Keturah Ovio-Onoweya is a young serial entrepreneur. She is the face behind Qeturah.com, which is often described as a marketplace.
The Delta State-born entrepreneur has now taken the logistics industry by the storm with what she calls ‘Fulfilment By Qeturah’ (FBQ). This platform makes it easy for individuals and businesses anywhere in Nigeria to send documents, parcels and products to any destination within Nigeria and the world. Her services are five to 65 percent cheaper than the industry average or what is obtained at major logistics firms.
“We offer door-to-door and soon enough, drop off points to make it easy for our customers,” she tells Start-Up Digest.
“We pick, pack, and deliver to your customers in a timely and efficient fashion,” she adds.
Keturah was motivated to set up the logistics business by the experience she and her team had.
“It stemmed out of a problem we faced as a company when we still fully ran our marketplace, Qeturah.com,” she says.
“It was difficult and expensive for a while to deliver orders to customers nationwide and internationally. Then we found a fix, and we realised that our current merchants and other businesses alike, as well as individuals, need our solution,” she explains.
“We thought we would be leaving money on the table if we don’t open this up to everyone and make it super easy for them to ship,” she notes.
She explains that today, from the comfort of anyone’s home, office, or shop, they can make requests on FBQ via online and get them within the shortest possible time. She works with a number of local and international partners to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of delivery.
Her style is simple: If you need to send a document to Switzerland, you will drop your document at a partner location nearest to you. The FBQ team will pick it up for onward delivery.
“We will pick up from you and deliver to wherever your customers/receivers are, anywhere in the world, including Nigeria,” she assures.
Keturah explains that technology has made it easy for companies to hit unicorn ($1 billion-dollar) status in recent times. She herself is also planning to build a $1 billion business.
“I am a strong believer in the fact that if you build a solution that solves a pain-point, your customers will throw their money at you,” she says.
“My vision is to continually seek out problems in business and consumer markets, and provide hassle-free tech and tech-enabled solutions for them,” she adds.
A Software Engineering graduate of Nottingham Trent University, UK, the 27-year-old entrepreneur worked for Grabit, a South-East Asian tech company, where she was exposed to so much information that gave her confidence to found Qeturah.com.
Keturah wants to retire at age of 40 to pursue her dream of travelling to many parts of the world.
“I’ve always joked around that I should be retired before I turn 40, but then again, life is long,” she quips.
“What would give me absolute joy in 10 years is to be vacationing somewhere in an emerging market, and I meet people whose businesses are effectively powered by solutions my company provides.”
She says that her logistics business is unique because her team understand tech and have the right partnerships
“We are an aggregator; we work with international as well as local logistics providers to ensure we deliver on our promise,” she says.
“We offer near-best price in the market in which we play in. We are apt on our ETA promises; next day delivery within same state; three days delivery anywhere in Nigeria; five days delivery anywhere in the world,” she discloses.
She says everything from shipment requests to payments and status tracking can be done online via web/mobile, http://qeturah.com/fulfilment.
Today, she is surer of the direction to take than two years ago and understands the kind of business she wants to build.
ODINAKA ANUDU
