The journey so far: Kenfield Griffith, CEO, mSurvey
Kenfield Griffith is CEO and co-founder of mSurvey, a mobile survey and data collection platform started in Nairobi in 2012 that uses SMS and mobile messaging technology to offer clients on-demand access to data from emerging markets.
1. Tell us about one of the toughest situations you’ve found yourself in as a business owner.
As an entrepreneur, you’re constantly faced with decisions you haven’t read anywhere or seen before; so being able to follow your intuition and know that every decision you make, you will need to iterate anyway – you’re forced to make them really quickly. You are constantly building new heuristics.
2. Which business achievement are you most proud of?
I’m proud of having the ability to share a vision with team members, investors, and customers of leveraging mSurvey’s technology to listen to the voices of consumers in Africa – this is something we are all collectively happy to achieve. In particular, being pioneers in the launching of Africa’s industry Net Promoter Score (NPS), the most powerful customer loyalty tool to date, to me, is one of our proudest moments.
We’ve introduced the mSurvey NPS to Africa because we believe that customer loyalty is critical to the success of any business; and that can only be achieved by obtaining feedback from customers.
Bringing on board NPS’ co-founder Richard Owen was also a big moment for us – he’s like the father of customer loyalty. Our passion for transforming businesses on the African continent through quality customer feedback inspired us to deliver a series of mSurvey NPS Masterclasses, where decision makers can learn how to leverage NPS to improve customer experience and grow revenue through customer retention.
3. Describe your greatest weakness as an entrepreneur.
Being an entrepreneur, you are subscribing to seeing the world differently and how you can make things work better or shape the future. Accepting that you want to contribute in shaping the future is the impact we want to have at mSurvey.
4. Which popular entrepreneurial advice do you disagree with?
There are quite a few things as an entrepreneur you have never read or heard of before and therefore your intuition kicks in to be unconventional. It’s difficult to think conventionally when you are building something unconventional and new with your team. You look at conventional ways of doing things and [then] be different or counter-intuitive about the solution space.
5. Is there anything you wish you knew about entrepreneurship before you got started?
Sure, that every entrepreneur’s experience is unique. However, being able to parse information quickly from other entrepreneurs’ experiences and fitting it into your own journey is important.
6. Name a business opportunity you would still like to pursue.
Africa has a great list of opportunities. Entrepreneurs tend to be optimistic and therefore every perceived problem becomes a new challenge you would like to help solve, but it’s also important to focus.