25-year-old Sylivanus Elias Rwechungura is one of the many youth working tooth and nail to see their business succeed. After graduating from the University of Dodoma in Tanzania in 2018 with a degree in Natural Science Studies, the youngster started the stressful search for job opportunities, sadly, in vain. He decided to relocate to Rwanda the same year he graduated, and was optimistic about starting work here as he had done research and found that there were great business prospects. Luckily, he was given an opportunity at Kigali Marriott Hotel, first as an intern, but later employed in the hospitality department. He says he experienced so much diversity that at some point, he was a chef. Unfortunately, as he continued work, excited by the fact that he was working for a well-known hotel, his joy was short-lived. He was eventually laid off when Covid-19 hit. “Since I was saving up, I tried to figure out which business would work well for me, but it wasn’t easy. The frustration to get a good laptop cover prompted me to start my own company. “My laptop had grown old and lost colour. I struggled while searching for a sticker cover in Kigali, and ended up buying a random custom sticker that wasn’t even well-suited for the coverage,” he says. He started making gadget stickers in 2020 after losing his job. Rwechungura says he spent sleepless nights googling and watching YouTube tutorials on how to create unique long-lasting phone and laptop covers. And not long after, he launched his ‘Silver Design’ in 2020, located at Makuza Peace Plaza, in town. According to the entrepreneur, materials of appealing design and good quality are what he needed to serve his customers. His company started with covering electronic devices such as phones, laptops and tablets with unique designs of stickers. The material he uses to make stickers is known as “vinyl” that he can customise and design on any kind of picture based on the needs of the customer. The stickers are guaranteed to extend the life of the gadget’s body, by protecting it from scratches and dullness. He also applied some of the skills, such as consistency and discipline, which he had acquired in the hospitality industry to his current business. He says that the best part of being self-employed is that it allows you to innovate, iterate and do things differently when you wish. “One thing that I realised was a myth when I became self-employed, is the idea that people come to work any time. This is not true (maybe for billion-dollar company owners) but it is a myth for start-ups and small business owners like myself,” he says. He usually connects and engages with his clients via social media. Some of the challenges he encounters are that some people raise his hopes of getting an order, agree on the terms of payment and design, but then just go silent. He also believes that his products are not known yet, which is why he is working on how to market them, to attract more customers. Also, some of his customers are from other provinces which makes it a little hard to transport the products from Kigali. Looking at this, the entrepreneur has developed a better plan to open branches to extend his services to other areas of the country. Although he isn’t where he wishes to be, Rwechungura believes that the journey has been worth it—from getting clients, exploring uniqueness, to acquiring customers and making profits. Prices of phone cover stickers go for Rwf 5,000, and laptops Rwf 15,000. It can take about 30 to 40 minutes to work on a phone cover sticker, and about an hour or so for laptop cover stickers.
