Katongole profits from carpentry

For 12 years now, Anthony Katongole (39) has been in carpentry business using art skills he acquired throughout his life as a child both at school and at home.
Today, he owns a mid-sized carpentry company he incorporated in 2009 [Cleartech investments limited].
The story behind his carpentry business however is one that he says has helped define that kind of business person he is today.

Growing up in a country where carpentry had for long been looked at as a job for the under privileged, his attitude about carpentry was different.
He looked at art as a form of expression that could be used in all aspects of life that is to say; spiritual, health, education and most important business.
This and many other reasons, he says, prompted Katongole, then a high school student, join the art world at a very tend age.

Early life
“I was only a kid growing up in one of the villages in Mpigi District, Mawokota sub-country at the time I came to appreciate art,” he says.
However, he adds, “it took me time to start appreciating art work. Growing up we were more engaged in other things other than carpentry work.”
Today, Katongole has no regret for having chosen this kind of path. “If it had not been carpentry work, perhaps my family would still be trapped in abject poverty in Mpigi. I have managed to help my siblings go to school and teach them carpentry skills. Today most of them have managed to start their own carpentry workshops in Kampala and back home in Mpigi,” he says.

Starting out
Born to Edward Kaweesi and Grace Nakiyingi on 7th October, 1979, Katongole’s carpentry journey can be traced back to the years [1995-1998] when he was a young boy at one of the high schools in Mpigi [St Kizito Buwama secondary school] where one of his art teachers then, Kabuye Sowedde, introduced him to the art world.

“I was one of Kabuye’s best students while at school, however, at the time I did not take art seriously despite the fact that I used to pass it well. I was more embedded in other activities like farming at the time which partly explains why perhaps I didn’t take it serious,” he says.
Katongole is also quick to add that despite him being introduced to the art world in his high school before, he had had an opportunity of seeing people at his home area develop wood crafts.

“We had a wood craft workshop next to our home. World vision international, a non-government organization, had put the workshop in our area to help skill people in our home area,” he says. However, having a father who under looked this kind of work, Katongole says, was in itself an obstacle. Katongole and his siblings were more into farming agricultural products. “Despite this project being in place, I didn’t take carpentry at the time serious not until high school when I was introduced to art world,” he says.

“Our father looked at wood crafting as something meant for the unschooled so we were never availed a chance to learn some of these things despite having a wood craft workshop next to our home. I together with my siblings majorly concentrated on farming agricultural products which we would later sell off to markets and schools in our home area,” he says.
Joining St Balikudembe for his advanced level of education, Katongole continued pursuing art this time though with more enthusiasm this time. All this, he says, determined the kind of course he would do while at University.

“After my A-level, my father gave me instructions to only apply for an education course at Makerere University something I didn’t agree with quietly. So I just went as head and applied for what I truly liked doing and that was a bachelor’s degree in industrial art and design at Makerere University. He wasn’t happy with my decision, but it was done there was nothing he could do about it,” says Katongole.

While studying at Makerere, I used to design different art pieces which I would later sale off and save money that came out of it. This, he says, helped him get money that he used as startup capital for his first wood crafting workshop. “I made different art pieces which I sold off to people. Whichever money I made out of the art pieces was saved not until I managed to have an amount of Shs100,000 which I used to start my first wood craft workshop while at university,” he says.

Katongole’s first wood craft workshop did not live to see the next day. It had collapsed at the time of his graduation. “I really didn’t have a lot of experience and therefor it was hard for me to get loyal clients. At the time I also lacked enough money to run my business this meant that I didn’t have enough equipments required to do my job without finding any difficult,” he says. He went ahead to start other workshops that failed within a short period of time. In 2008, after shifting to Kisaasi, he opened up another carpentry workshop. Having learnt from some of the mistakes he had made in the past, this one managed to pick up by close of 2008.

Incorporating Cleartech investments limited
In 2009, after a number of trails and errors, Katongole finally managed to incorporate his carpentry business. This was four years after his graduation from Makerere University as an industrial and fine art graduate. Incorporating his carpentry business came after he got advice from one of his former lecturers. “I was in touch with one of my lecturers at university. He told me it would be better to register the business and do work in a formal way. I didn’t look back I did exactly what he had told me and today, Cleartech is a registered company,” he says.

Some of the things Katongole does under his company include: beds, cup boards, art pieces, and other material that require wood when making them. “The cost of our products depend on the size of what the client has ordered. For instance, a double bed would go for close to Shs1,5m. Others may even go for as low as Shs800,000,” he says. Having worked for twelve years, Katongole says that his company’s biggest profit was Shs20m. However, he says that he also handles quite a number of small projects that bring in an average of Shs800,000 to Shs1m. “I consider these projects to be of great value since they are always there. Big projects come once in a while,” he says.

Challenges

Focus. Just like any other business, Carpentry work too can be quite challenging. Some of the challenges Katongole says he faced and still face is having clients who are trustworthy. “At times some clients we get want to take our products on credit and pay later. This is a bit tricky for me since some of them I even don’t them that much. In this case what I do is to advise them to come back when they have enough money,” he says. Some employs, he adds, are not trust worthy, they may ask to work for you and then end up stealing our equipments. We also have a challenge of wood being too expensive. It is even worse in case were we have to transport it to our workplace,” he says.

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