WESABI

Wesabi is an online service network connecting pre-screened independent service pro in the blue collar sector (plumbers, cleaners, carpenters etc) to individuals and businesses.

Access to market is quite a daunting issue for lots of professionals in the blue-collar sector. This is due mainly to trust issues between home owners and Artisans, and lack of resources for publicity for these professionals.

We are creating an online platform where users can demand for vetted and verified service providers thereby bridging the trust gap and in turn improving the quality of lives for these workers by exposing them to more clientele base and providing them a technology with which they can use.

1) Trust is a major issue in Nigeria and African as a whole, hence, there is a gap as most individuals in the middle and upper-middle class mostly rely on referral from friends and family, this method has been proven to be broken as it lacks quality assurance

2) Service providers in the blue collar sector mostly fall into the lower class and do not have resources for good awareness and publicity for the service they provide.

We have 1,300 registered Artisans on the wesabi platform, only 200 have smart phones. This makes it difficult for them to plug into any regular technology controlled by the internet. This stems from the class which is being mentioned earlier and their inability to plug into most innovations around.

We are building Africa's marketplace for the blue-collar sector. We provide home owners and businesses with a pool of well trained and vetted skilled workers like plumbers, electricians, carpenters etc in their neighbourhood. We do this with the use of web technology. Users are able to request for various household maintenance services via a website and a mobile application.

Internet penetration among the skilled personnel in the blue collar sector is quite low (as mentioned earlier). One of the ways we are ensuring they are part of the WESABI process is the use of a USSD platform, an sms application that can be used on any phone and allows them to perform most of the functions on our website and mobile app. They can register, accept job requests, input amount for jobs, start and stop job all through our USSD platform.

Our Target market are the working professionals in the middle class. The African development bank (AFDB) estimated population of the middle working class in Nigeria to be 30 million.

On the flip side, the other side of our target market are the skilled Artisans ranging from plumbers, electricians, carpenters etc. The bank of industry in Nigeria estimated there are about 400,000 properly skilled artisans in Nigeria. 

Our mission at Wesabi is to provide informal workers with consistent and dependable job opportunities, by partnering with vocational schools and empowering their graduates and Alumni, we want to build a culture of properly trained Artisans in the Africa community. 

Using accessible technology to make sure it's an inclusive process 

One of WESABI's primary objective is to close the gap between the class of personnel who are in the blue collar sector (predominantly the lower class) and the middle/elite class. We want to not bridge the trust gap but also build a technology, where these Artisans can easily access on a large scale.

We have since gone ahead to build a USSD application to which workers on our platform can plug into with any kind of phone they use. As we onboard each worker, we schedule them for a training session of how they can access and use the application. 

Our biggest competitions are offline agents who do something similar thing in various neighbourhood, which has proven to be very in effective and lack any quality assurance. the online space doesn't have a clear market leader yet in Nigeria, and west Africa, there are a few ones trying to do similar things though, Ogaartisan.com and findworka.com

That's why we are doing few a things differently at wesabi to set us apart
1. We offer clients a professional indemnity insurance, which means they are protected against rare cases of damages and theft

2. we also partner with approved vocational centers in any city we move to, to get the best technicians, we also use the vocational school to assess independent workers who sign up through our platform

3. Due diligence on workers

4. Technology that caters for the supply side, which are the workers. A USSD platform that can be used on any phone by these professionals (This is because 2/3 of them do not have access to a smart phone)

Our technology can be categorised into two main types; Web, mobile application and the USSD. 

The demand side which are the customers use the web and mobile application to make job requests, view job progress, and also make payments.

The supply side which are the workers, use the USSD. The USSD is a text based technology that allows workers plug into or system with any category of phone.

Right now we have 2,000 registered customer and a total of about 1,400 registered workers via out technology.

We complete 100-130 jobs via the use of our tech on a weekly basis

My idea of change is raising the standard of the informal sector/blue-sector in Africa via Wesabi. A situation where skilled Artisans will no longer be looked down on, where youths in the continent will consider attending vocational/technical schools instead of just going to get degrees immediately after their secondary school education. 

Right now we have 1000 verified handymen on our platform, last month 500 of them were engaged in various tasks through our platform. We've been growing at an average of 20% monthly for the past 4 months. The more jobs we process on our platform, the more freelance skilled workers in the blue collar sector we are able to empower. We were planning to empower at least 5000 workers by the end of 2020, unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic really slowed down our activities. In 5 years, our plan is to be in at least 3 African countries, empowering 50,000 + freelance skilled workers. Our long term plan is to be go-to place for verified and well vetted skilled blue collar workers in Africa.

A developed Africa will be majorly built by the Skilled personnel in the blue-collar sector.

Asides the primary change these informal workers will bring to the society, there is a chain reaction of other sectors developing too. There will better technical and training schools

Right now we have 1000 verified handymen on our platform, last month 500 of them were engaged in various tasks through our platform. We've been growing at an average of 20% monthly for the past 4 months. The more jobs we process on our platform, the more freelance skilled workers in the blue collar sector we are able to empower. We were planning to empower at least 5000 workers by the end of 2020, unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic really slowed down our activities. In 5 years, our plan is to be in at least 3 African countries, empowering 50,000 + freelance skilled workers. Our long term plan is to be go-to place for verified and well vetted skilled blue collar workers in Africa.

Our primary challenges is the existing behavioral mentality of these workers. They lack customer relationship management, which isn't really their fault, but as a result of the system they find themselves. What we started doing is partnering with an HR firm to offer customer relationship training to the workers in batches. Although, this is expensive for us to maintain at the moment, hopefully, as we gain more traction, we are able to fund more workers through this training system.

Trust: There is a huge trust issue in Nigeria and even Africa as a whole between these workers and the middle class and middle-upper class personnel

1) Improving the literacy level of workers through partnerships, by encouraging and promoting technical and vocational schools all over Africa. 

2) Building and expanding technologies where they can fit in such as the USSD

3) We will be bridging the trust issue by offering professional indemnity insurance to customers. 

Founders - 3

Staff (full time) - 2

Staff (part time) - 5

I met John while working for a tech company as the business development manager back in 2013. He was the team lead engineer. Zainab and I had known each other long before then, so I introduced them to each other. We three have done some successful projects in the past.

Below is a summary of our profile

Murtala Sanni; 32. Lagos; CEO; Bsc. Information Systems from University of East London; 3 years experience as Network Engineer/System Analyst, 5 years experience in Sales and buisness development

Zainab Oyewa 26; Lagos; COO; Bsc. Information techniology; previous working experience include 4 years experience in customer's service and relationship. Self taught UI/UX designer 

John Ojebode; 27; Abuja; CTO; 10 years + experience in software development (PHP, puthon, jaa script), part of the team that developed the federal government payroll system

Construction material dealers/suppliers - We partner with various dealers in household maintenance materials sales, to make our process smoother. We have also been able to improve their total sales.

Vocational and technical school - We source majority of the workers on our platform from these schools. This is to promote the blue-collar sector and properly trained Artisans in the society

Our business model is based on charging a referral fee which is known as commission for every completed job through our platform. We charge a 20% commission on labour fee. We also have a subscription plan, where customers subscribe annually and get to call for certain number of times all year for household fix and repairs ranging from plumbing, carpentry, generator repairs, AC repairs and cleaning.

We believe with the right support such as being part of the Solve network, we can revolutionize the blue-collar sector in Africa, starting from Nigeria. 

We can do this by 

1) improving the literacy level of personnel in this sector

2) Bridging the trust gap between home owners, and skilled workers in the informal sector

3) Improve the quality of life being lived by these workers.

Telecommunication companies - Partnership with various telecom companies will hell improve our distribution channel for our USSD platform.

Banks: We are also looking at opportunities of partnering banks via their mobile application. If we can be listed as one of the utility in the menu of banks app, this will go a long way in expanding our services. 

Estates

Vocational schools and technical centers - We are always looking out for verified technical school to partner with, so as to improve the skill-set of workers on our platform

Our mission at Wesabi is to provide informal workers with consistent and dependable job opportunities. One of the ways we ensure that we have properly skilled personnel on our platform is through partnership with vocational school and technical training center. 

1) If we can sponsor registered users on our platform to proper training schools, then we can improve the overall quality of jobs being delivered to customers through our platform, this in turn improves customer's satisfaction and create more jobs for properly skilled personnel in the informal sector

2) Build a more expansive USSD technology on a dedicated server to improve disruption