Featured Stories

The Story of Moses Ruraara
Moses Ruraara obtained a Bachelors of Environmental Science
degree in 2012, has quit three jobs in two years and watched the company he
founded collapse twice. He told his story of vision, courage and sheer
perseverance to Alex Taremwa.
“Today,
I am glad to announce another product from Ruraara Tech Empire, LLC: Success Stories Africa – an
online platform that will tell success stories of people, companies and
products that rose from the ground to the top across the African continent,”
Moses Ruraara wrote on his Facebook
page on 10 April, 2017.
Ruraara
is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ruraara Tech Empire, LLC a Tech
company in Uganda. Registered as a limited liability Company (LLC) in 2015, his
company is one of the several ICT innovators adding to the 6% that the sector
currently contributes to Uganda’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to
the 2014/15 Ministerial Policy Statement.
One
of Ruraara’s products is Service Hunt,
an online business directory that currently hosts at least 700 profiles of
companies, government agencies and individuals. The aim, he told SSA, is
to help clients find the services they require with ease.
“Every
one of my company’s products is inspired by a challenge I have personally
faced. That is why we strive to create solutions and transform people’s lives
with every product we create,” he says.
Ruraara
has designed, and is hosting, hundreds of websites for various individuals and
companies. Besides this, he does ICT consultancy for various institutions and
businesses to set up online profiles, digital marketing, software and hardware
solutions.
A
Self-Made Guru
Unlike
his contemporaries in the industry, Ruraara does not possess professional ICT
training and certification. He is in the trade because of his personal
ingenuity and passion.
The
fourth of 11 children of Siragi and Naume Ruraara, he was born and raised in Isingiro
district of western Uganda. Like most rural Ugandans, Ruraara, now 29, went
through primary and secondary schools without even touching a computer.
It
wasn’t until 2009, when he joined Uganda Christian University for his
bachelor’s degree, that he interacted with the device. And only because it was
examinable and compulsory.
“People
think I did either Information Technology or Computer Science at university, but
I didn’t. Everything I know, I taught myself through YouTube tutorials and Github
– an online group of geeky programmers,” he says.
This
Ruraara did as he struggled with a four-month contract as a marketer for a
timber firm in Kansanga, where he earned Shs100 000 (USD28) per month.
For
the sake of exposure, networking and experience, Ruraara soldiered on until he
got another 6 months contract with Spedag Interfreight Limited. Here he earned
enough money to finally buy a laptop, on which he started designing websites
for clients.
“The
salary was not enough, so I quit and became self-employed. I joined my friends
to start our first company, Nemrock Software Solutions LTD, in November 2013,
determined to take a step into the virgin ICT sector,” he remembers.
Judged
from his sombre expression it is still painful for him to recollect how the
lack of a shared vision, patience and direction led to the collapse of the
company 12 months later. His co-founders left him and took separate routes.
Although disheartened, Ruraara did not let go of his entrepreneurial spirit.
“I
didn’t wait to get back. I began Ruraara Tech with only UGX.10k in my pocket
and UXG.2m in debt. I remember even the company logo was designed for me on
credit. Most people thought I was over-ambitious, calling a start-up business
an empire,” he says. “But they didn’t look at it the way I did. My plan was,
and still is, to launch several flagship products under Ruraara Tech Empire.
They saw ambition instead of strategy.”
Lightning
Strikes Again
In
early 2015, calamity struck again when the servers hosting his clients’
websites crashed and Ruraara’s empire faced financial hardship. Stuck, he had
to get back into full-time employment to maintain a cash flow for himself and
his failing company.
Luckily,
Abacus Parental Drugs Limited, a pharmaceutical company, was seeking a water
specialist. Armed with his degree in Environmental Science, he was a perfect
fit. Ruraara was hired. From there he saved up enough money to buy bigger
servers for his company and started Service Hunt, his flagship product.
“We
launched it in February 2016 and, by April, we already had over 200 companies
enlisted on the site. My virtual private servers were over-powered. Once again,
they crashed,” he recalls.
From
the money he made, Ruraara bought a dedicated server for the company. Rather
than spend his profits on luxuries, he says, he reinvests in the company to
give it a competitive edge and greater financial muscle.
Having
faced marketing challenges in his previous attempts, Ruraara thought that
creating an online directory for different businesses, their services and their
locations would make it easier for consumers to find the products they needed.
He also believed he could help small, medium and large-scale businesses market
their products, services and brands.
From the over 700 companies now listed on the portal, Ruraara earns at least Ushs40 million (USD.10,628) every month from consultancy, web designing and hosting, and subscriptions.
Bridging
the Knowledge Gap
As
he struggled to start, Ruraara remembers reaching out to established
entrepreneurs for mentorship and guidance on business development. To his
surprise, however, he was given the cold shoulder.
“The
problem with Uganda, and Africa generally, is that we lack mentors. The people
who have made it pretend to be very busy and are therefore unapproachable. I
resorted mostly to reading books and consulting online mentors for guidance,”
he says.
He
derives his inspiration from the work of Evan Spiegel,
the 27-year-old CEO of Snap Inc, the developer of the popular social media
application SnapChat, and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, who, Ruraara says,
were driven by passion and a vision to make the world a better place.
To
bridge this knowledge gap in Africa, he started Success Stories Africa, a
website that publishes success stories of African businessmen and women, and
start-up tips like how to manage a team. The idea, Ruraara says, is to inspire
the youth to start their own businesses with the basic knowledge that they
cannot get from far-flung entrepreneurs in their societies.
Despite these strides, he
acknowledges that founding a company is the biggest challenge he has ever
faced. “You are the CEO, marketing manager, accountant, strategy director and
product developer. It is heart-wrecking,” he says.
The
Future
With
the growth of the ICT sector in Uganda, Ruraara sees a tremendous opportunity
for the youth to cash in with innovations that could fetch billions of shilling
in revenue.
Ruraara
Tech Empire is also developing Android and iOS mobile applications for all its
products. Ruraara’s only worry is the hefty price and the poor quality of the
Internet service in Uganda, which, he says, directly affects businesses like
his. He calls on the government to reduce Internet costs and improve its
quality to ease businesses operating with ICT.
Ruraara
is now targeting the greater East African region, from where he will hopefully
expand to cover the entire continent. Ruraara advises his peers to look at
social media and other ICT tools as business avenues, and not just as platforms
for sharing nude pictures and jokes.
What a story! Arise Africa!
Am so inspired #Mozey Thank u
I recall these vividly because I saw you people start the Empire. You are true to what you have always believed in Moses.
This is inspiring CEO Ruraara Tech empire, if i could be as ambitious as you are, i wud be my own pride!
Am so blessed and continually inspired by the faith beyond limits belief of THE Empire,am being currently hosted on Service Hunt
Hello there, My name is Aly and I would like to know if you would have any interest to have your website here at successstoriez.com promoted as a resource on our blog alychidesign.com ? We are in the midst of updating our broken link resources to include current and up to date resources for our readers. Our resource links are manually approved allowing us to mark a link as a do-follow link as well . If you may be interested please in being included as a resource on our blog, please let me know. Thanks, Aly
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