"Going over our year 2019 report, we processed over N764 million in revenue for our premium merchants in 2019 (this was from the people and market that will not order online - they didn’t want to install any new app. We started agency network for our bills’ collection product, and we saw over 300% turnover in sales. It was crazy, rural is sweet!"

A year ago, I posted about a 2-way messaging commercial transaction platform I built with near-real time payment – all done offline (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/akinyeleolubodun_early-this-year-we-soft-launched-a-2-way-activity-6483603830163468288-4uHO). Like I said in that post: ‘2019 is going to be an interesting year’. And yes, 2019 was an interesting year for us.

A whole lot happened that I am excited to write about. First, my grand intention with this SMS solution was to experiment with the buying culture of Nigerians. It was clear that Nigerians are willing to buy but not only on an ecommerce site!

I have always argued that technology is not meant to erode people’s way of life but to enhance it. This line of thought eventually turned to a Startup.

Let me share with you some interesting things that happened with my little startup with yet NO extra staff. NO office. NO funding and ZERO fraud.

I will do a recap of what happened in 2019 that made this a lot of fun.

ARM Labs 1.0

In January 29, 2019 we got an email to join ARM’s lab accelerator program and it ended with a big bang. It was a lovely opportunity to learn how to take the startup to the next stage. I made new friends with great achievements “the thing dey enter eye, you even need sunglasses” ...Lol

OgaMarket

During the accelerator program I decided to experiment with a radio show that sells merchants discounted products through our SMS ordering and USSD payment platform. We got a partnership deal with Jordan FM and I learnt something amazing about the Nigerian commerce landscape.

The buyers were willing to buy, they just do not want any “wahala”. They sought convenience which shouldn’t be too far from their comfort space. We performed this experiment without “payment on delivery”, as our focused market were people that would not shop online.

Our server froze a few times during this radio show, partly because one of the highlights of the show was giving out free airtime to the listeners. Our mode of giving out the airtime was very different. No one listener could receive our airtime with the same phone number twice. We successfully gave out airtime to 10 unique listeners every day.

We registered the phone numbers of listeners with failed attempts. We responded to such requests by suggesting that they try again on the next edition of the show.

Each day, our customer service number was inundated with calls. It was overwhelming.

New SMS server

The freezing behavior of our SMS server during this radio show typically suggested the need for a more robust and scalable infrastructure. It became of great concern mainly because our SMS channel had over 90% of the request coming in.

After the accelerator program, we got a grant from ARM. We also got an interested investor (https://disrupt-africa.com/2019/06/6-nigerian-fintech-startups-secure-equity-free-funding-from-arm-labs/) for our new found “baby”. The first thing we did was to secure a custom-made SMS server from a reputable company that could take our business to a next level. The day we took delivery of that beast of a hardware was undoubtedly one of my best moments in 2019.

New partnership (CoralPay)

We partnered with CoralPay (a Nigerian switch that is big in USSD payment) for an excellent payment flow and this further smoothen the experience for our users. I was so excited with the whole partnering opportunity with CoralPay. It gladdens my heart to think of what we are currently doing with them. You will feel our effect very soon in your neighborhood.

Pilot in Liberia and India

We currently run a pilot application in Liberia (making it the second Africa country we are taking over). I was in India for 7 months last year and my stay in India was an opportunity to carry out a trial there. The merchants that I met in India were excited over the sales expansion opportunity offered by a new market channel. We have commenced integration with their payment platforms. We hope the adoption will be a big bang operation in India 2020.

2019 in Numbers

Going over our year 2019 report, we processed over N764 million in revenue for our premium merchants in the year (this was from the people and market that will not order online - they didn’t want to install any new app). We started agency network for our bills’ collection product, and we saw over 300% turnover in sales. It was crazy, rural is sweet!

Our radio market profiled more than a thousand new customers in 3 days. We grew massively in our numbers. We still don’t have a physical office, no new staff but somehow multiplied our merchant’s revenue. Even got a grant to run faster and better.

2020 in perspective

We will be making bigger strides this year.

Our new SMS server will power our SMS chat from now on. We are concluding our setup and integration with Facebook. To enhance our users benefits, we are considering the creation of our own WhatsApp channel.

We are providing a better option to POS in 2020. Stay tuned.

Let’s go have fun in 2020

www.ogaranya.com