Born and raised in Rwanda, 22- year- old Elyse NKundimana, CEO and founder of Elysee Brand, a TV commercial and video production company, created his company with the sole purpose of helping companies who want to advertise their product or services to get high-quality videos and promotion material. Nkundimana developed his love for visual production while at school, working for local media houses and different event planners, and at the age of 18, he wanted to help people shift from old methods of keeping the information on paper which may get lost or damaged. Nkundimana started with a digitalized business cards so people can share information by just tapping or scanning the QR code, he wanted to reduce the issues of keeping many cards that hold personal information that sometimes get lost. The idea came in 2021 after covid-19 when people were had just been allowed to start going out but with masks on and proof of vaccination. “One day, I was going to an event and my phone battery died, when I reached the gate one person from the health organization asked me for a vaccination certificate and I couldn’t find it because my phone was off and I didn’t have that paper they gave us. From that time I started to think of how I could create digital contactless covid-19 vaccination status card, and from that I developed a different product that uses NFC technology,” he says. Nkundimana got the motivation to start from the ambition of helping various companies to bring the identity of their products into advanced cutting-edge production and solving issues that result from not keeping information and other data in a smart way. “I live by a quote that says ‘To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment.’ I am self-taught and I use tutorials to learn new things. After high school, I was ambitious to see my dreams come true, I later joined TV1 Rwanda where I learned from experienced directors who pushed me to set my focus on directing music videos. After that I continued to increase my skills by learning online website design and development which helped me till now to develop my digital products,” he says. Later on, his brand started growing and bringing different creative ways of helping companies to work smartly and to reduce the use of paper to keep their data. “We specialised in different background products like photography for websites of companies, online store marketplace, print, and more, we wanted to be able to help different companies that do different things to be able to promote their work and products in a digital way that will reach to a larger audience,” he says. The impacts were quick to come, the agency helped many companies to come into the spotlight and to grow and expand. Moreover, the agency also provided marketing strategies to companies that needed them for its development. The journey was however, not smooth as Nkundimana faced a lot of challenges while creating his agency. Challenges like discouragements, and not being able to convince clients due to his age gave Nkundimana more reason not to give up because he wanted to prove something. “I faced a lot of challenges on this journey and I still do, as a young entrepreneur and innovator it is hard to convince clients, they feel that we are not capable, and that would kind of take us back financially because they would offer a lesser payment for our services, but that never discouraged me I kept on and I feel motivated every day because I want to make a change,” he says. Nkundimana advises young entrepreneurs like him to think outside the box and stick to their dreams without letting any discouragements get to them.
