
What’s your recent best buy?
I traveled from Rio to NY and had only 14 hours to spend in Panama.
I wanted to see the country. As I walked around, I came across an 85-year older man.
As I walked around, he showed me the history of Panama and taught me the US’s neocolonial presence.
What are your favorite Softwares or Apps?
Somo’s DigiKua! DigiKua allows micro-and small business owners to access financial services.
Businesses can track data via WhatsApp or USSD code from any device.
This data is used to automatically generate reports in Google Sheets and create a digital profile for Somo Invest.
This data is used to connect Somo companies with investors and track them.
Somo’s sales team also uses this for tracking sales made for businesses.
Which book would you recommend?
Let my people go surfing. This is the story of accidental entrepreneurship and how you can find your way as a flawed leader who believes that businesses can be a positive change and not just money-making machines for those in power and wealth.
What’s your favorite quote?
“You can make a difference in the world if you don’t require the journey to be safe, easy, or comfortable”
Seth Godin
TL;DR by Amelia Hopkins Phillips
- Invest in people
- Fear and discomfort can be overcome by diving headfirst. These situations can be a catalyst for growth.
- Listen. All of us have something to share with each other.
- Let yourself get lost.
