Columnist Argues Modern Founders Build Without Traditional Blessing or Identity Transfer

Entrepreneur and founder of Seven Seas Technologies Michael Macharia has examined what he calls the condition of the “unblessed founder.” In traditional Kikuyu society, he writes, a child’s identity was announced at birth through the ngemi ululations. Destiny, purpose, courage and leadership were spoken over the newborn before any achievement occurred. Similar practices existed among the Maasai, Luo, Kalenjin, Luhya and Mijikenda.

The modern founder, by contrast, enters the market unannounced. No community gathers at the company registrar’s door. Validation arrives only after traction, and it is withdrawn when numbers falter. Macharia describes this as a reversed blessing: the market rewards performance retroactively and temporarily. Press coverage, funding rounds and awards function as receipts rather than lasting affirmation of identity.

He argues that many founders therefore construct their sense of self from key performance indicators because nothing deeper was ever spoken over them. Validation becomes a substitute for blessing, yet unlike blessing it expires. When performance declines, the founder discovers there is little underneath the metrics.

Macharia has observed the same deficit in both young builders and older entrepreneurs who have already exited companies. The older group, he notes, sometimes continues to chase external recognition in an attempt to close a gap that capital cannot fill. Different generations, same hollow.

The column turns to succession. Modern instruments—share transfers, title deeds, board resolutions and trusts—move assets and authority efficiently. They rarely transfer the second granary that traditional succession required: honour earned through wisdom, the peace of righteous living, and named values such as honesty, generosity, justice, courage and temperance. A father who handed over material wealth without these elements had not completed the succession.

Contemporary business, Macharia writes, has perfected the transfer of the first granary and deleted the second. Heirs receive shares and strategy without the character or conviction that built them. The old warning about wealth dissipating by the third generation continues to prove itself in boardrooms.

The remedy he proposes is formation rather than mysticism. Blessing, stripped of ceremony, is the deliberate spoken transfer of identity and values in the presence of the receiver. It costs nothing and is rarely practised. Founders should name the values aloud and speak destiny over younger builders before the metrics justify it. Sequence matters: identity first, measurement second.

Macharia acknowledges the paradox. Founders are often elders to everyone and sons to no one. The market will never ululate, and it should not—performance must still be measured. A company run only on blessing without numbers is not a business. The correction available to any builder is simple and immediate: say it first. Shares transfer by signature; blessing transfers only by presence.

The column forms part of ongoing reflection within Kenya’s entrepreneurial community on identity, succession and the limits of purely transactional validation.