At 22 years, Jeenal Shah decided to join an auto shop business now known as AutoXpress but back then, it was a family business consisting of one shop in Kisumu. Prior to that, he had been working as a chemical engineer for a while but he realized with that business, there was no way to expand and even though the business itself was good, there would always be issues such as late client payments which would affect the overall business by creating a negative domino effect.

After joining the family business, the order of the day would always be to buy the tyres from local suppliers and then sell them but after a while, Jeenal realized that they could directly get the tyres they needed and import them themselves from places like China.

“After 1994, I realized we could do this business ourselves. There was no email at that time so you had to write physical letters or send fax messages to tyre companies around the world. I sent letters to all the contacts I had and I think I got 30 replies. Out of those, 28 were declining letters. Only 4 companies were willing and happy to do business with us.” Jeenal said

Even with such odds, Jeenal was not shaken. He worked with what he had. From his first shipment, he realized that the costs of purchase and selling were fairly good.

“We had the client already on our side and rather than buy from the local person we were importing ourselves. Through this, we found there was an opportunity to grow the business.” Jeenal says

Jeenal Shah is currently the CEO of AutoXpress, a company that deals in all things auto parts. They are currently in 4 countries with 44 outlets across East Africa. They have worked with cooperate giants like Safaricom, Kenya power and Delmonte among others and are seen to be one of the largest auto shops in Kenya as their garages can service up to 14000 cars a month.