Welcome to Edition #66 of Did You Know? (DYK), the weekly newsletter by Gorick Ng, Harvard career adviser and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules, where we deconstruct the untold story of how someone (or something) became successful—and what you can do to follow in their footsteps.
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Did You Know? Be a copycat!
Your story this week
Did you know? The founder of Food4Education (one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies) found a model that worked in India, brought it to Kenya, and now feeds 300,000 people per day.
TIME just released its list of the 100 Most Influential Companies of 2024.
On the list? Food4Education (F4E), the largest independently-led food program in Africa. Kenya-based, F4E feeds more than 300,000 people per day via 18 kitchens staffed by 2,000 people.
Its founder? 33-year-old Kenyan entrepreneur Wawira Njiru.
Running an operation of such scale is no easy feat. You need to source the fresh ingredients, prepare the food overnight for the following day, and deliver the meals in time for meal stations to open at 5am.
How did Njiru figure out how to make this all happen?
By taking a model from India.
12 years ago, in 2012, Njiru, then a nutrition and food sciences student in Australia, found her calling: to start a school meals program. After hosting a fundraiser and pooling her savings, she built a kitchen made out of corrugated iron in her hometown of Ruiru, Kenya.
Njiru’s first kitchen fed 25 local schoolchildren. “If only I had the resources to cook for 100,” Njriu thought.
Then, five years later, she visited the Akshaya Patra Foundation in India—and everything changed.
In India, she found the world's largest NGO school meal program that fed not 25 children in 1 school, but 2.2 million children in over 23,000 schools.
How did the Akshaya Patra Foundation do it? Through a centralized kitchen that not only stored, prepared, and delivered bulk amounts of food from a single location, but that also used technology like roti-making machines to make the food prep process more efficient.
Fast forward two more years to 2019, and Food4Education raised grant funding to set up its first central kitchen. Inspired by the automation she saw in India, Njiru also implemented a no-cash payment system so children can eat in “under 5 seconds” by tapping their wristbands which were connected to pre-paid digital wallets.
The organization “scaled five-fold” as a result.
Fast forward another five years to today, Food4Education has served over 40 million meals to children across Kenya—and is now among the TIME100.
What does this mean for you? The next time you find yourself with a dream but no idea how to make it work, remember Njiru—who found a successful model and adapted it to her context.
Your strategy this week
Did you know? Be a copycat!
Unlike Disney’s adaptations of storybooks like the one that inspired Frozen, Wawira Njiru took a successful model—and replicated it. Yes, you’re being a copycat. And yes—this happens all the time.
Consider ridesharing. Once Uber popularized the idea of being able to hop into a stranger’s car after its founding in 2009, copycats emerged all over the world. For example, Lyft popped up in the US, Careem popped up in the United Arab Emirates, and Grab popped up in Singapore—all in the same year: 2012. They simply took Uber’s model and applied it to a different geography.
Being a copycat isn’t only useful for building a company. It’s also useful for building a career!
Have big goals—but not sure how to reach them? Fill in these blanks:
(1) “If I were to be successful beyond my wildest dreams, I’d want to live the life of _________ in terms of _________ (and _________ in terms of _________).”
- E.g., “If I were to be successful beyond my wildest dreams, I’d want to live the life of author Cal Newport in terms of getting paid to intellectually explore and write about topics that I’m interested in.”
(2) Based on my research on Google and LinkedIn, _________ got to where they are today by doing _________ and _________ and _________.”
- E.g., “Based on my research on Google and his prior podcast interviews, Cal Newport got to where he is today by publishing a book, learning from what his audience wanted, and then testing new ideas through his blog.”
Whatever you want to do, someone has probably done it before. There’s a tried and tested formula to success in every domain, as I discussed through my story on Coca-Cola.
You are your own person, yes, but there is something to be learned from those who’ve come before you. Research what they did to get to where they are today—and adapt their career maneuvers to your own circumstances.
I know it because I’ve experienced it: Before writing and launching my book, The Unspoken Rules, I spent months uncovering the patterns of successful books and book launches. I did similar research in the early stages of creating my How to Say It flashcard series: I spent months looking at successful products and product launches—and emulated the steps that made sense for my situation. In retrospect, I’m glad I did!
Be a copycat!
Gorick
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