Agent 0001

Hey there 👋 

Today on Tech Safari, we have Maryann Kabiru. She’s a two-time founder, researcher, and product manager.

She’s built products for underserved people and also writes a cool newsletter called The Afro Pivot Point, where she shares her opinions on African tech.

And since it’s International Women’s Day month, she’s here with a story for us — about M-Pesa’s first ever agent.

But before we get into it…we need your help

Now, on to this week’s story….

In 2007, Safaricom launched a service that allowed people to send money without needing a bank account.

They were Kenya’s biggest telecoms network and they’d found a way to let people send money to each other using only their mobile phones.

They called it M-PESA.

Today, over 50 million people use M-PESA and $7 billion was transacted on it last month.

And on Friday (March 7th), M-PESA will turn 18 - so it’s fully an adult now.

But M-PESA’s success wasn’t built on just tech. It’s built on people - or in this case, agents.

They served as mini-banks, taking deposits and paying out cash to people. And M-PESA has 60,000 of them.

Today's edition, the first in our IWD series, is about the first ever M-PESA agent: Agent 0001. 

She left a booming career to start the first M-PESA agent shop, betting on a product that reshaped the continent.

And today, she’s one of Safaricom’s largest individual shareholders, with an empire spanning telecom, real estate, and hospitality.

But first, let’s go back to the beginning…

Started from the bottom

It's the year 2000 in Nairobi, and mobile phones are becoming more accessible.

It’s not obvious yet, but these small devices and a telecom boom would soon transform commerce and communication in the country.

Somewhere in this city is Esther Muchemi.

She’s a partner at PKF Consulting Partners, and comfortably sits in the top 1% earning bracket in Kenya (even by 2025 standards). 

But she wants a new challenge. And her next move was met with big disapproval from family and friends.

Esther opened a small shop on Nairobi’s busy Koinange Street, selling airtime and SIM cards in the heart of the city's commercial district.

That small shop grew into Samchi Telecom, a business that started by selling phone lines and airtime for Kenya’s two major telecom companies—Kencell (now Airtel) and Safaricom.

In the early days, Esther was the sole employee.

She also sold mobile phones, but that wasn’t what set her on the path to becoming one of Kenya’s most celebrated tech entrepreneurs.

By 2001, she made a decisive bet and went all in on Safaricom.

The demand for Safaricom airtime and SIM cards was rising.

And unlike Safaricom, which was scaling aggressively and quickly acquiring customers, Kencell’s bureaucratic dealership terms made scaling difficult.

So when Safaricom offered her the chance to be one of its main distributors, Esther jumped at it.

Overnight, she stripped her store of the competitor’s branding and doubled down on Safaricom products.

The gamble paid off. Within a year, sales tripled, fueled by a growing customer base that trusted Safaricom’s superior network.

The demand was so high that she could barely keep up with stock.

In 2002, an expansion was inevitable, so she set up a second branch in Eastleigh, right in the heart of Nairobi.

By 2005, Samchi Telecom had grown into a multi-branch operation, establishing itself as a trusted name in Nairobi’s telecom retail space.

The success made Samchi Telecom an obvious choice for Safaricom’s next big experiment: M-PESA. 

For six months, Samchi Telecom served as the first pilot location for M-PESA, helping them refine the service before the big rollout.

In October 2005, Safaricom expanded the pilot to 15 more agent stores, giving them phones preloaded with the M-PESA menu.

Then, on March 6, 2007, M-PESA officially launched, with Esther holding agent number 0001.

What’s a bank doing on a phone?

The first M-PESA agents were the real MVPs. They had to build trust, educate customers, and prove that mobile money could work.

Many customers were skeptical at first—how could money be stored on a phone? Would it be safe?

Many initial transactions failed due to poor network connectivity, and even Safaricom wasn’t sure if it would take off.

As Agent 0001, Esther and her team spent hours answering questions, troubleshooting system glitches, and reassuring users.

Some days, she barely made any transactions. But she persisted.

Slowly, confidence grew. Word spread that people were actually receiving their money instantly.

Then, the floodgates opened.

Samchi Telecom led from the front, doing product demos, onboarding customers, and sharing customer feedback with Safaricom. 

In the early days, with mobile telephony still a novelty, the team had to get creative.

Samchi and other dealers sent branded teams across the country to educate people about mobile phones and Safaricom’s services.

By the end of its first month, M-PESA had recorded 19,671 active users.

 By November 2007, 7 months post-launch, that number shot up to 1,041,522. 

A year in, M-PESA had already crossed 2,000,000 users. By June 2008, just four months later, it hit 3,000,000.

And as M-PESA grew, so did Esther. 

From a single shop, Samchi Telecom expanded into a nationwide network of over 50 locations, becoming one of Safaricom’s top M-PESA dealers based on transaction volume.

Today, M-PESA boasts over 34 million active users and more than 300,000 agents in Kenya alone. 

Across Africa, the platform serves over 50 million customers, with a network of 600,000 agents.

Right place, right time, right person

Esther had already proven her instincts were sharp; first by betting on Safaricom over Kencell, then by embracing M-PESA before the rest of the market caught on.

She saw that Safaricom wasn’t just selling SIM cards—it was building an ecosystem. 

As mobile money reshaped financial transactions, the demand for mobile phones skyrocketed. 

With Samchi Telecom’s growing branch network, Esther started moving more devices than ever.

Her stores became the go-to choice for global giants like Samsung and Nokia looking to penetrate the Kenyan market.

Samchi Telecom became a trusted partner for distribution and customer service.

Following the money

While others focused on short-term wins, Esther played the long game.

The telecom boom had opened doors, but she saw an even bigger opportunity in helping the very entrepreneurs she had been serving.

At the same time, she recognized that the dealership business was evolving. More people were buying their airtime virtually and refueling their mobile wallets directly from their bank accounts. 

Many of these customers were small business owners struggling with lack of credit. 

They could buy phones, but they couldn’t access loans to expand their businesses. 

Seeing this gap, Esther branched out.

She launched a microfinance company, giving loans to small business owners.

Then, she reinvested her earnings from telecoms into new opportunities beyond tech.

She recognized Kenya’s growing middle class and the demand for real estate, and the signal was clear: build more property.

Later, she expanded into hospitality, creating spaces for business leaders to connect.

But while others entered these industries, few matched her speed and precision—making The Samchi Group of Companies a dominant force across multiple industries.

Today, she’s one of Kenya’s most influential business leaders, not just because she bet on the right sectors, but because she understood what it took to win in them.

She saw where the market was headed and moved early—first with Safaricom, then with M-PESA, and beyond.

Today, with 11 companies and 600+ employees, she remains a champion for businesses and consumers alike, fighting to keep the MPESA ecosystem fair and sustainable.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, her story is proof that the right instincts, paired with bold action, can build an empire.

Esther Muchemi’s story proves that taking risks and betting on yourself pays off.

What did you take away from Esther’s story?

Hit us back and let us know. 

That’s it for this week. See you on Sunday for a breakdown on This Week in African Tech.

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

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