CEPHAS TECHNOLOGIES

I am Co-Founder and CEO of CEPHAS TECHNOLOGIES, a Beninese start-up. I am an experienced entrepreneur. After 20 years of entrepreneurship during the which I created 2 companies and 10 years of Private Equity consultancy for large French and foreign investment funds, I am now Partner and CEO of D2R CONSEIL and Partner and CEO of CAPSI CONSEIL. I decided to engage in tech because I want to bring digital tools to the most vulnerable populations.

At present, current operations are subject to successive seizures (purchase and sale of units and packages, deposit and withdrawal of cash), manual entry in the registers. This results in real difficulties in optimizing "stock" management and time control (repetitive tasks, use of numerous USSD codes). 

This operation requires the manual entry of several codes and the storage of dozens of USSD codes. This work is even more painful and distressing as they are paid as a percentage of the turnover generated by the operations, not to mention the pathologies linked to this activity.

With our application, the automation of USSD codes facilitates the resolution of certain difficulties due to its ergonomic graphic interfaces.They are user-friendly and pleasant to use when recording imperative parameters. It offers actor-users autonomy in terms of use, monitoring of their operations, access to their reports, etc. It is also easy to use and to manage.

The proposed app is tailored to mobile sellers' needs and their daily tasks. Mobile sellers represent 142 000 workers in Benin. Their daily tasks consist of manualy typing USSD codes - not only is this a long and intricate process, but codes sometimes contain errors, leading to a revenue loss, and a more importantly a loss of time. 

Mobile sellers equally work with points of sales (POS) and merchants through out the country - our app would facilitate their exchanges, whilst equally allowing them to ameliorate the underworks of an informal sector, improving the security of monetary transfers via mobile money interfaces. 

Our EasySoft application has been designed to offer a formal and automated working environment for actors in the supply chain of mobile operators. Indeed, these actors who are retailers, wholesalers and mobile sellers of refills or other affiliated products are subject to medical risks, in particular tendinitis, because they have to type in USSD codes all day long. The exhausting repetition of the same gestures is a factor in the deterioration of their health. The EasySoft application reduces this type of risk.

Our application has been designed in partnerships with sellers, to ask them directly what would facilitate their work. Our project therefore consists in creating an app which would allow them to sell mobile and internet credit in a more formalized way.

We have created this app in partnership with mobile sellers, asking them which solutions would help them the most. The app is therefore tailored to their needs.

Moreover, our project consists in leasing smart phones to the largest number of mobile merchants. Negotiations are currently being held with some enterprises, specialized in designing smartphones adapted to the African context and sold with a micro-credit system managed by the company. 

In order to cover the mobile sellers who would not have a smartphone and to cover a share of the poorest mobile sellers -the easiest to reach in the first year and, then all the POS throughout the second year - we offer a negotiated and reduced "tech for good" price.

The project will therefore allow to extend the number of smart phones used within the country. The app is equally adapted to the African context, economy and use of technology. 

Easysoft is a tool of economic developmet, which will help increase the beneficiaries' incomes, often precarious. It is also a social inclusion tool : we develop applications and partnerships that allow access to health, education and financial services, not only for our users but also for our entire community.

The Elevate Prize is dedicated to sustainable and wide community reaching solutions and projects. Our idea consists of reaching out to mobile sellers in Benin through an app, using a digital product to facilitate their lives, increase revenues.

This is key - as our app has the ambition to elevate new economic opportunities for mobile sellers, often left unpaid by their customers, once credit or internet USSD codes have been transferred. Our app therefore ensures more transparency for all transactions, and increases security by digitizing these monetary transfers. Mobile money is used in a safer context, ensuring better livelihoods.

The adventure started in 2017. It starts with a meeting with Franc Agossou, an experienced entrepreneur with Carus Agossou and Merline Atondé, both engineers and committed to entrepreneurship. Their common desire to resolve issues related to informal trade in Africa made it possible to launch the young startup very quickly with great ambitions. After a few studies, they realize that the supply chain in multimodal areas is particularly problematic, especially in Africa. The latter have developed applications for the supply chain digitalization, including one specialized in the telecoms sector, which has won two international awards. Angelo Avodagbé, another engineer, joined them in 2019 to take care of information systems.

After this phase of research & development, a team of five young budding entrepreneurs joins the adventure in order to take care of business development and strategic issues, improving the lifes of African mobile sellers.

I have lived most of my life in Benin and met several mobile credit sellers along the way. I then moved to France, and realized that there should be easier ways for these men to sell their products (internet and phone credit), in safer and better conditions. 

These men are often young graduates, who were not able to find jobs after leaving college. Moreover, their days of work are long and painful, and the revenues they touch remain rather low, too low. I wanted to create and find an easy solution, to lower their work load and improve their working and economic conditions. This app therefore means a lot to me - it is my way of trying to help, even in through the slightest changes, the lives of several thousands of workers.  I am convinced that this tech focused good could increase their revenues and facilitated their jobs. 

Having lived in Benin, I have a solid grasp of the credit mobile phone industry. The ways in which mobile merchants  work with POS and merchants is a rather intricate system, which testifies of Africa's informal sector. It is only by understanding this context that one is able to improve mobile sellers' daily tasks.

Secondly, we have worked with 30 mobile sellers - asking them to try out the app, which price they would be willing to pay to obtain it and how they would help us to take part within this market. We therefore understand the sector in which this app will operate better than anyone else, as several studies have been undertaken in the field. 

Finally, I have past experiences in entrepreneurship in Africa and have sold micro credits in Benin for women living in precarious situations.  

In our first business model, we designed a percentage based remuneration scheme for mobile sellers. After showing them the plan, we realized that this type of remuneration did not satisfy them, and preferred a remenuration based on credit (which is a rather common type of payment). We learned to listen to them and adapt ourselves to their needs. 

I believe that young people deserve a chance to work on important projects - and started this app with 9 college students. In terms of leadership, I try my best to coordinate the team and guide them, but try to listen to their ideas, allow them to contribute as much as they wish. Building an innovative project requires young minds and I believe that leadership is about creating a balance between your own ideas and your colleagues', listening to others and collaboration. Working with students has changed my point of view on many aspects.