Despite the difficult business environment in Nigeria, some start-ups are leveraging technology to grow their businesses and cause disruptions in the sector they operate.
Among them are Adeshina Adewumi, who is using artificial intelligence (AI) to disrupt Nigeria’s ecommerce space and Chy Onwuka that is causing disruption in the fashion industry with technology.
Adeshina Adewumi
In the last decade, the ecommerce industry has been the main thing in the Nigerian entrepreneurship ecosystem, with entrepreneurs launching online stores and pumping millions of naira into the industry.
The ecommerce industry has raked in over $1 billion in the last decade, but entrepreneurs’ attention is gradually shifting away from it as big players such as Konga and Jumia struggle to survive, with many exiting the sector.
To address the high cost of logistics— one of the major challenges limiting the growth of the ecommerce industry in the country— Adeshina Adewumi established One Kiosk Africa to provide solutions using GPS and AI.
Adeshina says the untapped potential in the ecommerce space inspired him to establish One Kiosk Africa in 2019 to change the status quo.
He notes that the industry has the potential to create about a million jobs within five years and has been projected to account for 10 percent of Africa’s GDP by 2025.
“One Kiosk Africa was launched out of the need to address three main issues. First are the challenges facing e-commerce business models ranging from high cost of logistics and poor turnaround time for delivery that have led to sudden deaths of many e-commerce businesses,” he says.
“Second is the non-existence of sound distribution network for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa, which is one of the major reasons why most small businesses close up. Last is the need to solve unemployment challenges in Africa,” the young entrepreneur adds.
The accountant- turned- entrepreneur built a model that connects customers with merchants using GPS and AI to provide a secure, credible and cost- effective platforms for MSMEs to distribute their offerings to a wider pool of customers within their neighbourhood or area of operations.
The model is also used to create employment opportunities within the value chains.
Adeshina’s initial capital was quite small. He bootstrapped the business with personal savings until Sterling Bank committed $3, 000 to the business through the Pitch Nigeria Programme.
Since then, the business has attracted local and international investors. The young entrepreneur is committed to growing the business further by developing its solutions before utilising external investors’ funds that have been obtained, he says.
The business, which was birthed 2018 and commenced operations in 2019, already has over 15,000 subscribers, users and merchants as well as six fulltime employees.
He notes that the ecommerce industry gave birth to most innovations the country currently has in the fintech industry.
He identifies infrastructural gaps as the main challenge facing his business as it continues to shoot up production cost.
He says that Andela and Proville are already addressing the technical skills gap in the industry while calling on the government to encourage them to do more. He also urges the government to start bridging the country’s huge infrastructure gaps.
He says the company plans to increase its subscriber base to a million within the next 12 months.
“For our merchants, we intend to have introduced workable offerings to increase their capacity to efficiently take charge of the delivery systems either by absorbing our One Pro-delivery members or building their own system.
“In four years’, that’s by 2024, we expect to have grown to over 3.5 million users in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Egypt and created over 1 million direct and indirect jobs through our platform value chain.”
On advice to other young entrepreneurs, he says, “Consistency and patience. We live in a world where everyone wants to shine without paying the price required to shine. Consistency always pays off at the end of the day and patience is a rare virtue.”
Meet Onwuka
In 2017, Chy Onwuka quit her banking job to start Fabrics.NG, a tech start-up focused on making quality fabric sourcing easier and accessible for businesses and creative individuals.
Chy was inspired to establish her business owing to the constant frustration experienced when shopping for fabrics.
She was prompted to set up a tech market platform where people can source and shop for fabrics and get them delivered to their choice locations.
“As a young female professional, the idea came after being constantly frustrated whenever I had to shop for fabrics or the popular ‘asoebi’,” she says.
“It was unbelievable that for a fashion-conscious nation such as Nigeria, there is no organised infrastructure for fabric sourcing and distribution. America alone has hundreds of structured online fabric stores,” she further says.
She explains that the markets for shopping fabrics in the country are disorganised with quality inconsistency and pricing issues stressful.
To change the narrative, she established Fabrics.NG in 2017 to design a structured online fabric marketplace where all types of fabrics are being sold.
“Basically, Fabrics.NG is an ‘Amazon’ for fabrics. The idea is that within five minutes, you can find and order the fabric you need,” she discloses.
“We have 1000+ fabrics and up to 100 new fabric designs uploaded weekly. Fabric sourcing is now truly efficient and delivery is available worldwide,” she states.
The banker-turned-entrepreneur started her business small from her personal savings, from family and friends.
The business has expanded since starting and has continued to grow its return consistently.
Onwuka tells Start-Up-Digest that Fabrics.NG emerged winner of the 2019 African Women in Technology Pitch and is also a recipient of the 2018 She Leads Africa Accelerator programme.
The business currently has over four full-time employees.
The young entrepreneur says that she has a network of wholesale textile suppliers where she sources her raw materials from, both locally and internationally.
On the challenges limiting the business, the young entrepreneur says that huge infrastructural gaps have remained the major challenge facing the business.
She calls on the Federal Government to provide the needed infrastructure for businesses to thrive.
On her advice to other entrepreneurs, she says, “Build for the market. That disruptive idea might not be the solution your customers need at the moment. Listen and understand your customers’ needs.”
