Nairobi, July 15 -- Kenya is not yet in an election season.

The ballot is still more than a year away. Yet the signs are already visible. Convoys are growing longer, meetings are multiplying, and friendships are quietly being formed long before they will be needed. Watching this familiar choreography, I found myself asking a question every founder should ask: How many of my own relationships were built the same way-before I became useful?

Founders face elections too. Ours simply happen every day. A funding round, a major contract or an industry award often triggers the same migration. The phone rings more often. Messages arrive from people who watched you struggle in silence but now remember they always believed in you.

This is not a c...