In 2013, three friends embarked on a journey to build a movement of entrepreneurs to solve some of East Africa’s greatest social and environmental challenges. With a desire to cause economic transformation in the region, Ivan Mandela, George William Bakka and Joachim Ewechu started Unreasonable East Africa, as a franchise of Uncharted (formerly the Unreasonable Institute). They did this with the core belief that businesses had a powerful role to play in positively transforming the lives of people.

Prior to this, they had started other businesses as well as supported entrepreneurs through ventures like the Angels Initiative and later the Mara Launchpad. It is from these experiences that they realized that while there were many entrepreneurs in the region, there were only a few successful businesses. Most entrepreneurs didn’t succeed in building businesses because they simply didn’t know how to. Bakka went on start Patasente and continue the work of Angels Initiatives while Joachim and Ivan continued to grow Unreasonable East Africa.

“Building a business takes continuous effort,” Joachim said, “There is a lot of uncertainty. You need to be resilient and continuously learn because every step of building a business requires this.”

From Unreasonable East Africa to SHONA!

Toward the end of the year 2016, the team started asking itself big questions about the work they were doing. They realised that the oft-used word “impact” represented only a small part of their vision for the region – which was to transform East Africa’s economies. With this realization, a lot of their language started to change and evolved into the idea they are pioneering around Good Business. With this new direction of work, they concluded that they needed to move on from the Unreasonable East Africa brand to SHONA!

“Every time you grow, the way you think changes,” Joachim said, “we still believe that businesses play a large role in transforming societies, but believe that they need to and should be doing more than what they do traditionally.”

SHONA believes that the ultimate purpose of business is to benefit society. For this to happen, we all need to change how business is done. Businesses need to move away from maximising profit at all costs and benefiting only the owners toward creating and balancing value for all the stakeholders involved in making the business succeed. These include its customers, employees, owners, value chain partners and the communities in which it operates. This approach is healthy and sustainable, guaranteeing success for the business over the long term. But mostly, it is good business – at SHONA, these businesses are called Good Businesses.

SHONA believes that the ultimate purpose of business is to benefit society.

The new name, SHONA is a Kiswahili word that means to stitch together.

“We are excited about how this represents our work bringing together, connecting and attaching to businesses the resources they need to grow,” Joachim said, “This new name also grounds us more and strengthens our identity in being East African, giving us the opportunity to build a world class and global brand, born in East Africa.”

While the future for SHONA is exciting, the company’s achievements with the Unreasonable East Africa brand are undeniable.

“We worked with 71 businesses in five years,” Ivan said, “Proving that you can build a movement of amazing businesses solving tough social and environmental challenges.”

These businesses have collectively created over 1,700 new jobs that didn’t exist before, are serving over 470,000 customers, have contributed over $10 million in tax to East African countries and have attracted over $32 million in capital. They are increasing access to clean drinking water in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, providing quality and affordable dental care in Uganda, increasing the incomes of small holder farmers in Uganda and Tanzania, providing energy for home and productive uses in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, and so much more.

“A lot of the businesses we worked with were quite early when they joined our programs,” Joachim said, “We are proud of how far they have come today and the successes they have achieved. It has been their hard work, and we are proud to have played a small role in who they are today.”

“We are proud of the many successes our companies have achieved to date. It has been their hard work and we are proud to have played a small role in this.”

As Unreasonable East Africa, they also built an incredible network of 300 experts, advisors and investors across East Africa that do the heavy lifting of working with these businesses. They also grew an incredible team of individuals that care deeply about the company’s mission.

The role Unreasonable East Africa was able to play in building the startup ecosystem is a thing of pride for the team. Today, there are a lot more people and organizations supporting businesses in the region and they are happy to have been among the first movers in East Africa.

“We are also grateful to everyone – our entrepreneurs, team, experts & advisers, funding partners, all partners,” Joachim said, “We have done so much together, but we are only getting started.”

What’s Next?

SHONA is currently working with a range of thought partners to build a clear and transparent way to know what it means and what it takes to be a Good Business. If you have any thoughts and ideas, reach out in the comment section or contact SHONA directly.

The flagship program, the SHONA Growth Program, focused on working with growth stage (early revenue to profitable) businesses will continue to grow. Alongside this, SHONA Capital is being launched that will directly invest in select businesses in the growing portfolio. SHONA Kickstart that is focused on working with startup (early revenue) businesses in East Africa is also being launched this year.

“I am really excited about the possibility of continuing to reduce the barriers to access capital for those entrepreneurs with the biggest potential,” Ivan said, “SHONA Capital is one of the ways we will do this.”

The SHONA team is looking forward to the next 5, 10, 25, 50 years of their work. They are excited about the possibility of one day everyone in East Africa positively interacting with one of SHONA’s Good Businesses everyday.