Dickson Mushabe’s parents, Fred and Jennifer Tindimutunga, were farmers in what is now Kiruhura district. Mushabe attended Rukarango and Kitunga boarding primary schools, Ntare School and Mengo SS. But it was at Makerere University that his entrepreneurial spirit blossomed, as he told PRISCA BAIKE.
Many people in business go through life with regrets for the mistakes they made, but Dickson Mushabe is not one of them. Now 35, Mushabe is the regional manager of Hostalite, one of Uganda’s leading web-hosting companies.
Like many nascent entrepreneurs, Mushabe made mistakes that many would not be proud of; but he is glad he made because he learnt from them. From his modestly-furnished office to his desire to quickly get done with the interview, it is clear that to him, the client is king. When I arrive, he is so concentrated on the client at the other end of the phone that I am not sure he saw me walk in.
In quick succession, he makes a few other calls before attending to the reporter. Earlier, Googling “Dickson Mushabe” had returned 20,200 entries; so I can understand his joke that he could as well give me a write-up and I know his story. But there is no substitute for hearing it from the tall, light-skinned horse’s mouth.
“I am glad I made those mistakes then because if I hadn’t, I would be making them now and sinking,” Mushabe says.
Even as a younger man, Mushabe wanted to make money. In his book, I Am Not Sorry For My Mistakes, Mushabe recalls how his father told him soil was full of money.
In fact, he tried out farming, growing tomatoes in his senior six vacation. But his immediate future lay in school, and he was soon at Makerere University for a Bachelor of Science degree in Quantitative Economics. Still, he took with him the business mind.
While fellow government-sponsored students partied their faculty allowance away, Mushabe invested his in cleaning people’s heads. A friend was selling his barbershop to go abroad for kyeyo. Like a true businessman, Mushabe made a down payment with his faculty allowance, promising to work and pay the balance.
“I made good money,” Mushabe smiles at the memory.
Despite making money at a young age, Mushabe did not forget his studies. But yes, work was some distraction.
“I tried so hard to attend lectures but some clients would particularly want me to attend to them. I had to strike a balance,” he says.
He eventually graduated. But while still at university, Mushabe hardly invested his money. He instead bankrolled his friends’ outings and lived a much better life than your average University Hall resident.
“I hardly ate hall meals,” he says.
With the barber shop making him good money, Mushabe had opened up a video library. The two businesses combined to make a decent income for the student businessman. That money, he now says, should have been better invested. But he can’t blame himself; he had no mentor.
“I was just running a business without any assets and spending all the money I made,” Mushabe laughs.
The young entrepreneur hit rock bottom when he tried to expand his video library. The natural quest for growth ate up the little money he had invested without making as much as he had anticipated.
Mushabe’s friends did not make it any easier. They walked into the library and picked whichever movie they wanted whenever. It was against that background that he started taking his real business education.
“I would rather give a discount to a stranger so that he/she can come back. If you are really my friend, it should be in your best interest to support my business, especially if you know you can afford the service,” says Mushabe, now much wiser.
He is also quite prayerful; Once, while being hosted by NTV, Mushabe interrupted the show to lead his host in prayer. That, he later said, is how he always started his day: “by consulting the man above”.
NO NEED FOR A JOB
As a fresh graduate who was also a business owner, Mushabe was reluctant to look for a job. But his parents were anxious for him to find ‘proper’ work, and a concerned family friend lined him up for a job interview with a microfinance whose name he has since forgotten. All went well until they announced how much salary he was to earn.
“Shs 350,000 was little money to me,” Mushabe declares emphatically. “I could make that in a few days from my businesses. I wanted at least Shs 700,000.”
Back to his businesses, he seemed to be making more mistakes than profits. One thing led to another and eventually, his shops were closed due to non-payment of rent.
“It was so embarrassing,” he recalls.
HOSTALITE IS BORN
Back in his university days, Mushabe loved computers but little did he know that they would at one point make him money.
“I was always fascinated by computers and endeavored to learn as much as I could about them,” says the IT specialist, who later realized there was a dearth of web hosting firms.
In a room shared by four other young men, with his laptop as his only asset, Hostalite was born although it found the going harder than the barber shop.
“Of course there was a lot of rejection,” Mushabe recalls.
It was until his first client, Billy Robert Ahimbisibwe of Select Garments, paid for his web-hosting services in dollars that he believed that his business was actually a big deal.
“I thought to myself: so people can actually pay me in dollars? I am in big business,” says Mushabe, who later pursued a master’s in Management studies, majoring in IT, at Uganda Management Institute.
Today, Mushabe’s business boasts of over 400 clients, including a UN agency. An offshoot of Hostalite is a school. While recruiting staff, Mushabe identified the practical skills gap in IT that he seized.
“We interviewed applicants and found that they were spot on in theory but with no practical skills,” says Mushabe.
This prompted him to start Hostalite Cyber Academy to equip people with practical IT skills.
“That was another costly mistake I made,” recounts Mushabe.
The academy was not thoroughly planned and a lot of money was spent on advertising yet the classes were conducted in the office boardroom, something that affected the working environment. The academy was closed, only to be re-opened in Bukoto, along Kisaasi road, early this year, three years after its closure.
“The biggest challenge is the finances but ultimately, we have a vision of becoming a fully-fledged university someday,” declares Mushabe.
NOT SORRY
What Mushabe started as sharing posts on his Facebook page so as to caution young entrepreneurs against making the same mistakes he made led to the compilation of a book titled I am not sorry for my mistakes.
The idea came from Nelly Busingye, an ardent Facebook friend who encouraged him to write a book based on his posts and share his story. The book, which has been on the market for the past one year, has sold over 2800 copies.
“People get touched by my stories and invite me to share my story on different fora,” says Mushabe, who has been on the Imagine Me African Breakfast and other events in Rwanda and Kenya as a motivational business speaker.
ONE RIGHT THING
Despite his mistakes while at university, Mushabe says he got one thing right – asking the right girl out.
“We used to share some course units and we also attended the same fellowship,” says Mushabe of his wife Doreen.
The university sweethearts dated for eight years before they finally tied the knot seven years ago.
“We have three lovely children and we are living our happily ever after.”
To Mushabe, nothing beats going back to his Bwit after a long hard day at work. With a wide grin, he declares that hearing his wife call him Bwit, (a code name they share) is the sweetest sound to his ears.