One has to decide between fixing laptops and doing advertising. When working in a startup, an individual has to be flexible because we do various activities and even have to multitask.
I graduated 2014 and instead of getting employed, I decided to do a startup. My inspiration was reading Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook story in my final. I was so touched by the story that I even considered dropping out. Unfortunately, I graduated into the wilderness. When in school, you have access to resources that are no more after you leave. The best startups were therefore built by people in school.
It’s been four years now doing my own thing. Overcoming challenges of limited resources, partnering with so and so then having to fend for myself when they find a job and leave. The startup world is chaotic, it gives me an adrenaline rush, it is character building, that is what I love about it.
If you are looking for comfort and a salary, the startup world is not for you. We change products about five times in a year. If you are investing in a startup, do your research. The process of positioning ourselves for the golden niche is financially demanding, which is why we are high risk. Silicon Valley invests hundreds of millions into startups that gets lost in the pivots.
Build fast. Fail fast. The process of building a startup in an unguided environment is also a challenge. You will have parents and other people who do not understand breathing down your neck and asking what you are doing with your life. If you are weak, you will succumb to the criticism and end up getting stressed. I am grateful for places like the Vodacom Innovation Park, it provided a platform for me to be around people who understand me.
So today I am going to talk about eCommerce. Go Digital! Go Mobile! Go Global! He made us repeat it until we started giggling.
Recently, The Entrepreneurs Network (TEN), they have an Expo in November, tagged me and asked if the global village was an investor and Lesotho was a pitcher, what makes Lesotho unique?
I thought about it and replied that it is our size, we are very small that everything in Lesotho scales very quick. For those who do not know, we are one of the best countries in utilizing mobile money. Nowadays you switch on LTV and see an elderly woman confessing about how Mpesa changed her life. Come to think of it, the thing really is changing people’s lives!
The follow up question was, where do I see Lesotho in 10 years considering the increasing network coverage and smartphone penetration. I did not have their answer then but I have it now. I see us as a smart country. If smartphones are scaling quick, we are going to be a smart people. It is coming, you will be ordering your hair salon services online.
Statistics claim that we are unemployed. Yet when you look closely outside, we are doing business informally. I come to your place, do your laundry and get paid. The government has no record of the transaction and maintains that I am unemployed. So once the mobile data of our informal transactions go online, unemployment statistics will be disproved.
Our higher learning institutions release graduates annually. Smart graduates are uniting, using the internet, getting ideas, sharing ideas and creating solutions. Sooner or later, the very unemployed ‘whatsoevers’ will be key players and contributors to the economy of the country. Why? Because we have time to sit down and learn photoshop and programming.
The progress is happening, people just do not see it yet. Events are happening, Nala and others. So many things are going on, but most focus is on formal employment. People want to get employment, they have convinced themselves that they need to be employed.
Since a lot of people are not formally employed, it is believed that unemployment is high. Which is true if you choose to view it from that perspective. On the other hand, there is a lot of undocumented informal business occurring. We are printing caps and selling through social media, that is eCommerce in its basic form. The government considers you as unemployed while you are still making money.
There are of course complaints about people cheating through E Commerce. It is okay, we all start somewhere. Let us cheat others moving forward. Laughter in the room. The security flaw is an opportunity for someone to create a more secure solution.
Sometimes there is too much traffic of advertisements and you just do not know where to look. That is why we as Technify created an App called Lunchbox. It is for people who cook delicious food and sell them around town through Maseru Online Market. On account of too many things being sold in the group, we simply let them do the same thing on a more suitable platform. We call it the Niche Aggregator.
The above made so much sense because I recalled seeing an advert in the online market with competitive prices of a good I wanted. I got distracted and forgot to take a screenshot of the contacts. Finding the very same advert throughout the others that pile up per minute was a nightmare. I gave up.
It’s not just food. We start with the chaos then clean up the mess by filtering data. Then I think of aggregating events and selling tickets. While putting my shoulders to the wheel working on the solution, a big player comes and announces that they are providing the very same solution. Oh man! Laughter. It is not a setback as such, it’s just a matter of approaching the big player and showing the player how our software complements theirs. Software is about increasing the value chain.
ECommerce is already happening, although in a little disorganized manner. Door Step Deliveries is already delivering, we do not have an Amazon yet. Fun fact, Amazon and Apple are the first American companies to offer a trillion’s worth of value to their customers. They made history.
We do not have an online payment platform. If I am online and want to buy caps from Graphite Ink, I have to send a message via Facebook, get Whatsapp contacts, get a mobile money number, then make a payment. Look at the switch from Facebook to Whatsapp and then to USSD. Disorganized. Imagine all the aforementioned steps occurring in one platform, that is the organized and clean version of eCommerce.
What we also lack is the knowledge of who is working on what and when. Once one person releases a product or service you are working on, it is disruptive. The disruption becomes counterproductive to the value we are trying to add. I should not be working on a music App if Enigma is already doing the same thing.
My analysis of the current eCommerce condition in our country is that we are doing it, eventhough it is a bit scattered. Moreover, we need payment solutions. I do not mean that we do not have any, I mean we need a PayPal type of solution. Mobile money goes as far as sending money over long distances and paying for basics like electricity. When it comes to paying for a meal at Barcelos, hiccups emerge. Even research shows that Africa uses mobile money mostly for person to person transfer and a lot less for convenience. As a startup, we see that gap and are going to fill it.
A startup mentality can go as far as filling a gap of toothpicks. Everybody needs one after almost every meal. Get in there and build an empire of toothpicks. Laughter. From there, you can expand to seviettes. You will be in the food industry without even selling food. The problem is that when most Basotho think business, they think competition and not complementary. So and so is doing well, I should do the same thing. No!
In eCommerce, we further need logistics technology and market education. People need to know that we are already doing it. Sceptics might deny it from having used more advanced technologies in better countries. From your standards, shelter can be a luxury mansion while according to me, shelter is an informal settlement. We are natural solution providers.
Ultimately, as Technify, we provide workshops every single month. Continuously talking and building until one day after 10 years, we will indeed be a smart country. Come to our workshop, if you do not have money, ask for it from your folks. We will teach you how to make a website and many other things.
All we need is a 10 year strategic plan, a comprehensive unit participation and great leadership in digital economy. 10 years from now, we can catch up to Keny, Rwanda, South Africa and even surpass them if we are committed enough. Soweto has twice the population of Lesotho. Convincing the entire South Africa to use mobile money is a headache. To the contrary, introduce the same thing to Lesotho, we chew it, swallow it, digest it and throw it to the other side with the snap of a finger.