When I started my second company nine years ago, I had no idea what the results would be. My father inspired the company’s name. He passed away in an accident while trying to register a business. 

To honour his legacy, I decided to use the name. I had an idea to launch an on-demand service for laundry, something like an Uber or Airbnb for laundry. The inspiration for the service came from a hotel in Bagamoyo while celebrating the New Year.

Immediately after New Year’s Eve, I went back to work. I didn’t know how to make an app before. So, I spent three days and nights searching online and coding. On the fourth night, I had the first draft of the product, Emakatt laundry app. I never knew how far this could go.

I spent the next day learning how to publish an application on the app store and play store. Then I created the account, made the payment, and waited. Google responded in a day and Apple took weeks. But then the app was live and anyone could access it. I still never knew what the outcomes were for this.

I started sharing it with friends and neighbours. Then on social media and at events. Then I started to find partners to assist in doing laundry, as I had no idea about that side of the business. 

No laundry partner accepted, so I had to learn how to do laundry. I asked my girlfriend to use her laundry machine. Until then, I was putting in effort with no guarantee of anything to come, and I was fine.

I realised I would need some funding to be able to grow. I started pitching to investors and entering various competitions in the startup scene. This helped us raise funds and promote our app. I had no idea what the results of my efforts would be, but I had the courage to keep on putting in the work.

Five months after launching the app, we went to a pitching competition. There, we met an impressive list of investors. But we were not on the panel to pitch, so we went there to do promotion and sales. Then someone who saw me pitch at another event invited me to pitch as a guest. I did, and the investors liked my pitch.

Through that pitch, we managed to secure fifteen thousand dollars on the spot. You can call it luck or a blessing, but you can’t ignore the hard work and patience over these months. I didn’t know what the outcome would be.

Launching the app and building the business taught me a lot. I learned to put in effort without stressing about the results. The outcome will come in a month, months, a year, years, or may never come. You cannot control that, but you can control how much effort you put in and how patient you can be.

Now everything I do, I focus on efforts and leave everything I cannot control out of my mind. I can manage my efforts to write articles, create podcasts, and share information. But I cannot control how they inform, inspire, motivate, or change you.

You will encounter situations like I do. You won’t be able to control the outputs in most of the things you get involved in. You will need to learn to be patient while putting in the effort and detach yourself from the outcomes.

You can work with great effort. You can arrive first and leave last. But you must let go of thoughts about promotion and pay rises. You can’t control that. When you focus on it, you’ll feel discouraged if the outcome isn’t what you expect.

In relationships, you can offer everything: love, attention, openness, communication, and sacrifices. But you’ll feel disheartened if you expect certain outcomes from the other person. Don’t expect someone to love you the way you do. To communicate like you, or even to sacrifice like you do.

In business, you will invest, work longer hours, and come up with the best product you can. But you cannot control how many customers come and how often. You won’t control the investors who are interested. Detach yourself from all those outcomes and focus on the effort. That is the only way you won’t quit.

Students can study for hours and hours. They can put their feet in cold water buckets. They can join one group discussion after another. But, they cannot control what happens. The best way for them to keep more effort and be patient is by detaching from the outcomes.

Everything in life needs patience. Patience that needs putting in effort while detaching from the result.

#iThinkSo

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be free from suffering.

May you find peace and joy.

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Rogers Katuma

Financial Artist, Senior Adventurer, Occasional Storyteller, and Amateur Golfer