By Evalyne Ndirangu
If you were like most kids, you probably had a phase where you wanted to be a doctor. I know I did. For Starlin Farah, this was the dream she was inching towards as a medical student just a few years shy of earning her degree. She didn’t imagine her future self would be elbow deep in kitchen scraps and working with insects, but that’s exactly where she ended up.
The detour happened at a hangout spot in Kenyatta University when she met Adan Mohammed – an engineering student who also moonlighted as an entrepreneur in his spare time, running a small animal feed manufacturing business. As they got to know each other, Starlin found herself drawn to the problem that Adan was trying to solve – the protein problem.
Animals, like humans, need protein. However, quality sources were expensive, making up more than half the entire cost of animal feeds. The industry standard was ‘omena’, a dried and salty fish from Lake Victoria, but getting it was testing. If you didn’t stand at the lake shore yourself, you’d end up with half your bulked up with sand to artificially inflate the weight by a dishonest middleman looking to make a quick profit. The alternative, cottonseed cake, was plant-based and challenging for animals to digest. For a small operation like Adan’s, the losses were crippling and financially draining.
This all stemmed from a backyard discovery
The turning point came in 2017 when Kenyan doctors took to the streets for a nationwide protest, giving Starlin something medical students rarely have, time. In the same period, her father would often forward her articles on sustainability, and the recurring theme about the search for alternative proteins caught her eye.
What followed were days spent buried in research and afternoon experiments in Adan’s mom’s backyard exploring and experimenting with the alternative protein sources. They tested everything from earthworms to mealworms, until they stumbled upon the black soldier fly (bsf), a discovery that challenged everything they thought they knew about waste, agriculture and business itself.
They found out that the larvae of these insects were protein factories, and that they were voracious organic waste eaters. They watched the larvae transform buckets of kitchen scraps into their own protein-rich bodies, and a nutrient-dense waste product called frass which makes for incredible organic fertiliser.
“The black soldier flies were easy to rear. By feeding them your kitchen scraps, you get protein at the end of the cycle,” Starlin explains, ” and besides the protein we wanted, we found that they could also create organic fertiliser.”
It was a perfect, circular system, and thus began their entrepreneurial journey.
Initially, Starlin and Adan tried to do everything, produce protein, manufacture compound feed, source organic waste and manage sales. The regulatory requirements, however, quickly revealed the complexity of their ambition, demanding enormous capital they did not have. This eventually forced Adan to shutter his old feed manufacturing plant and team up with Starlin to kickstart a new venture, Ecodudu.
The timing was ripe, as Adan had already graduated, and Starlin was in her final year. Upon finishing medical school a year later and faced with a crowded and poor job market for newly minted doctors, the choice was clear for Starlin – she joined Adan full-time. “I am a doctor by profession,” she says, “but an entrepreneur by choice.”
Breaking through skepticism
The duo were met with intense scepticism from multiple directions. There were customers questioning the efficacy of insect-based products, suppliers uncertain about working with a startup and expectedly, family members struggling to understand the career pivots both founders were making.
For Starlin, a predictable and pointed question was “why would you leave a safe and coveted medical career to go work with insects? Adan faced his own version of this from his family, he recalls with a wry smile. They were questions loaded with worry and the weight of unmet expectations.
The duo met the criticism with proof, distributing samples, building trust customer by customer, and letting the results speak for themselves.
The M-Kyala catalyst
To launch and grow the company, Ecodudu had won an early grant which funded their proof of concept, but as they grew, the capital gap reappeared as it does for many businesses in need of scaling capital. Then, they received an email from Carolyne Kirabo, CEO of M-Kyala Ventures and the M-Kyala Capital fund which changed their narrative. M-Kyala offered them a working capital facility, but there was a catch. The facility was interest-based which conflicted with the founders’ religious beliefs.
“We sat down with Carolyne to discuss our concerns around the interest-bearing facility,” Starlin recalls, “and came to an agreement. We were very grateful that the M-Kyala team was flexible enough to accommodate our religious beliefs. It showed just how much they believed in us at the time.”
“One of our guiding principles at M-Kyala is that sustainable partnerships and support require meeting entrepreneurs where they are,” notes Carolyne.
Beyond capital, M-Kyala provided comprehensive ecosystem support. This included regular follow-ups, strategic guidance, targeted sessions on governance and carbon credit markets and practical business development advice such as negotiating supplier agreements, all which were critical in exploring new revenue streams and attracting potential partners.
A ripple effect
With this support, Ecodudu thrived and now processes over 10,000 tonnes of organic waste annually, waste that would otherwise rot in landfills. By diverting this waste, they have prevented over 26,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent from escaping into the atmosphere. In addition, the company’s annual revenue has grown nearly three and a half times since 2022, and the team more than doubled.
A distinguishing feature is the ripple effect their innovation creates. From waste collectors with a steady income (many of them vulnerable women and youth), to farmers who receive products that improve soil health and crop yields, and urban areas that benefit from a reduced waste management burden and pollution.
One such farmer who has benefited is Grace who had all but lost faith in her land. Years of using synthetic fertilisers had turned her soil unresponsive, shrinking her yields each year, and her hope as well. After using Ecodudu’s organic fertiliser, Shamba mix, “for the first time ever, I was able to produce a surplus and sell it, paying school fees for my children,” she recalls excitedly.
For M-Kyala, this is the model. Ecodudu is proof that a business can build its bottom line by building a better system for people and the planet. It also validates the idea that investing in female-led and diverse-led teams generates returns that are not just financial, but also social and environmental.