Stone Town Records (STR) is a community focused recording company. We put together some resources based on their current business needs, and added a focus on the Stone Town Arts and Performance Center feasibility and organization. We also updated the Stone Town Cypher pitch for clarity and focus on showing potential investors how STR's passion is connected to its profit logic.
Their main obstacle was securing the necessary funds to continue work and expansion. The Stone Town Arts and Performance Center will be an asset to all in the community, but we emphasized the importance of securing the funds to open and operate it. Community Driven "Stone Town Arts and Performance Center" Economic Feasibility: Community driven businesses thrive because the benefits they provide entices investors. We suggested STR clearly define the purpose that the firm provides for the public and have a concrete plan of who they can pitch to for funding, whether it be through public grant programs or to private investors. The community model can also function through studio-time fees, either at a reduced rate as compared to other studios or through a pay-what-you-can scheme. Additionally, we suggest that they bring in revenue from the music that produced. While they can continue to use a wholesale strategy of CDs at festivals, we strongly recommend that they begin to upload more content to online platforms such as a SoundCloud, YouTube, and Spotify. By adding music to these digital platforms, they will significantly expand their listener base and realize potential for financial support from all corners of the world. Organizational Structure: The organization of the staff is vital to the success of the center. With any community driven business, implementing a concrete structure of roles and responsibilities is necessary. Strong leadership from the CEO will be the key to success. We suggest that they assign specific people to specific roles, give their jobs titles, and make their responsibilities clear. Included in the presentation we sent was an outline of the roles typically present in a recording studio, as well as their responsibilities. Multi-Functional Space and New Equipment The benefits of expanding into a larger more functional space, as well as procuring new equipment are fairly obvious. The space will let them expand and service to more people, and the quality of the equipment directly translates to the quality of music produced. We want to highlight the capital investment required to achieve both of these goals, with new equipment alone costing upwards of $10,000. As for the immediate future, we recommend partnering with a mainland recording company, such as Baseline or Authentic, in order to jointly pursue a new space in Stone Town until they can secure the funds to move into their own space. Having a recording space on Zanzibar will benefit them by increasing their talent pool, and working with a more established recording company could not only provide the improved space for STR, but also give access to professional recording staff and engineers. Posted by: Amber and Hannah
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Hello from team Mjasiri Hub! While a student at the University of Zanzibar, the Mjasiri Hub founder, Abdul, noticed a disconnect in the marketplace, asking himself, "Why isn't there a better way to connect producers of goods to merchants?" and that was the impetus for Mjasiri Hub. When we consulted with them in January, the app was still in development. Today, on the Google Playstore you can find the app! Here's an overview of the UI: In the live app you'd notice that there is the producer-merchant side labeled "Business" and there is also a service labeled "Entrepreneur", similar to Bumble Biz, which connects entrepreneurs with funders and mentors. In our analysis we investigate which side is most executable for this team. We see tons of potential with Mjasiri, most notably that one of its founders is a YALI fellow, a prestigious program identifying and developing the most talented young emerging leaders in Africa. We used the Value Proposition Matrix, a favorite of Professor Goldberg, to identify areas of improvement for Mjasiri to deliver the value that its visionary founder dreams of: Our recommendations are the following: It's safe to say that by engaging with these thoughtful entrepreneurs, we likely learned more than they did, as it typically happens on any immersion study abroad experience. We were generously welcomed to learn about their businesses, but also food, culture, and customs. So, we want to say a big Swahili thank you to everyone who made this trip a reality!
We met the CEO and founder of Nelwa's Gelato during a transitional time in the company from retail B2C to purely wholesale B2B and event service. Mercy has already put a lot of time and energy into her company and her passion for ice cream making has led her to have grand visions for her company. She tasked us with consolidating and organizing her ideas into a 5-year business plan that clearly delineates the strategy and growth trajectory for the company. We have summarized some key sections of our final business plan: Nelwa’s Gelato makes homemade smooth, creamy gelato from locally grown ingredients and native Tanzanian spices and flavors. The namesake comes from the founders middle name, the Gogo “Nenelwa”, meaning “I am forgiven”. Mercy Nenelwa Kitomari uses this mantra of humility to incorporate social responsibility into her business. Today, the company has 7 permanent staff members responsible for daily operations, production and supply of varieties of gelato and sorbets to notable establishments including hotels such as Hyatt, Southern Sun, and Serena as well as major restaurants including Chefs Pride and Terrace Restaurants at Dar Free Market and Mayfair Plaza, where they have established dessert corners and private/corporate events. Mercy’s entrepreneurial spirit drives her to make Nelwa’s the best possible ice cream provider in the East African region. She always excelled in her studies, but maintained a fiercely independent side that would not rest working for anyone else except for herself. Born and raised in Tanzania, she eventually took the opportunity to pursue her MBA in London, though she knew she would always return to Tanzania - it is her home. While completing her masters degree, she couldn’t help but notice the perpetually long queues outside of a local gelato shop. This fascination led her to take a short course in gelato making, including two months at the famed Gino Gelato. She was so hooked that she took a part-time job at the gelato shop and learned from the hands of the master gelato maker himself. Her passion was born and unquenchable. Mercy continued to informally learn about the business until she returned to Tanzania in 2011, where she took a job at a local bank. After a couple of years in the corporate world, her entrepreneurial drive was too powerful and she took the risk of finally starting her own dream business by making gelato out of her kitchen. While she is still slowly and steadily growing her business, Mercy remains focused on her mission to have a fully-equipped modern gelato factory in the near future. Aims & Objectives Short Term
Posted by: Hannah and AmberSomething I really love that Mjasiri is passionate about is their desire to help small entrepreneurs in getting out there - especially ones that do not have enough money for a website or smartphone as well as those who don't have technical backgrounds. There are simple ways to help those entrepreneurs out, for example reaching out and meeting up with them to create a profile for their products on the app - simply collecting their phone number, business name and taking photos of their products. A challenge this poses however: where does the funding come from? The Mjasiri team found a middle ground to solve that obstacle: charging companies a small price (~$25). An idea we brainstormed in our meeting that could help improve this obstacle as well would be having an early promo as part of their growth plan, in which the early companies Mjasiri does business with can get a good deal and be ambassadors to spread the word to more regions.
Another difficulty that is posed with the outreach and meeting with with individual entrepreneurs is the time constraints and difficulty of having a photographer at each of those meetings. We discussed and brainstormed the idea of having a fair over a range of time (a few hours) in an accessible location where entrepreneurs could attend to share their product(s), set up an account, and take photos of their products as a photographer could be in attendance (much less demanding than a photographer being at every company individually). Another challenge Mjasiri's team is currently working on overcoming is that iPhones are the biggest and most utilized smartphones in Tanzania, but iPhone is much more challenging that Android when it comes to development of apps. We look forward to working with Mjasiri's team, specifically on their business plan and finances, software development (iOS), and crowdfunding, as well as continued communication to understand and learn about updates, obstacles, successes, and how things are going for them! Posted by: Ivy Sparkle is an IT and software development company located on the island of Zanzibar. Their story is inspiring. A wife and husband couple (Raya and Muhammad) with only a business plan to their name won a pitch competition to the tune of 5 million Tanzanian schillings (~$2200 USD), which they used to rent an office and start their company, Sparkle.
However, the realities of starting a startup quickly set in, and Raya and Muhammad realized that they were running out of money, and fast. To make ends meet, they did what they could to make a little money, including making photocopies for customers and other odd jobs that weren't part of their original business plan. When we met Raya, Muhammad, their computer programer and office assistant, while it was apparent that they were proud of what they had accomplished so far with their young company and still enthusiastic about growing it, when we asked them what they were currently working on they seemed deflated: they were working on a content management system and scheduler for a local school. Their real passion, we soon discovered, lay in the creation of a smartphone app, Karibu Zanzibar ("Welcome to Zanzibar"). Karibu Zanzibar was an app for tourists that the Sparkle team hoped would be the number 1 trusted source of information of visitors to the island. Too often, the team bemoaned, tourists were taken advantage of by locals trying to make a quick buck, behavior which ultimately was starting to harm the Zanzibar economy (which was largely based on tourism) and the reputation the of island they loved. They wanted to change this recent trend, and they thought Karibu Zanzibar was the answer. So where do we, the Case consultants, come in to play? Well, when we asked them to tell us about the app, despite much enthusiasm, they struggled to clearly articulate how they hoped Karibu Zanzibar would create value. That is, they were having trouble articulating its value proposition. As such, our consulting project became obvious: to help Sparkle define the value proposition of Karibu Zanzibar using the value proposition matrix, which we did right then and there. However, we continue to be in communication with the team as they move forward with bring the app to life. Posted by: Saukhya, Ian and Emily The Mjasiri Team is a group of tech-savvy, young entrepreneurs, who aim to transform the local merchandise and investment economy by connecting buyers and sellers, through an innovative platform that brings transparency and awareness to the current market. The platform's value proposition relies upon the reduction of time, and cost, of searching for business information. On one front, consumers can search for local goods- including food, apparel, crafts, and electronics. On the other front, is a business to business landscape where investors can search for entrepreneurs, and start-up companies, who possess skills that meet the investee or other client search criteria. The application is still in development stage, and running trials to identify the best go-to-market strategy while refining the front-end usability of the application. The most obvious strength, perhaps, is that the product clearly fills a void in the tangible and service product-offering value chain. The increase in timely, reliable market information is something scalable, not only Zanzibar, but also, Dar Es Salaam, and other East-African geographic regions, simply because it does not currently exist at a micro level. Moreover, the team possesses strength from its ability to develop the platform, in house. Similarly, it should be noted that the CEO, and his two top lieutenants, support a horizontal organizational structure whereby all individual functions within the company work toward an agreed upon forward strategy. While the tactic could complicate the model as the business scales, the current practice enables an extremely thorough vetting process. Last, but certainly not least, the team is evangelical in its relationship with one another, business energy, straight-forwardness, and its opportunity to build a platform that can truly benefit the community. Despite the skills and benefits outlined, the team must refine its model outlining, specifically how, it intends to attract and maintain quality vendors and seamless information. At this stage, the logistics of taking a development product to market will be the firm’s greatest hurdle. Luckily for Mjasiri, this is likely where our team of case consultants will provide the most benefit. Ninayo (NINAYO.com) "is an online trading platform for agriculture in East Africa" as advertised on their website. At its core, Ninayo is a peer-to-peer marketplace which uses the power of the interest to connect farmers who would like to sell their crops to buyers who would like to buy their crops. In this way, it functions like an Airbnb, or an Uber, or probably most analogously, an Amazon: Ninayo helps buyers and sellers of agricultural good find one another to transact business.
When we talked to Ninayo's founder, Jack Langworthy, who has worked in the Tanzanian agricultural industry since 2009, he made the observation that a very large percentage of the Tanzanian GDP is agricultural, and yet much of the food grown in the country rots before ever making it to the market. Jack pointed out 3 key reasons for this (all on NINAYO.com as well) including "lack of supply visibility (buyers don’t know what crops farmers are selling); lack of demand visibility (farmers don’t know how much buyers are willing to pay); and lack of logistical coordination (inefficient transportation skyrockets costs)." Ninayo the website, whose listing can even be accessed via SMS by the most rural of farmers, solves all 3 of these problems by helping buyers and seller, who might even be *neighbors* find one another and to coordinate a sale. So where do we, the Case consultants, come into the picture? Well, while Ninayo's value proposition is a solid one with about 30,000 users to support the claim, the company is having trouble generating revenue, which it hoped it would do by facilitating this buyer-seller connection, the reason being that once the buyer and seller find one another via the website, they usually exit the Ninayo system and transact in cash leaving Ninayo no way to take a cut of the deal. Users could likely complete the transaction using mobile money, which has widespread adoption in the country, but because the Tanzanian government taxes these (electronic) transactions, poor farmers understandably do whatever they can to avoid them, Unfortunately, this means Ninayo loses out too. When we talked to Jack, he said that he was looking into a number of ways to encourage Ninayo users to make their transaction through the Ninayo system one of which was via incorporating the use of cryptocurrencies (which governments have trouble taxing) and by developing a system that would help users generate a Ninayo credit score of sorts that farmers could then leverage for small microfinance loans that standard banks simply don't offer. If attractive enough, these changes hope to entice Ninayo users to stay within the system while transacting, which would allow Ninayo to monitor the transaction and take a small cut (that is much smaller than what the government taxes, of course). As such, of the two candidate solutions discussed, we have been tasked with looking into the ins and outs of cryptocurrency and how Ninayo might be able to use one to keep users in the system. Posted by: Saukhya, Ian and Emily More interesting than the founding story, perhaps, is the Twende Founder himself. Kashaigili, who initially began building business models during his undergraduate studies as a computer science and technology major, is driven by coding, overcoming entrepreneurial challenges, and the overarching impact that his business has on the community. Not a stranger to obstacles, his first venture proposed in a senior capstone course, was rejected by his university professor. The story-telling of the ideas inception exhibits a trait that radiates from the founder: drive. He is someone that appears undeterred from challenge and rejection, while possessing a deep understanding of existing business challenges: funding, growth, & competition. Before graduating, Kashaigili started looking at an exceptional local, ride-hauling dynamic: a large percentage of the local population is still using standard modes of public and private transportation services. Taxis, in particular, are price-setters. And thus, expensive for even short commutes. Moreover, it is more economical for these drivers to solicit business in densely populated areas throughout the city. The operational geographic makes it difficult for those in rural areas to conveniently access and utilize transport services. Inconvenience and high costs coupled with a drive for innovation birthed the Dev Twende platform, which has been growing ever since. Fast forward a year-and a few months, the firm is in the mist of launching its second platform that focuses on consumer ease of use and introduction of a product delivery service. One question, I attempted to suppress at the onset of our meet and greet, was still creeping in the back of mind during much of our initial discussion. What about Uber? How is your idea different? Listening to the story, and hearing the facts, did help me understand the basics of the Elephant in the room. After all, the Twende team has local knowledge in their favor and they seem to be acting upon it by providing different transport modes (which Uber does not cater to). Moreover, acknowledging the growth of electronic payment forms, the team collaborated and later formed a partnership with Tigo Pesa, which I believe, will put the organization in a much better position to compete in a local ride-hauling market that is poised for explosive growth. To expand upon differences between Twende and Uber and how Twende is better suited to the community and lifestyle in Tanzania: Twende utilizes not just cars, but also motorcycles and tricycles which are major modes of transportation in Tanzania. In fact, the average trips each day for taxi drivers is 6, whereas the average trips each day for tricycles is 10 and motorcycles in between 12 and 20. Additionally, the first phase of Twende allowed for negotiations - something big in Tanzania and different from Uber. While Twende is growing and doing well, some challenges Twende is facing include a need for more education, advertisements being expensive but necessary, people circumventing the app, and mobile currency expanding - which hopefully Twende can form partnerships with and integrate their services into the Twende platform. Kashaigili shared how data analysis can be used to make improvements as well: specifically analyzing peak times and days, what kind of platforms people want, and where and when to provide more drivers. He's hoping to add pooling (currently only transporting one at a time), use media as a tool to acquire more drivers, and expand not only to more regions, but also to more countries in Africa. We are looking forward to working with Twende and seeing where things go from here! Posted by: Ivy, Justin, and Lauren |
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