After PentBizz collapsed, he built OpenBuilder for other founders

At university, Innocent Ociti and some friends put their own living allowances into a business called PentBizz. It gave small loans to students and market vendors. "We started it using our own living allowances because we believed we could solve a real problem around us," he says. For a while it worked. The business grew, people trusted them, and he says he started to believe that business could be a powerful way to create opportunity.

Then two of the co-founders scammed them and the business collapsed. "After that experience, I swore off business. I felt like it was too risky, too painful, and maybe not for me," he says.

“The goal has always been to provide other founders with what I wish I had when I entered the startup ecosystem: a reliable venture-building support system that helps underserved founders turn their potential into consistent business progress through hands-on learning, useful tools, and timely support from mentors and peers.”

Innocent Ociti

Rootical changed that. Through Rootical he learned how to build a business with structure and discipline, and with a clear model. "I also grew as a person," he says. He began to understand that the problem "was not business itself, but building without the right support, knowledge, systems, and people around you."

Now, with Charles, who was also with him at Rootical, he is building OpenBuilder, a social enterprise that helps young people, aspiring founders and early-stage entrepreneurs build better, more structured businesses. It helps founders shape their ideas, understand their customers, build stronger business models and reach mentors who have built before. OpenBuilder started as a project under the Aspire Leaders Program and has since grown into a social enterprise.

The bigger goal is an open-source academy for venture building, "where anyone with the courage to build can access practical tools, mentorship, community, and guidance," he says.