Niaje.com is set for more major expansion after it was recently announced the best blog in Kenya by the BAKE Awards, completing an impressive four year journey.
The site now wants to become a full media house and increase the volume of its daily content.
The company began in 2006 when its domain was registered, but waited until 2009 before generating content and has slowly increased its staff to eight.
Speaking to HumanIPO, founder and director David Mugo said the idea behind the venture was to offer the online audience more content in regards to the local entertainment industry as well as inform the public on the technology and basic business sectors.
Currently the website is ranked number 160 nationally in respect to traffic according to the Alexa ranking and has seen increased views in the last few months with April being the highest at 4.5 million hits, up from 2.9 million in March.
Mugo said his company has maintained ethical and factual news which he believes has worked towards the company’s credibility and recognition even by competitors.
“As compared to other parallel platforms we have maintained clean content all the way through with properly researched stories. With time there has been a clear disconnect between us and them,” says Mugo.
Currently the main source of income for the company emanates from event PR, advertisements, sponsored content and banners with a plan to make sponsored content and banners the main source of income in the future.
In the future Niaje.com, which also deals in photography and has a YouTube channel, says it hopes to evolve into a full media house especially once it gets funding from investors who could also offer connections and tie the ropes towards achieving their vision.
The company, currently valued at KSh10 million (US$119,000), says it is seeking an investment of at least KSh5 million (US$60,000) which will be used for product expansion and improvement of its online platform.
Mugo says his plan is to make his startup a dominant player in the media industry.
“We hope that in the next few years we can get to the top 20 in the Alexa ranking and increase our hits within the 25 to 30 million range even as we employ more staff than can generate more stories to drive up the numbers,” he says.
And with two awards already bagged in the recent BAKE ceremony conducted by the Bloggers Association of Kenya, Mugo says the only way the company can grow is up.
