A fancy way to light the sigiri

Allan Lubowa (L) and his business partner Simon Kirumira pose with some of their products at their “factory”, a small garage in Old Kampala, recently. PHOTOs by Mathias Wandera.

In this day and age, a number of people are not only quick in equipping themselves with the latest smart phones and other top-notch technological gadgets, they are also keen on making sure their houses are fully stocked with the best electrical appliances.

It is, therefore, not surprising to find a 12-year-old without the slightest idea of what a charcoal stove is. After all, mummy has always used cookers and ovens.

But if you were not born in a castle, as is the case for most Ugandans, then you are no stranger to the ordinary charcoal stove and the hustle that befalls its user when it comes to lighting it.

No fancy chore
Whether you choose to use polythene paper (kavera) or papers, the process is always going to suck. The down side to lighting the stove has always been the smoke.

This is especially so when burning papers through the stove’s mouth. You will have to twist your head in all angles to dodge the smoke.

All this while, your eyes will be teary as you cough endlessly. But if you think using papers sucks, then wait until you use polythene and the hot melted droppings burn your arms.

It is this hustle that 25-year-old Simon Kirumira had to put up with for most of his childhood.

As he is quick to reveal, lighting the charcoal stove was always top on his list of the most dreaded domestic chores. As a child, however, he did not mind it. But as an adult, he lost tolerance for it.

“You do not realise how tough a chore it actually is until you are about 22 years and your mother tells you to light the stove. I could not take it anymore.

I knew there had to be a way of making the process easier and decent. Only problem is that no one had come up with the solution.” Kirumira notes.

Inventing a product
Around July 2013, Kirumira’s entrepreneurial instincts brought him to the realisation that there was a problem, hence an opportunity to tailor a product that would close this gap.

At the time, he was in his final year pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics at Makerere University. He was quick to realise he was not going to invent the product alone.

“My dreams were bigger. I wanted to build a full company, not just a product, so I needed a partner.”

That is how Allan Lubowa, who was Kirumira’s university coursemate, came on board. This was after Kirumira shared the idea with him and he was immediately hooked.

Together, they embarked on the journey of tailoring the product, putting their A-Level Physics knowledge to good use. But contrary to what they had anticipated, coming up with a product did not come easy. As Kirumira shares: “We had to think hard.

We burnt all sorts of things in the process of coming up with the right material to blend into the product. We burnt Nylon shirts, all sorts of fiber, papers, different kinds of polythene, everything!

Lots of material did not work. Most either produced a lot of smoke or just did not produce the kind of flame we were looking for.”

Nonetheless, the duo never gave up and around July 2014, after a year of intense research and development, their product was ready. The invention process cost them an estimated Shs700,000.

The product
The Fire Fountain, as their product is called, is a combination of different material blended after a series of physical and chemical procedures.

In interest of protecting their invention, the duo do not go into details about the materials they use to make the product or the science that goes into its making.

But what they are confident about is that their product has now turned the once hectic process of lighting a charcoal stove into nothing but a downhill task.

“One simply gets a single tablet from our fire fountain box and breaks it into two, because using the whole tablet would be wastage. You then light up the preferred half and place it at the centre of the charcoal heap on the stove, then carefully cover it up with charcoal. It burns steadily, with no smoke. In about seven minutes, the stove will be blaring and ready for use,” the soft spoken Lubowa explains.

But convenience is not the only beauty this product comes with. The tablet also produces very minimal amounts of smoke, reducing the smoke emission the user has to deal with when using ordinary paper by almost 97 per cent.

This makes the product safer as one does not have to inhale vast amounts of harmful soot that comes from other alternatives such as polythene paper.

Market response
Like it is always said, a great product needs not be shoved down a consumer’s throat because the consumers will always be willing to get a piece of it anyway. This has been the case for the fire fountain.

Ever since the duo put the product out on sale late last year, the response from buyers has remained phenomenal.

“Ours is a straight forward product. We can explain to anyone what the Fire Fountain does and in less than a minute, they will have mastered the idea. I think that is the quality of great products - simple and straight forward in terms of purpose,” Kirumira says.

They operate in a small garage in Old Kampala, around the Agha Khan round about. It is in this small space that these two young men nurse a big dream. “We are on the road to success and we can assure every young person out there that if there is anything more fulfilling than finding a job, it is starting your own business.”

The fire fountain

The product is packaged in small boxes that contain nine fire fountain tablets, which allows one to use it 18 times. It goes for Shs1,000.

It is sold on their Facebook site, Sales Parrot Limited, which is their official company name. They have also pushed their product to retailers and are currently in 32 supermarkets.
But as Lubowa notes, this is just the beginning. “Currently, we are creating awareness. We have travelled to various schools and attended exhibitions to make consumers aware of the product’s essence and presence.

This is hard since we are doing the job just the two of us and on limited capital, but we believe our product is unique and we shall pull through.”