Dorothy Ghettuba

When asked, ‘Who is Dorothy’ I had to recently ask myself this question while doing my vision board and vision list. And I was like, ‘So, who is Dorothy?’ I think more often than not we always introduce ourselves by the work that we do.

I really thought long and hard about who I am and I said to myself, ‘Well, I am an African woman, I’m a strong woman. I am kind, I am generous. I am tenacious, I’m aggressive. I will not take no for an answer, I will not give up. People say I am funny. Actually yeah. I think I’m funny.

Many people interact with me on a work level so they are always seeing the serious me; they never see the funny me. I remember there was a young man I dated, back when I was in university, and we’d just started seeing each other. He had tried and tried and tried to go out with me but I kept refusing and then eventually I said, ‘Yes,’ and we went out. I remember, he once was making me dinner and he did said something funny, and I laughed so hard. When I stopped laughing, he was standing in front of me looking so shocked.

I said, ‘What are you shocked about? Why are you shocked?’ He said, ‘It’s because I never thought you would laugh like that. You are always a serious person.’ I think that’s a side of me that is there but only the close people to me have access to it. I always say I’m not an introvert but I’m sort of in-between. That’s Dorothy.

So, I went to law school in Australia and truly that has to be the worst four years of my life. I hated it with every fiber of my being. When I was in university and people are asked, ‘What inspired you to be a lawyer?’ I recall someone saying, ‘Equitable representation for everybody. I want to be a Supreme Court Judge.’ Then there was me, who said, ‘Ally Mcbeal.’ I mean, I actually went through law school hoping and praying that when I get this job as a lawyer, there will be unisex bathrooms and we’ll dance to music and imaginary people. That’s how I was deeply entrenched in the creative world and that’s why I didn’t particularly enjoy law school but I did it.

A lot of what I learnt has actually helped me. When my mom moved our family to Canada, I transferred my credits to Andrews University where I did communications.

Spielworks was born out of a series of events. I was part of a singers group. This was the fun and creative stuff I used to do. We had finished our Kenyan trip because we were also doing some CSR work. Then we went to Zambia, then to Ndola, and back to Lusaka. The next day we were travelling to Victoria Falls. I think our driver was tired. He slept on the wheel and our van veered from one lane to the other side of the road and we crushed into a big, huge tree.

Some of my friends were a little hurt but no one was really seriously injured. We had to go back to Lusaka so we never made it to Victoria Falls. The interesting thing was every time I’d close my eyes I would get a nightmare, what if I died?

I think for me, I can distinctly pick that as a turning point. I went back and I worked for a little bit but that really bothered me. ‘What if that was the last day of my life?’ I quit my job then told my mom.

She was quite vexed, ‘What are you doing?’ she asked. I told her I was trying to find myself. She said, ‘Hurry up and find yourself. You’re already 30, what’s that about?’ A few days later she called me, bless my mom she really is amazing.

I think like every mom she wanted the best for me. ‘I want to see a plan, what’s your plan?’ she asked. I had to go and really think about it and then present a plan to her. I remember Steve Covey because we did his book as an entire course in university. It was the Seven High Habits of Highly Successful people and one of those habits is to begin working with the end in mind.

I think that is when my journey now really started. I was like, ‘let me create my own TV show, one I can be in,’ but to create a TV show in Canada is very difficult. I had to think about it and I said, ‘I want to be a big fish in a small sea.’ so I came home to visit and I saw the opportunity in the local content space. I came back with a friend of mine whom I started Spielworks Media with in 2009.

It’s been a crazy, crazy journey.

My partner lived in the States so it was a distance partnership. But she sold her shares. As the company continued to grow, there was a lot she couldn’t do being away.

I will go a little bit further back. When I came from Canada and I saw the opportunity and I knew I wanted to be in the entertainment industry. One of the things that I didn’t have was any knowledge or experience in the industry and so the idea was to learn first.

I got a job in a production company here, we were producing a TV show. I’ve never done production management but I’ve done project management and I figured it’s similar. We worked on a show and it didn’t end too well. Let just say from that particular company, I didn’t learn how to produce, I learnt how not to produce.

There was a young lady who was my production assistant when I was in that company. When things didn’t work out and I decided to start my own company and I was like, ‘Let’s shoot a pilot,’ because that’s really the natural step. You set up the company then you shoot a pilot. It was her and I. She joined and she worked for us for the longest while but now she’s a shareholder. At first it was her and I doing all the work. We would hire on a project-based basis.

DG:                  Who left but in the States but also I gave shares to a partner because I needed someone who knew the lay of the land, who could open doors and I could go and make the sale because I was new here. Remember I left at 18, didn’t know anybody.

All my friends, they had gone to campus together and they knew each other and they didn’t know me so that was not there. The people that I knew and went to school with overseas were not there. It was a bit crazy but … It was literally Ndanu and I doing all the work. Then because it’s very project oriented, we would only hire on a project-based basis. As we grew, we found we needed an in-house Production Manager and I needed someone to assist me and you now need a cleaner and you need a receptionist and so on.

The tricky thing with working in this field is, it’s so Catch-22. You’re supposed to produce, deliver to the network and then you’re supposed to get your money. Then the networks sometimes delay with the payments. I’m a small business I can’t do that 30, 60, 90, 120 day credit. You don’t pay people on time and it’s a nightmare because people have given you a service. They will lash at you, they will be mad at you and I am also not getting paid but I can’t lash at my clients. I have to take it all in.

That was one of my biggest challenges. It’s not that you don’t want to pay and people misunderstand you and they think you’re taking their money and growing rich and that’s not what you’re doing.

It continues to affect very many producers and myself too but we’re now older so we have a few more systems and processes in place that are managing that. Nowadays I am able to say ‘No’ to people; I don’t have to do stuff where the payment terms are not agreeable.

I’ve always been a very businessy person, I’ve always had that entrepreneurial thing about me. Working in Venture Capital helped a great deal. I always get that, ‘You’re a producer, you’re not creative.’ That’s not true, producers have got to be creative otherwise they will never be able to put a creative thing on screen. I have to know off the bat if the show will sell or not.

I sing and I write and I draw and I dance and I did all that in high school and I still have it in me. Now, I count myself very lucky because I can balance creativity and commerce.  Because too much of either one of them is a disaster.

However, I found that the more I worked at Spielworks … My dream of starting my own production company was to start my own production so I can act in it. No, very, very difficult, extremely difficult. I’ve been asking myself the last year or so, ‘What are those things that we are producing? Are they true to the craft, can I balance?’

Now we have over 15 TV shows and over 40 movies.

Yeah, I think people just don’t realize they’re creative but then you have to have that as an entrepreneur. How someone puts together their outfit in the morning, that’s an element of creativity. How you cook your food, there’s an element there.

I had a moment about five or so years ago. We had just produced our third show I think, and I remember I had not gotten my payments and I was getting a lot of backlash and it was so difficult.

I was so devastated, it was one devastation after the other and I remember at the end of the day I went home and I read a comment by an actor and they abused me. They were so mean to me on social media. I remember curling on my bed and for like two seconds I really considered giving up. I’m like, ‘I really don’t need this garbage in my life.’

Then I got over it. I didn’t think I necessarily wanted to give up per se but come 2014, we had just began getting our balance, we’re on cruise control, things are okay, we’re producing. We’re the talk of town, we’re the producers to be reckoned with, things are just amazing. Then September 2014, I lose multiple contracts worth so much money and I felt the world, my world was falling. For me, that was a dark time. That was really crazy and my business partners always told me that before it gets better, it’s going to get worse.

It was September, there’s no way I’m bringing that kind of money back into the company the last few months of the year. We had to shut down the studios we had constructed, shut the doors, close down, move out of the building, pay money to be able to break the lease and leave and just go. We didn’t even have a place to go so we. Then comes Christmas time. Clients are supposed to pay you but then they close for Christmas.

I’m recalling it and I’m thinking about it and I remember saying to myself, ‘If there’s a time to give up, it is now.’

Then I went to my boyfriend’s home in the village and they have the River Yala there and I sat a few days. I just slept. I remember we came back to Nairobi on New Year’s Day, 2015.

I spent about 14 hours in my room with me and a notebook and I thought and I analyzed. Because I believe it is important, not to emotionalize the past, but to analyze it. I looked at it, I looked at the year, what had happened and I made a decision, we are going to get out of this.

That is one of the heaviest things I’ve ever had to deal with as a business woman. That burden, I couldn’t share it, I am the CEO, I am the owner. My confidence took such a beating. To be able to stand up again in front of people, imagine you’re not changing your business, you’re still going back to the same business the next day. To convince people to come back and work for you. It takes courage.

We were very fortunate because we had some projects that we had signed on prior so we were busy the beginning of the year. We were not in our fancy studio as and we were not doing our fancy productions. The amount of courage it took every day to just get up and go to work because people needed to see me and they needed to see me strong and they needed to see that I’m okay because everybody was picking their cues from me.

Whatever energy you have it trickles down to the rest of the company. To try and ignore the external, the backtalk and the chitchat and the gossip and the press calling me. That took a heck of a lot.

But you cope, you have to find a way. Me I went to the gym. You have to hold onto something for sanity.

What I did is I learnt to also look at what’s working as opposed to what’s not working. Because we can beat ourselves up with that.

I wouldn’t say it’s a typical woman’s way of thinking because we get emotional. Somehow you’re dividing the emotion from fact and then wading through that.

I have the ability to self-check. If something happens to me I will look at it. I will look at it  as an external thing, so I can reflect on it.

I’m able to empower myself by taking responsibility, by saying, ‘It’s easy to blame the network,’ and that’s an external factor so I can’t really control that. Let’s look at me, what part did I play to contribute to this. When I ask myself then I realize I didn’t have enough plans, I didn’t have a diverse portfolio plan. I didn’t have systems and processes in place or risk management. Where are the JDs? What’s our hiring process? Do we have insurance? Are we paying NHIF? How are we doing our taxes?

Interviewer:    I’m going to move you towards; there are two things that we talked about in the book that I’d like to see what your thoughts are. The first one is the role of female entrepreneurs in your life. Do you feel that there has been … What role do female or other female business people play a role in like who gives you businesses? Is it women? For me I always say my business, my clients are mainly women, what about you? I would love to hear the role of women entrepreneurs in Spielworks crew.

Some of my clients are women. I produce content and they need content so they’ll buy it from me. There’s been one or two who’ve been supportive, you could see that they want women to do well and push them.

I found that in some instances, I found there was a particular woman who was just downright hostile, just mean. I am in an industry that doesn’t have too many women. Executives are men.

I did experience one woman who was She really, really so hostile, she had favorites, and she would just mess everything about my company, my production. One day she actually did try to sabotage my payment and I just escalated it and then it was sorted.

Then I went to her office and I told her, ‘Listen, what is up? Is it me, is it my company, is it something we’re doing? Can you tell me so I can do better?’ She was actually taken aback because she didn’t realize she was consciously doing that.

Men, me I found especially the ones that I’m dealing with, you give them a show, they take it, they buy it – the end. They just do business, there’s no drama. There’s always one or two characters who are an exception.

In Communication most of them is women; in procurement mainly men. The job would usually come from the production, the product manager or the women involved.  If you asked me if I thought there was a sisterhood, the answer is no.[

I think a support system would have been good. But people are working to beat companies, people have set targets to meet, people are busy trying to survive and not get fired. You’re trying to bring sisterhood here? It is a tall ask.

I’ve now created that sisterhood with my fellow entrepreneurs because we’re together in arms of suffering. I’ve always been a person who shares information even with people considered ‘my competitors.’ We are few producers so I feel that there’s room for everyone. Information is there, so you either share it or people find it on the internet. I got it from a few men but not from women.

Here is the thing, I don’t even think it’s about a problem happened during production. In our first one or two years, you get a problem and you panic but you do 15 productions, 41 movies; they don’t even call me. They just sort it.

Those are small time production issues like we have systems and processes in place that allow for us to put out these fires. I think it is in the running of the business. It is in this management, it’s in this building a company, it’s in this growing up. It is in the challenges that you face that you must learn. That is where your resilience is called to play, your tenacity is put in the line of fire and you just have to carry on.

If the shoe drops, you actually understand this as a part of life. Then you don’t get too caught up in the highs or too caught up in the lows.

Someone said, problems don’t disappear, they only become bigger and better so it is how we cope with them.

When you get to that point where you really don’t place value in backchat about you, it’s a remarkable sense of freedom that you get. Only then can you move to the next level. I think that many, many of my challenges have been not even production related. It’s other things, decisions that I’ve made. We’re in the studios and we’re here and we have to move or we have to change this person …

It also helps that I believe in what I do, I really love it, I enjoy it and I really believe in what I do, then it becomes worth it.

I don’t think I would do this for things that I don’t believe.

People always say to me, ‘I want to get into production, I want to make money.’ I say, ‘First of all, stay in the job you have now.’ That’s why it’s got to be bigger, there’s got to be a bigger reason. For me, I am very purposed. I enjoy seeing people making a living out of creativity, it’s a viable option financially for people. The industry is growing.

I’m increasingly looking around me, and this is something I tell entrepreneurs is to ask themselves, ‘What is motivating you to do what you’re doing?’ My previous desire to be loved by people and accepted by people motivated me to make certain decisions that really almost cost me my company.

I want people to keep it real with themselves, be truthful and be honest with yourself, be authentic; be real. Ask yourself that very difficult question, ‘why are you doing what you’re doing?’