MY COVID STORY | Myra Maloba

My name is Myra Maloba. I’m the founder of Kiddie Karaoke, a children’s entertainment company. We deliver quality children-centered entertainment through karaoke. You’re probably wondering how that works! Well, we provide age-appropriate, sing-along songs, for any occasion to kids between the ages of 3years to 19years. At our very friendly prices, we also go to our clients preferred location. To top it all, we have free monthly Family Fun Days where we collaborate with different venues for an all-inclusive family event. During this Covid-19 period, we continue to keep the kids entertained through our Kiddie Karaoke stay at home challenge.

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, Kiddie Karaoke was really picking up, following significant investments that were made to build our brand in 2018 and 2019. We had just come off of a Nairobi wide mall tour …. A first of its kind. We had partnered with a number of great venues, suppliers and brand partners. Through this, we accumulated a large database of individuals and organizations that were looking forward to doing Kiddie Karaoke themed events. We had developed a team of about 20 people running these events concurrently, every week/weekend, throughout Nairobi. 2019 turned out to be a really good year in terms of sales, exposure and growth. Needless to say, we had projected 2020 was going to be an even better year. It began pretty well with continued bookings and new contracts. We were experiencing an upward trajectory, and as a result, had decided to invest further in the business, that is, until Covid-19 was reported in Kenya.

Covid-19 changed everything! All our plans, scheduled events and bookings came to a crashing halt. It’s been a scary time filled with lots of uncertainty and difficult adjustment. I had stayed without any form of work from the middle of march till the end of April. Panic had set in especially since I’m pregnant and had several bills to pay. I had also spent a big chunk of my savings on investments at the beginning of the year …. but I had no time to sit and sulk. My situation wasn’t going to change. Thanks to an amazing team, we put our heads together to come up with a plan.

To keep our customer base and more importantly kids engaged during this season, we launched “Kiddie Karaoke Stay at Home Challenge.”  Our renewed energy went into restoring a sense of normalcy to our business operations. So far, we’ve received great feedback and are looking to partner with brands who see the value of engaging with a wide audience of all ages. In a way, the limitations of Covid-19 have created this new opportunity and service that we believe will exist beyond this pandemic.

I have learnt that we must always be ready to reinvent, innovate and invest well, not only in our business but also in our networks. We need to put systems in place that are able to help businesses adapt to any changes or any challenges that they may face