The idea for jigsaw puzzles was conceived in February of 2007, the year Uganda hosted CHOGM – and around that time I had done five years of a day job and was looking for somewhere to invest my time and energy in something I love and more than just for me. And it would generate some income hopefully. And yes, the opportunity of cashing in on the CHOGM craze. Before I decided to go with this idea, I took some time to think about what my options were – I had previously made, packed and sold bagia with g/nuts sometime in 1998 – 2000 – this was an Indian snack using a home recipe – one of those snacks I loved and believed other people would like and when I tried it worked – people liked it.
My search led me to another childhood memory of things I liked jigsaw puzzles at least those gifted to me or my siblings from aunties, and uncles on return from their travels out of the country. I figured the CHOGM guests would and tourists and my nationals would love to take something from Uganda back home.
The start was ambitious until I checked the prices on the internet to secure a machine that would enable me to do the puzzles locally – the prices were prohibitive and I shelved the idea for 1-2 months. I gathered courage and picked up the idea later in April following several discussions, encouragement, and caution from my parents. Btw the I was staying with my parents – consolidating my foundation before moving out of the home.
Challenges then were mainly financial – getting the required capital to get the machine and all related accessories – required I had to sell one of my plots of land and top up with savings that too was not enough, my mum loaned me some money too.
The next challenge was I had to make contact over the internet with potential suppliers. Once I settled on the supplier, we agreed on what was required to close the transaction. Transacting huge sums of money off the internet was a big lesson in trust – we did that in 2 instalments. I chose air for speed and certainty by shipping options by sea and land.
While all this was in motion, I had engaged a lawyer and a relative to start up a company to run the business and subsequently engaged a designer now with Nomad to put together my company aspirations into a logo and tagline for all stationery. All these required money at the start and completion of their part after adequate back and forth we agreed on the final output in readiness for the product.
Production of boxes for CHOGM was another huge investment for me at that time – the minimum quantities required were too high for me and only raised my level of risk, the design process for the boxes was another crash course in print and what works and does not on Nasser and Nkrumah roads – Uganda’s print valley.
MOTIVATION
The sheer joy of children feeling better, overcoming a challenge , learning something at the end of laying our games gives us great delight at ZZIMBA With my few years of experience I realized that the work of edutainment is a privilege to rewardingly play and educate children and where better than right here in Uganda , East Africa by replicating or customizing solutions to the regional environment – Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Sudan.
THE COMPANY
ZZIMBA Our brand and trade name originates from a Ganda (Bantu speaking) verb ‘Kuziimba’ meaning ‘to build’. AIDUK also means to build in my paternal tongue – Iteso. It’s our every intention that with all the games we intend to release for the Ugandan market and beyond this underlying purpose lives through each one of them.