Heartbreak, Tattoos and my inspiration for business

I remember the very first time I fell inlove with ink. I think that’s how cool kids refer to tattoos. I was young and I loved watching wrestling. My favourite wrestler was the Undertaker. Apart from his cool demeanour, I loved the fact that he had tattoos.

Then I hit high school and stopped watching Wrestling. I was in my third form when I met up a girl at an inter-school function called Lola. Or atleast that’s how she introduced herself to me. She was the bees knees! When I tell you I fell inlove, make no mistake about it, I fell inlove hard. And boy did I simp.

I spent most of my third and fourth form looking forward to school events that would bring me together with her. She was in a boarding school, I was in a day school. Back then these were real barriers. These were the type of barriers that needed my full attention and dedication to surmount.

After we were done with KCSE, I was excited. I could finally get to hang out with her without having any distance between us (aside from her curfew). And I took full advantage of this newfound freedom. I was always at her house, I was always hanging out with her and I swear I wore out my friends ears constantly talking about how I had found the one.

But as these things go, I was young and naïve, she was young and looking for excitement. It came in the form of my friend Kevin. Now, Kevin was an exciting young man. He was what you would call a badboy and I was what you’d call a nice guy.

And boy did he embody every aspect of what a badboy was. He was impulsive and loud, he was always dressed in the latest drip and he had tattoos. Now Lola, she was excited by what she saw from the very first time we met. And unbeknownst to me, they had started dating while I was still with her. I got no action, she got all the action. I was being played like the good nice guy I was.

When I found out, I went into a spin. I was devastated. My cool friend was pushing with my Lola and I was left out in the cold. I had to get revenge -no, really, if you’re looking for a wholesome story, stick around until the very end.

The first thing I did was to confide in my brother. His friend and him got me to hit the gym. It was therapeutic but I started working out because I wanted to win back Lola. Then one of his friends, Jim, started hanging out with my brother more and more. And one thing about Jim that I instantly noticed were his tattoos.

I’ve always been inlove with tattoos but now I was obsessed with them. They were everywhere in my life. They were on my ex-friend (that backstabber) and they were something I had started noticing the girls in my college class loved and now my bro Jim was here fully tatted with sleeves. They were an awesome icebreaker and when we started speaking, I learnt that he is a tattoo artist.

He taught me the ropes of the game and even trained me on how to sketch and draw. At first, I sucked. And I mean monumentally. But after about 6 months or so, I became decent. In a year, I was on god-mode. And that was when I got my first tattoo. It was something of my own design.

From there, I started tattooing my friends. And after almost another year was up, Jim and I were talking and he advised me to get my own tattoo studio. I had a better idea though, instead of setting up a brick and mortar business, I decided I would do things online. I set up a page and relied on it aswell as referrals for me to get clients.

Then one day, I got a call from Lola. Out of the blue. By this time, I’d like to say she was a blimp in my rear view mirror but I had not really gotten over her. Anyway, apparently she and my backstabbing friend were having problems. She was in school in Eldoret but was in time for afew weeks. Unfortunately, I was caught up. The next time I was loose, she’d be back in school so I decided to meet up with her. And a funny thing happened, when I met, I realized I was truly over her. She wasn’t nearly as beautiful as my memory of her and she was nowhere near the type of girls I had started dating since our split. But I thank God for one thing in all this, when I was in Nakuru on my way to Eldy, I realized there was an opportunity for a tattoo artist in Nax. But I needed the money to expand and be able to set up a tattoo studio because travelling back and forth from Kanairo was not an option. And when I went back to talk with my bros (my brother and Jim), they put me up on game and introduced me to Co-op Bank. It would allow me to centralize how I run both the Nax-based tattoos studio and the work I get from IG.

It’s called Chapa Pay.

Co-op Bank now runs an online card payment solution to make your business thrive at no extra cost. If you conduct business on digital platforms, you can receive online card payments from your customers.

You can accept payments from any location on the globe without a check-out platform integration or website.

Co-op Bank offers online payment solutions to businesses, giving them room to expand and venture across the borders. They are providing a secure and conducive platform to conduct business.

Here is a step by guide on how the online payments solutions work:

• A business owner registers with Co-op Bank to get a unique link known as Pay-By-Link, which they use to invoice their clients.

• A potential customer contacts the business owner and agrees on the desired good or service pricing.

• Next, the business owner will send the unique payment link to the client’s emails address.

• The customer receives the unique link via email. Upon opening the email, they are directed to a portal to input their card details and process the payments.

• The trader receives a notification via email and SMS with the details of the payments.

• If the customer has subscribed to SMS alerts with the service provider, they receive a notification informing them of the purchase.

How Ecommerce Solutions Work for Businesses With Mobile Apps and Websites

For businesses that have adopted mobile application (APPs) and web check-out platforms, the Pay-By-Link solution optimizes their operations and efficiency by offering a payment solution that provides the following to its customers:

• Reliability: Once adopted by a business, the solutions operate 24/7.

• Simplicity: Pay-By-Link solutions are easy, quick, and easy to implement.

• Convenience: Customers can overcome geographical limitations and purchase goods and services from any location on the globe.

• Safety: Co-op Bank eCommerce solution comes with a data security standard compliant payment card that ensures customer data security and safety.

• Customer experience: Customers get 24/7 support with a dedicated relationship manager on standby.