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🤫 The secret of a $0 empire
Published 11 months ago • 4 min read
Hey Changemakers,
We’ve met many incredible people over the years at OCE’s summer cohort, but Audrey Cheng’s (Forbes30U30, social entrepreneurship) journey is one that is truly special.
I know, I know... Maybe the “scrappy young founders that started from scratch” story is a little played out.
And yes, today’s story follows this script.
But trust me, this one REALLY works.
Like, "from $0 in funding to becoming an award-winning million-dollar empire" works.
Let's dive in..
But FIRST
If you are new, welcome to OCE’s weekly newsletter curated for the ambitious youth…here are some articles you missed from previous weeks:
Audrey was raised in Maryland, USA, by first-generation Taiwanese immigrants. Both of her parents are chemistry professors, but she took on a different path by studying journalism and global health at Northwestern University in Chicago. Her ambition at the time was to become a journalist.
As a journalism and global health student, Audrey got hooked on how technology intersects with health. She saw the problems with the typically inefficient humanitarian sector and decided social entrepreneurship were the way forward.
“How do we bring a feasible business solution to emerging markets so people can solve their own problems without relying on charity?"
Fast forward 10 years, Audrey’s company, The Moringa School is now a force to be reckoned with in Africa, particularly, in the future of workspace. How does a biz go from $0 in startup funding to a million-dollar award-winning company?
Well, lock your doors and draw your curtains… You’re about to get their secrets.
The education/training biz model & why it works so well:
$0 Startup Cost - You can pre-sell courses with $0 in materials.
Low Failure Risk - Your only cost is your labor. If you decide to scale up this business, you have no inventory, no big expenses, and no shipping expectations. The risk of bankruptcy is tiny.
No inventory or supply chain nonsense – ya girl comes from an e-comm background and let me tell you, it ain't cheap to start. Inventory is expensive and so is shipping, and it’s difficult to find a single product that generates high enough margin continuously for the biz to be worthwhile.
B2B Option - There is demand in both institutional and individual spaces. An individual is easy to close the deal, but an institution may pay you $X every month on contract. UP FRONT.
Beginner friendly - You don’t need to be an expert or licensed, just need to have the right partners. ;)
It’s meaningful and impactful - Wait until you see the impact of Audrey's company.
STEP 1: Recognizing Untapped Opportunity
After talking about her dreams in social entrepreneurship at length with her friends, one of them eventually sent her a website link to Kenya’s Savannah Fund, Africa’s pioneering seed capital funder.
This led to a year of pro bono work for the fund before an eventual invitation to come to Nairobi.
What started out as a three-month stint has changed the direction of her life and dozens of others
“Every single week without fail her employer would say ‘We’re still looking for a developer, we’re still looking for talent and we still can’t find it.’”
So, she co-founded a school.
In May 2014, Moringa School started its first class in Nairobi. Moringa offers students short, intensive programs that focus on building technical, career-oriented skills.
What’s more, they did it without ever raising any funding.
STEP 2: Make an offer they can’t refuse
“The biggest challenge I wanted to give myself was how do I create an organization that doesn’t need money, which is really hard especially in the beginning.”
So she turned to social media and shared her solution.
"Are we solving a real problem? Are we doing it in a more meaningful and effective way?”
Through a market and outcome-driven program, an effective practical teaching model and a partnership with Hack Reactor (a top Silicon Valley coding school), Moringa School is contributing to the creation of world-class developers in Africa, who are also competitive globally.
95% of Moringa graduates have been hired at reputable companies, and graduates record a 350% average salary increase after graduation, something radical in a country with a regional-high youth unemployment rate of 17%.
This is part of Cheng’s vision of a whole new education system, one that she hopes to pioneer in Nairobi but take to the rest of Africa.
STEP 3: Run a tight operation but always default to generosity
Moringa is a company, not a charity, and Cheng said she believes this model incentivizes the school to better serve the needs of the community.
“At a nonprofit, the money is coming from donors, and so ultimately organizations are responsible and accountable to their donors, as opposed to the person that they’re actually serving,” she said.
“In a company, because the person who is paying is also the user, we have to be meeting their needs, and we are accountable to our students.”
That said, Moringa offers need-based flexible installment plans, as well as financial aid amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The OCE cohort first met Audrey back in 2022, when she returned to the US to serve as the Director of Strategic Partnership at Discord as well as the Board of Directors at LendHer Capital, a venture fund committed to funding Kenyan, female-led businesses.
While she acknowledges the difficulties, she faced guiding her parents through an America that wasn’t always accepting of immigrants, she says it is partially responsible for her successes today. “I learned whatever I wanted to do in the world, I can create.”
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PS. This summer, we are going to tackle pressing global issues and drive innovation in regions (such as your own community) where it is needed the most. Want in?
We run a summer cohort for ambitious youth (high school and undergrads) to work directly with world-class founders while learning from Silicon Valley leaders.
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