Comments on: Remembering the Genius and Grace of Carey Eaton

By: Segeni

Segeni — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 00:57:23 +0000

Many people talk. Few walk the talk.

Carey Eaton was one of the few.

Almost 2 years ago, Carey sent me an email, introduced himself and wondered if I would be interested in meeting up with him to talk ‘shop’. It was an email that came out of the blue.

Although I had already heard of his growing company, Cheki (through numerous google adwords he placed all over the internet) I was intrigued by who he was and why he would want to meet.

We planned on a short lunch meeting. It lasted much longer than the time we gave ourselves. Our conversations spanned many topics, but mostly centered on his passion: the opportunities for internet businesses in Kenya and Africa as a whole. He had a burning desire to take advantage of the opportunities the internet was making possible throughout Africa. I was talking with the embodiment of entrepreneurial hunger and success. He had perspectives and insights to online businesses that were very refreshing. He made me feel positive about our industry and confident of its future. It was rare to hear of someone like him, leave a lucrative career in a developed economy and set up shop here. He made me feel we were moving somewhere. He was a fresh of breath air in our young internet industry. That first meeting we had was memorable.

He followed up later, wanting to know more about my business, MamaMikes – and the opportunities I imagined now and in the future. He thought I should talk to one of his investors, a big private equity mogul based in New York. I thought he was joking. Why would someone running a very big private equity firm be interested in hearing my story? Carey proved me wrong, and astonishingly set up the phone call.

Who did such things? Who took interest in small businesses with such enthusiasm? He did. And he did it for many others too.

Many times, I ran into Carey at the Ihub giving talks, or mentoring groups of young minds who were eager to learn more about internet businesses. He shared his time, experience and wisdom with many, without asking for anything in return. Time is our biggest resource. And Carey naturally shared his time, touching many, like myself in unforgettable ways.

His legacy lives on in the minds of those who interacted with him. From the small to the very big.

His big and bright smile. His humor. His easy going nature will be remembered for a long time.

May God bless his family. And keep them strong for the journey they will continue without him.

RIP Carey.

By: Ahmed Maawy

Ahmed Maawy — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 07:09:36 +0000

I never met this guy. But I have to admit. Its one thing to have a successful and accomplished businessman. There are a ton a a dozen. But to have an accomplished businessman who would be approachable, simple, down to earth, that is 1 in a million. So yes, indeed, huge loss for the society.

Sincere condolences to the family of such a great man deserving of a high degree of respect for nothing more than an noble character. Society needs people like this, especially at such times.

By: Kenneth Makau

Kenneth Makau — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 11:07:30 +0000

I never got the chance to know Carey as I would have loved to but the few times we interacted were pleasant and he struck me as simple and down to earth.

The last time we talked he was busy with media showing them round the office and I sat quietly in a corner pretending to be one of them.

We also joked that we found MH 370 in his office and he smiled.

RIP Carey

By: edwin

edwin — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 21:01:00 +0000

‘Hey Edwin, Sorry I’m out of Nairobi again with little roaming credit – sorry to hear you are stuck – I’m afraid I don’t have any suggestions off the top off the top of my head but let me have a think here and see what I can come up with’
It will be done old friend…No, now it has to be done!
Happy trails mate.

Edwin Ichoroh

By: Robert Kimani

Robert Kimani — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:10:38 +0000

There are no fitting words to describe the man that Carey was and i say this as one of the few, fortunate souls that got the opportunity to interact with him, on close to a daily basis. I could write a 200 plus page book, easy, on the man i knew for about 2 years yet, still feel inadequate, because his effects on me will last me, my entire life. So i will strive to tell you about Carey, the man i knew in about a page or so and the lessons he taught me about business.

Lesson 1: If you want to bring about a revolution, you do not do it alone. Building the capacity of others (tech-preneurs, business start-ups) is paramount. Once you have achieved this, the rest follows and you not only end up with a revolution, you also create a legacy. This lesson is testament in itself, if you look at the number of people that Carey touched. He lived to build people and gave of himself that others might succeed.

Lesson 2: There is no wrong approach to anything. He taught me that there was no wrong way to approach a situation, there was just another/ other options. If you looked close enough among’st the other options, you would get the option that “best fit” the situation. During a debate on matters marketing just last Wednesday (that fateful day) he asked this of a Twenty something year old colleague who was having challenges understanding which demographic to address. “If you were to have a party, do you invite all the 90year old’s you know, the 80year old’s, the 70year old’s…” Needless to say, he didn’t get the chance to approach her age bracket, the point was made.

Lesson 3: Money is not everything in business: Most businesses run after the profit margin and forget the customer. Carey was a firm believer in making the customer happy first and worrying about the money later; that was the secondary concern. He was not about chasing profit margins, he knew in his mind that once the customer received value, they wouldn’t be too concerned about paying for it.

Carey, I will surely miss your Charisma, your business “father figure,” my mentor, my friend. I will miss your ability to make simplicity from complexity and how you brought things closer home for me and for us, by using easy to relate to analogies when we felt “brave” enough, to over analyse a situation. Most of all i will miss your quick wit. You were an amazing giver. That is your greatest legacy. #ripcarey

Robert Kimani
BrighterMonday

By: Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 13:56:08 +0000

Of course – that’s fine.

By: hash

hash — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 13:51:26 +0000

Andrew, great piece. Since most people don’t have access to FT.com articles here, I might post a bit of it, if that’s okay.

Some snippets:

Legacy of an African web pioneer
By Andrew Hill

…

What first struck me about this tragedy – apart from the obvious, awful loss suffered by the 41-year-old’s wife and four children – was that it cruelly underlined a point Carey had made at last month’s St Gallen Symposium, in a session I chaired. Showing a slide of the despairing mothers of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, he urged his audience not to judge Africa by its sometimes lurid headlines. That he should have become one of those headlines is a truly terrible irony.

So let me try to restore some of the optimism he conveyed about Africa, by passing on what else I learnt from him about a continent with enormous entrepreneurial promise.

…

“Eaton urged us not to judge the continent by its sometimes lurid headlines”

…

As someone else who knew Carey said last week, the Australian-born Kenyan was not just a successful entrepreneur, he also had a deep understanding of Africa’s history. To make it there, he told the conference, you need to be wily. You must tailor your product to local traditions and politics. To crack the Nigerian second-hand car market, for instance, his group had to negotiate with Lebanese gangsters who control a vast used-car lot just across the border in Benin. In another country, where legislation seemed to ban online marketplaces, the company launched an online jobs exchange first – successfully backing a hunch that no politician would ever outlaw a site encouraging employment.

…

I met Carey Eaton only once. But it was enough to convince me that many African entrepreneurs will follow where he led, inspired by his example and advice to realise the potential of the continent he loved.

By: Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 13:40:48 +0000

I met Carey Eaton last month for the first – and, as it turned out, last – time, but he impressed me enough that the terrible news of his death prompted me to write this for the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b38feffe-ecc9-11e3-8963-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk

By: The_Creative

The_Creative — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 09:57:27 +0000

When someone dies, I hear a lot of people say – He has left a big gap that can never be filled. It is usually such a cliche but I can’t think of more fitting words at this time. I had never met or interacted with Mr. Eaton. But as a techie who has been toying around with the idea of a startup and a consumer who had been looking into buying a car, I had great admiration for the work of his hands/mind. Cheki is possibly the easiest (to use) consumer-targeted site in Kenya. As a techie, I admired that they had made it so user-friendly without compromising on its effectiveness. And as a consumer, I admired the fact that it had brought the purchase of a car at my fingertips (whereas before you would have had to go through unscrupulous middlemen and tedious bureaucracy via imports). It is clear that he was a doer but even more than that, he was a visionary. There is no telling just how many more innovations and startups he would have come up with or directly/indirectly helped to start. His ideas were certainly influencing me as a techie with my own startup ideas. And so, much as we mourn him, I want to thank him. Thank him for the inspiration for my own ideas. Thank him for making life easier for me as a consumer. Thank him for what I view as a life well-lived. For when you plant a positive seed in another’s mind, there is no telling how many lives you are changing. There is no telling how many lives he has indirectly impacted just by being a mentor to the techie youths and startups in this country, how many lives he has directly/indirectly changed for the better by being an employer and encouraging other startups. Because you never know, sometimes it is the spark you inspire in others that goes on to change an entire generation and society. I am thankful and I hope that even as his family and friends mourn him, they can find it in them to focus on celebrating his life and seek solace there. My condolences to all his family, friends and business associates. Sorry for the long post. As I end, I am reminded of a book title by one Ken Sarowiwa: Africa kills her sun. But as you stated, that is a story for another day.

By: A Tribute to Carey Eaton

A Tribute to Carey Eaton — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 04:24:29 +0000

[…] You can read more of my tribute to Carey on my blog here. […]