Trained economist who found niche in fabricating machines

In September last year, Maryanne Kariuki started Drumventures Agri-Machinery Company in Kariobangi, Nairobi County.

The company fabricates various machines such as interlocking blocks, hibiscus and charcoal briquette makers, peanut decorticators, chaff cutters, silage choppers, hay shredders, hay balers, block masters, peanut roasters, roller mills, crushers, kilns, pasteurizers, chain links, and sugarcane juicers.

Others include cassava chippers, cassava peelers, dryers, oil presses, multi-grain threshers, granulators, coffee pulpers, posho mills, sifting plants, hand-walking tractors, weeders, shellers, and cereal cleaners.

Maryanne says some of the machines are ideas researchers and institutions have brought to her to fabricate. During a visit to her workshop, Maryanne was busy attending to several clients who had come to inquire about the machines she makes and their prices.

Clad in an orange top and blue jeans, Maryanne walked her clients from one machine to the other, sometimes showing them photos of those not in the workshop.

“Saturdays are crazy days. We handle tens of clients, meet, talk, and negotiate prices. By the time we close at 3pm, I am totally exhausted. But isn’t that what business is all about?” she begins.

Maryanne, 32, had no idea she would be in engineering and fabrication, but she embraced it. She dreamed of a career in law but later pursued a degree in Economics Finance at Kenyatta University, graduating in 2015.

She briefly searched for employment without success. Maryanne had resolved to seek a job abroad when her father’s friend, an engineer and fabricator in Kariobangi, offered her a job as a procurement and sales person.

She worked there for eight years until early 2023 when her employer failed to renew her contract. In her previous employment, Maryanne maintained good relations and communication with everyone she interacted with.

“For me to face and interact well with clients, I had to learn all the processes involving how machines were fabricated and worked. I developed an interest, talking to engineers and keenly following what they did to the extent that I also learned how to design a 3D model of several machines. I would design and give them to fabricators,” she recalls.

Even when out of the job, clients she had interacted with kept calling and asking for supplies of machines. Realising the opportunity, Maryanne started her own company, banking on numerous clients who wanted her to supply them with machines.

Maryanne needed an office where clients could meet her but didn’t have the capital. Around that time, one client who had been looking for her ordered a cereals cleaner machine and paid a deposit of Sh 420,000. She used Sh140,000 to pay for a workshop that also had a small office, and the remaining money was put on raw materials.

“There was labour. Having been in the industry for over eight years, I already knew many technicians, who I hired on a temporary basis,” she explains.

The money was not enough, so Maryanne, riding on previous interactions, got some materials and equipment on credit for the machine, which took her team two weeks to assemble. After which, she was paid the remaining money, totaling slightly over Sh1 million. An imported cereals cleaner costs about Sh2 million.

Later on the same day, another customer ordered an animal feed mixer. She says, “Since I didn’t have the machine there, I negotiated and the client allowed me to source outside. He was happy and got a good machine.”

In the following week, two clients on behalf of NGOs ordered 50 maize shellers and another 50 hay baler machines to be supplied to farmers’ cooperatives. She hired more people to work on the machines. Today, Maryanne has employed 13 technicians dealing with different lines of fabrication initially hired on temporary terms.

Over eight months down the line, clients still come. She confides that business is good and owes her fortunes to good relations with clients in her previous job. She has sold more posho mills, silage choppers, and threshers.

But it hasn’t been a bed of roses. Once in a while, she receives a complaint and responds immediately by sending her technicians to handle the case. She sells her machines across the country and also in Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Congo, and Zambia.

So far, most of the clients are walk-ins and referrals. Some call after seeing their contact on stickers on the machines. She also markets using social media.

Maryanne, who uses raw materials locally and imports engines from India and China, works on both orders and fabricates others ready for sale, especially the most sought-after ones. 

Some challenges are the high cost of electricity and several levies from various government entities that have to certify her work. She says there’s a lot of innovation in the field and wishes to be among those offering solutions.