Will Bain

So, Mary, all of you saw, to some extent, saw something that no one else was doing.

That's the kind of reason for these businesses, right?

It's one thing seeing it.

It's another one having the bravery, the confidence to go for it.

Did you have any kind of sort of nervous moments about setting out on your own?

Right.

And so how did that kind of sort of manifest itself then?

Did you sort of sit down and have conversations with people or did you just you really kind of just, as you say, knew it in your heart and just went for it and set out?

And what about for you, Angela?

You're listening to Business Daily on the BBC World Service.

I'm Will Bain, and today we're meeting the entrepreneurs Mary Niambura, the founder and chief executive of the Kenyan renewable fuel business EcoCharge Limited, the fashion designer Safatu Sek, the Senegalese founder of Soraya, and by the Ugandan entrepreneur Angela Nawateme, the founder of Aunt Porridge, and the chief exec of Forna Health Foods, which sells infant and children's foods.

So the issue of how to raise that investment to try and continue growing your business.

So Safitu, all of you have found this gap, all of you have shown this kind of bravery to go for it.

I guess, are those bits the fun bits?

Those bits are the exciting bits, you know, when someone's talking to you saying...

Michelle Obama would have loved to have been able to buy your dress.

I guess is the next bit maybe in the short term, the really difficult bit, the realities about, okay, how do I find the money to do this?

Practically, though, Sefatu, how did you go about raising the money to go from being a hobby, I guess, something you knew you were good at, a skill, into a business?

And how easy was it to find funding to grow at the level that you wanted to?

Angela, how difficult was that step for you, going from a good idea that other people around you thought was a good idea to starting to grow to be a proper business and finding the money to do that?