“In 2022, I was busy working and had promised my grandmother that I would build her a home when I finished college.
To do that, I had to make money while working in Nairobi. But I was faced with a difficult question: who could I trust to build the house when I was away?
My grandmother could not oversee the construction herself. She was suffering from breast cancer. She had gone through chemotherapy and, because of the pain, had eventually given up and refused further treatment. She was at home.
She regained some energy, but she would later pass away in December 2022.
The challenge I experienced while building the home I had promised her was not simply finding people to build it. It was knowing what was actually happening when I was away.
There were promises from contractors and foremen. There were explanations. There were expenses. There were things I could not independently see or clearly track.
Money went out, and there was little I could do because I had made a promise.
The house was eventually completed, but the experience stayed with me.
I realized that when you are away from a construction project, one of the biggest problems is not necessarily the distance.
It is the lack of clear visibility.
- You want to know what has been bought.
- You want to know what has been used.
- You want to know what remains.
- You want to know what has been done.
- You want to know what has been spent.
- You want to know whether the work is actually progressing.
- And you want to see it.
That experience is one of the reasons I started Crowdstage.
Today, we are building a system that allows people to monitor and track their construction projects and property investments from anywhere.
Because being away should not mean being unaware.”