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Startups in Kenya: More goof-ups from Safaricom and the Great Zap Mystery

2009-02-18T02:56:00-05:00

You'd be very surprised if you walked into a management meeting at Safaricom. The meeting's agenda on how management is devoting or planning to devote considerable resources in customer satisfaction would bewilder you. My overworked flys on the wall tell me that this is currenlty Safaricom's primary focus, customer satisfaction.

Did I hear a gasp, or was that you masking "bull****" under your cough?

Here in the real world, we still are trying to figure out how customer satisfaction by Safaricom is measured: is it getting a dial signal on the customer care number 100? Or perhaps it's finishing a conversation without spending thirty seconds saying "Hallo....hallo...can you hear me...hallo"? Maybe its spending less than 30 minutes queuing at a customer care centre?

While we ponder on this, I'm afraid I have to bash Great Green once more on another major goof. This time the culprit is M-PESA agent application on service so bad it almost equals their Safaricom Broadband scam mentioned elsewhere in this blog.

Last November, I applied for M-PESA super-dealership, hoping to join the gravy train of the new age banking heralded by this product. Things seemed to be moving on relatively well and after 2 weeks I got a call from SC telling me that my application had been received. Then, darkness set in.

Its February now, more than three and a half-months since I applied and I am still to receive confirmation on whether my application was successful. I have them called countless times, written several emails and even visited their HQ twice. Their responses have been either inadequate, incomplete, deceitful, or just plain ignorant. I've been promised to be called back but had no one call back, my emails have gone unanswered and I was quickly brushed off from their office with claims of "we'll call you this week". One lady even had the audacity to tell me that I shouldn't bother calling her direct line, because she doesn't pick it.

Yaaani! Have Safaricom grown too big, they don't need my business or what?

In the spirit of equality, I also have some barbs to throw at the counterparts on MSA road, Zain. Zain launched their Zap service (an allegedly superior alternative to M-PESA) recently, and I am dying to start using it, but I have no clue where to start. Someone help me out here, how does this Zap thing work and where can one apply?

18/02/09 UPDATE - Zain has just sent me the following message:

Send money from Zain with ZAP for 10/- only. To activate your SIM card send an SMS ZAP to 455. Zain a wonderful world

I've sent the SMS but I'm yet to get any kind of response (14 minutes later)

Startups in Kenya: One more stab at online business

2008-12-09T04:44:00-05:00

I first discovered Microsoft Encarta in 1997, and what a joy that was. A digital repository with seemingly endless ways to satisfy my hunger for knowledge. Being a rap obsessed teenager it did not take me long to check what Encarta said about hip-hop. I found an article on Grandmaster Flash considered the grandaddy of hip-hop (at least by Encarta). In the article there was an audio clip of one of his most popular tunes 'The Message' which was later popularly resampled in 'Can't nobody hold me down' by Puff Daddy and Mase. One line of that great song in particular comes to mind right now "can't nobody hold me down... ohh no I got to keep on movin"

And so it is with me, I have continued with my dream of promoting online business in Kenya. My latest effort is www.FormAKenyanCompany.com, an online company formation service I have helped design, create, market and manage for a business services company. I consider this one of my most comprehensive works in e-commerce: with aspects of cookie-based shopping carts, payment processing through m-pesa, ordering through a secured web, and shipping and handling of products using courier firms. In brief, technically the product works.

The real test however is whether the business model works. One thing I am hesitant about is the issue of payment. I am yet to see whether Kenyan shoppers would be comfortable paying KSh. 15,000 (about $190) online with their order for a product that they have yet to touch, feel, and see physically. Some alternative ideas I am entertaining in case this doesn't work out are: cash with delivery, or setting up of branches/drop-off money(pick-up package) zones.

Right now though things are looking up, and the low cost barrier flagship product (1-day company name search) which costs only KSh. 200 ($2.50) has been getting a lot of activity. Hopefully it will help build the trust and customer relationships that such a business necessarily needs to build.

Watch this space for updates.

Startups in Kenya: You read it here first

2008-09-23T06:09:00-04:00

Well well well... once again here I am, the self-appointed critic and fan of the m-commerce industry in our beautiful Kenya. My fly on the wall has been working very hard and I have gotten further confirmation about the burial of Sokotole, but wait there's a surprise....
Yes, sokotele is as dead as a dodo but it is to be resurrected with a new name, new features who aims to become a formidable competitor to M-pesa. Very keen to see what those Zain Kuwaiti oil dollars are going to crank out.
Watch this space for details.

Startups in Kenya: Safaricom Bank

2008-05-29T12:44:00-04:00

As one of the new owners of Safaricom (granted that I get at least some 100 shares after the massively oversubscribed IPO) I take a keen interest in its (Safaricom's) financial future. I'll try not to repeat what has probably been written, blogged, sms'ed, posted etc. a thousand times over in other fora and instead give my own two sumunis on what I believe lies in wait for this behemoth.

I'll warn you first that most of what I write here is speculative and should not form the basis of your investment decisions.

In my last post I mentioned I would talk about how Safaricom is transforming itself into a financial company. It seems that now everyone else is sitting up and taking notice. For anyone who followed the release of S'coms spectacular financial results released a couple of days ago you would have noted how their trumpted their M-PESA product yet at the same time tried to assuage banks that they were not in competition with them.

Give me a break!

Now that I will be attending AGMs (which might probably be online ;) since the estimated shareholders number 750K) I would really put to task the board if they did not convert themselves into a bank.

Picture the economic landscape and make your own conclusion:

1. M-PESA is fabulously successful, notching up over 2M users in a short period of 12 months, with another potential 8M in line to become users.
2. The margins for M-PESA are fantatistically high, e.g. when you are charged KSh. 30 for sending KSh. 100; Safaricom's only direct cost is the cost of the SMS which they send to the recepient and to you (about KSh. 1 cost). Since they have partnered with dealers to undertake the actual cash handling they need not worry about branch overheads.
3. Safaricom's Average Revenue Per User is dropping as they approach saturation in urban areas and extend their network to rural areas, and they will be looking to increase revenue through other products.
4. The GK has promised that calls will be KSh. 2/minute this time next year, which means that Safaricom will need another cash cow.
5. In March Business Daily reported that Safaricom was trying to extend M-PESA into UK but were restricted by a number of conditions, one of which was the need to have a banking licence.
6. Safaricom has set very high standards for itself both financially and innovatively, and the only direction its new shareholders will allow them to go is up.
7. Kenya is severely underbanked (about 10-15% of the population banks) and there exists a huge market for easy to access banking services (my house help already asks me to deposit her wages into her M-PESA account)
8. Competition from Telkom and Econet (and the resurgent Celtel) this year will mean need to create more revenue from elsewhere.

I'm sure that if I thought hard enough I can come up with plenty of other reasons why becoming a bank is a natural progression for this company.

Startups in Kenya: Selling stuff online to Kenyans

2008-03-09T17:54:00-04:00

You might not know this but my love of entrepreneurship is fuelled majorly by my love of computer programming. My first exposure to computers was in 1988 when I played shuffleboard on an Atari. Having been raised in the boondocks I was utterly spellbound with the concept of a video game. In 'shags' we hardly ever got toys from the shops; instead we would create our own toys using locally available material. For toy cars we twisted and shaped wire coat hangers and cut out rubber tires from old (and sometimes mom's new) bathroom slippers. For planes, we stuck a stalk of grass through a dried maize leaf and made our 'propellers' rotate by holding them out in front and running into the wind (incidentally this was my all-time favourite). For marbles we hunted for used and discarded bottle-tops (beer bottle-tops were coveted). In fact we had so many toys that our game time never felt inadequate. That was until I discovered video games.

Hard as I thought I didn't see how I could recreate the video game using local material. My wait however was not to be long. One year later I started my first computer class on an Apple Macintosh; and in barely less than one year I was already into BASIC programming. It didn't take long to discover that with BASIC I had the material to create video games. It was like a door had been opened to a whole new world for me. I stepped into this world and saw endless opportunity to create. Even at that age, I realised that the only thing that could hold me back was my creativity.

BRAKES....Now I'm getting excited so allow me to stop here and save 'My Life with a Computer' (soon to be written post) for another day; let me get back to topic. I find my love for start-ups and programming intricately linked; in fact most of the new products I have come up with involve some level of computer programming i.e. SoftLaw Citator, LawsofKenya.com, Genius Executive Centre.

One area of netpreneurship however has always eluded me and that is selling stuff over the Internet to Kenyans. The problem as I've seen it as been two-fold: settlement and delivery. However with the abundant variety of courier firms that have sprung up recently and with a new and easy way to transfer money I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

At the risk of giving away a perfectly good business idea let me say now that online purchases/settlement (Kenyanised for mobile phone use) is the next big thing. The next E-bay or Amazon or even Google is just waiting to be launched; and the platform will be driven by M-PESA, Safaricom's rapidly growing money-transfer service (note to self: remember to write post on how Safaricom is transforming into a financial services company).

I tried Sambaza for online purchases on LawsofKenya.com with some moderate success but its problem was always convertibility of airtime into cash. With M-PESA however, this is not a problem and I've already started experimenting by selling an e-book online (The Secret Opportunity of Forex Trading by Genius Forex at http://www.forexkenya.com). The response so far has been encouraging and I'm now working on tweaks to improve the buyers experience.

M-PESA is a runaway hit, and when a smart entrepreneur starts selling a basic commodity through M-PESA it will be the beginning of a revolution. So popular is M-PESA that it has totally eclipsed its rivals from Celtel and Telkom ($1,000 for anyone who knows what the competing products are called!) and I plan to be in smack in the middle of the gravy train.

bankelele: Ted Global Arusha

2007-06-04T22:42:00-04:00

Mentioned earlier about being blessed/fortunate in life to see people like Michael Jordan (destroy Washington in their last game as the Bullets, though Scottie Pippen provided the winning dunk), Michael Schumacher (win the first US grand prix) and Tiger Woods (not enjoying his first US open). That all compares with being at TED Global in Arusha at which Kenya is well represented.

I will use this weeek to relax & learn from such esteemed speakers, participants, delegates, fellows and our Tanzanian hosts. (Read on who else is here, and what happened on Day 1 here, here, here)

Where's Safaricom? Not met anyone here from the company whose M-PESA is touted by so many people (from around the world) here as a revolutionary enabler and an example of a means to empower millions by giving them financial accessibility & income earning potential