Hebronplug

We realized from our study that many start-up services
or companies were either short-lived, underperforming, or out of business. A large population of these businesses
was in the fashion sector. They ranged from
accessories, clothing, beauty, and cosmetics. Most of
these were attributed to poor marketing strategies, lack
of awareness, or no need for service. This prompted us
to create a digital e-commerce platform to cater to these
issues. Most of these students could not even meet the minimum prerequisites to create online stores on top e-commerce brands in the country. And the social media marketing for them was really ineffective.

Statistically, 67% of businesses in Nigeria are owned by the youths, and this was according to a 2022 report by Thisday Nigeria. It further states that 60% of these entrepreneurs have attended or currently attend a tertiary institution. With these data, we have explored an opportunity to provide them with a digital platform where they can promote their product and service. The studies by our team that digital inclusion and presence will improve such business, and there's no better way to solve this, than by creating our product which will be available across all Nigerian universities. 

With a population of over 200 million people and an internet penetration of about 50%, it's safe to say that the population that business owners can reach out to through our platform is massive. Though they might be challenges with the market, we are leveraging and niching the solution to a novel opportunity, and that is university students. This set of business owners encounters quite a number of setbacks, especially in their digitalized or online business. From logistics to payment processing, and even poor quality control. On our path, we are concerned with improving the ease at which they do business and not taking their markets or opportunities away from them.

That is why our solution, primarily emphasizes quality control. To ensure that the product sold is verifiable and authentic, our team runs a series of checks on the product serving as the middleman to facilitate the process. This will ensure that the goods are in good shape. We take the burden of delivery and logistics to promote good customer relationships also, and in the area of payment processing, with an integrated payment solution via our platform, the payments are secured and timely. 

All these benefits come with listing your products and services on our platform. We believe our target audience requires ease in doing business and we've created a solution to allow them to focus on doing that,  whilst we accelerate and facilitate the process.

We solved this problem by creating an online
the marketplace is known as hebronplug, where
vendors can list their products and services
 The approach. It will be centered around
university students who are entrepreneurs
between the ages of 15 to 24. With this
platform, they can connect to their target
audience across their universities communities
and even in other universities where there
product or services are needed

To combat this we have included a host of exciting features such as a shopping space where vendors can get to list their products under the respective categories, a secured payment integration, which reduces the hassle of physical payment, a blog feature to help people in the creative space express themselves, a service page, which offers a range of skilled help offered by students and most importantly the transport booking feature that allows students to make reservations for their transportation home at the end of the semester, as well solving the issue of logistics when conveying persons, goods or services. All these are done with the goal to serve and provide these services to varsity students who own businesses across Nigeria. We've also implemented a similar product or franchise at Afe Babalola University.

The website allows you to register as either a user or a vendor. As a vendor, after registration, the websites allow you to create your own shops and list your products. We also have a paystack integration on the website to fulfill payments via their gateway and a cart where users can manage their shopping lists. Our checkout feature, allows users to select just any location they wish their order to be fulfilled, whether within or outside their university communities. This allows for logistics to be convenient.

In terms of management, the vendors have an inbuilt dashboard where they can keep up with their orders, products, and earnings. With analytics, they can know their best-selling products and the ones to improve on.

The transport scheme feature allows students to book rides from their universities to their homes. The payment processing feature and the online ticketing system allow for seamless traveling, and for the blog, users can signup as authors to publish their articles on the website

https://drive.google.com/file/...

www.hebronplug.com

www.afeplug.com

The approach. It will be centered around
university students who are entrepreneurs
between the ages of 15 to 24. With this
platform, they can connect to their target
audience across their university communities
and even in other universities where there
products or services are needed. 

In general, our startup aims to empower university students who have businesses, by providing them with a digital platform to list their products and services. This will allow users across different places conveniently make purchases and orders within and outside their university communities. You can see that we operate a B2B2C service. One very important thing we have noted from our target audience is the desire for convenience, accessibility, and affordability.

Online shopping for this group of people is a common thing and with we are providing a two-way benefit. One for the vendors who have been underserved in terms of presence. For them, their opportunities to push out their products and services are limited by various factors. Lack of finances to pay for SEOs or ads on popular socials, low interaction with their target audience, and poor financial and inventory management systems. and perhaps rigorous banking operations. This truly can create problems for them in running their businesses, thus making it short-lived or non-profitable overtime

Our solution over time has put all of these into considerations by creating not just a digital platform but engaging digital marketers who promote the products on the website, through optimization techniques, thus redirecting them to the websites. Through our socials, we promote brands on the platform and utilize the interactions of brand ambassadors to promote the products too. In terms of financial and inventory management, our dashboard analytics and wallets, help them to keep up with payments and purchases, allowing them to withdraw their money whenever they want. Such technologies or innovations might not be novel, but it comes in really handy and useful, in the case of our target customers who are small-scale or medium entrepreneurs

The two-way claim also benefits the users. For them shopping on large e-commerce platforms may not be a burden, as they do have not just the financial backing, but also a different choice of styles. However, our vendors are quite unique because they bring a different offering to the table, a diverse range of products, uniquely crafted, tailored, or marketed. This is quite strategic because, this allows them to spend less, and invest to grow the businesses of medium/small-scale entrepreneurs.

Very interestingly are from the same university community and we all are connected by this same issue and problem. Two of my cofounders worked on a similar solution much earlier, but that product was not launched. That was the motivation behind bringing them on the team when I initiated the idea. The six of us are backed by a common goal, to create this solution because we know this is needed by the people around us. We know this because we fall into this age bracket. Just like our target audience we too are young adults between the ages of 19 and 24. We have built a product tailored to university students by university students, and the main goal is so that they can serve the larger community. Our product is improved based on their timely and consistent feedback. To enable ease of access and use, we allow them to tell us what they feel would be important for their efficient service and then we improve.

We didn't leave out the immediate university communities in the design and implementation process. As a result, the names and themes associated with a particular university are carefully selected around the school's philosophy and culture. This is to allow our users to have a sense of belonging with the product used in their community. 

The team is also carefully selected from within the school's university community. This is to allow them properly manage and carry out the tasks with the right policies and operation guidelines in their university communities. We believe in providing a platform for every franchisee to act differently. A disruptive and creative method for them to do what works best, yet be guided by the parent company.

One big strength of the team is our different backgrounds, and this allows us to consider a range of ideas and bring out an effective solution for our community. In the team, we have roles in Operations, strategy, marketing, and creative space. All these teams work coherently to ensure we meet the trends, needs, and demands of our growing market. Through social media platforms, we have created a channel to actively communicate with our users and customers. As a one-stop campus shop, we put their feedback, suggestion, and observations primarily. These forms the basis of our improvements. The strategies, ideas, and implementations are made possible by our team. For the team, to perform better, we interact with our users and customers. Through this interaction, we come together as a team to relay their feedback and make the user experience much better.

So far we have a combined total of 90 vendors on the platform across the two franchises, and we are projected to serve an estimate of about 12000+ students across the two universities.

One of our major reasons for applying for this is funding. Funding for operations and expansion. With our growing team, and evident expansion to other universities, it is quite difficult scaling up, however, we've been able to successfully bootstrap up to the level we find ourselves. For us, technology is the drive behind our product, and till now we've not been able to harness that aspect due to limitations. They have quite a number of plugins, features, and extensions that come with premium benefits which we can't utilize, and they certain areas where the team requires skilled individuals who can provide assistance. A very key role is the UI/UX design role. Perhaps funding to hire these individuals, connecting us to a talent network, or access to services that can provide us with such features. Branding is also a really key aspect of our startup. To allow us to compete, position ourselves, and have an identity, we do need to brand, and usually, this process comes at a price we cannot afford at this point in time. However, connecting us with a company or a consultant who can do these for us will be really crucial in creating a place for us in the market. 

Remember, that this solution is an e-commerce startup designed to allow university students to list their products and services. For us, we have put in mind convenience. These allow the student owners to concentrate on their studies and extra-curricular activities, with the peace of mind that their products are selling. In terms of affordability, many students are primarily dependent and this allows them to look for cheaper yet attractive alternatives from fashion to electronics and other categories. Creating a digital market by students and for students addresses this allowing them to exercise more financial strengths. This product is not also limited to just one university, in fact, it is a product that will be launched across several universities in the future, both in Nigeria and abroad. For acceptability, we've decided to Christian or franchises with a name unique to each school. This customization allows for identity and acceptability across the schools where our product is found.

For our technological leverage, we have integrated e-wallets that allow not just our users, but also our vendors to draw their earnings and money at any point directly to their bank accounts. For partnership, we've partnered with a local transport service company. Via our platform students can make ride bookings that will convey them home from school and vice-versa. To also keep our avid readers occupied we've partnered with copywriters and bloggers who carry out product reviews. This a game changer because for the first time vendors can know just the things they need to improve on via our platform.

For our goals, it is really simple. By the end of 2023, we want to be present in at least 10 Nigerian universities. As we are now we are currently in two. For us, the goal is to be the top brand among university students by the year 2024, and possibly expand into other African countries like Ghana and Kenya by the year 2025. 

To achieve this we will be leveraging digital inclusion. Our team has started reaching out to quite a number of Nigerian universities. The goal of this is to introduce the product in their universities, in turn handing them over franchise rights to operate in their school. When you look at this approach, we are actually creating visibility for business owners and service providers who were struggling. The digital platform gives them visibility not just in their school but also outside of their school. With our marketing reach, we can actually provide support and a spotlight to these businesses.

To achieve these goals, the partnership is very crucial. At this point, we just have a few partnerships with student organizations and groups that can promote this product in their respective schools. We are currently working with social media influencers who can garner our visibility. In the long term, to facilitate better delivery we would partner with delivery agencies, before probably having our own delivery outfit. The product is only available on the web. To make accessibility much easier we are working to develop a mobile app. The mobile app comes with features exclusive to the website

There are several factors by which we can judge our progress but a very important indicator will be the number of schools our product is visibly present. That will go to show to the acceptance rate of our product. Another key indicator to look out for will be the revenue generated via the transactions and sales. It will be one thing to have a working product, in a lot of places with very low interaction. Our priority should be building a high percentage of loyal customers. 

Now when look at the SDGs we align with, an indicator for SDG 1, will be the employment rate. Considering that, our product will be widely used by university students we want to be the highest employers of undergraduate students at all levels providing them with first job opportunities and allowing them to earn whilst schooling, well above the minimum wage of the country. Such opportunities will translate into full-time employment after graduating if they wish to be retained. 

A very key indicator in achieving quality education will be the empowerment of students in tertiary institutions just the right platform to promote their entrepreneurial drives. Our platform will equip them with the network and connections needed to make their business thrive. It is our goal that in the next 5 years, we become the most sort after product for varsity students who want to grow their businesses.

With a female on our team, we understand the need for inclusivity and a major indicator in achieving this will be having a proportional ratio of both male and female employees without any bias.

Having a team of founders in their youths between the ages of 18 and 24, we believe that the youthful population has a lot to offer. And a major indicator will be the largest employers of undergraduate students between the ages of 15-24, thus making them financially independent and productive.

For us, we engage in a fully remote-work culture thus emitting less carbon. By commuting less and communicating more over virtual workspaces, we reduce the amount of carbon emitted from using transport vehicles. A major indicator in the next five will be a significant contributor to the reduction of carbon emissions in our operating regions. This will also be a useful indicator in promoting sustainable cities.

As an e-commerce brand, the packaging is key. To promote a sustainable and friendly environment, we will use eco-friendly, and biodegradable packaging options that can be reusable. The indicators will be recognized as the biggest users and promoters of eco-friendly packaging solutions, thus promoting a green environment

Right now, we have come far by partnerships. From the accelerator where our product was incubated, to the businesses that have made our product thrive. For us a major indicator will be our the number of networks and partners who ease our operation in the various sectors of our business. From logistics, to finance as well as lifestyle.

Problem Statement: University students in my country do not have a digital platform where they can list their products and services. This is a big challenge for them because many of them want to earn whilst schooling. It is a two-way loss at times because consumers do not get to access the products they sell, and for the vendors, its is a lost opportunity

Outputs: 

Creating a digital platform where they can list their products and services. This will allow customers to shop for any product or service offered by the students. The platform will be a much better alternative to the social media stores which is the existing alternative. It will improve accessibility, ease of use, and even visibility. Through the digital platform products and services can easily be found. The platform will increase the performance of the businesses. 

Short-Term Outcomes:

In the short term, one of the key benefits will be the visibility of the businesses existing on our platforms. With our improved marketing, businesses will reach out to a much larger audience, simply because of acceptability. Businesses can offer great products and services which would encourage customers, especially, if their needs are met. 

Long-Term Outcomes:

When we look at the long-term outcome, we are contributing a quota to the financial growth as we are making students self-sustainable and financially independent as they transition into the labour force. For the brand, our platform will be recognized and trusted, retaining and attracting more customers.

To determine how effective this solution will be we have to look at the acceptability of the product. The number of vendors registered on the platform, the number of customers who signup and use the platform. These numbers will affect sales and revenue generated. High retention rates and interaction will equal high sales, and a low retention rate and interaction will equal low revenue. However, through surveys, ratings, and feedback we can  get to see how our users and customers want us to improve.

The core technology that powers this site is built on WordPress. It has a plugin that will help student entrepreneurs establish their brands with ease and efficiency.

One of the key advantages of WordPress as a CMS (content management system) is its flexibility and ease of use. With a wide range of themes and plugins available, users can easily customize their e-commerce sites to match their branding and product offerings. This makes it an ideal platform for student entrepreneurs who may not have the technical skills or resources to build and manage their own websites from scratch.

In addition, the site is optimized for SEO (search engine optimization) using google AdSense. This means that it is designed to rank well in search engine results and attract organic traffic. This is a key advantage for student entrepreneurs who are looking to establish their brands and grow their customer base.

At Hebronplug, we are deeply committed to creating a work environment that fosters growth and development for all team members. We believe in teamwork and possibility, which enables us to overcome obstacles and drive innovation. We do not discriminate because we believe the team is first.

DIVERSITY: Our team is composed of individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, genders, and orientations. We recognize the uniqueness that this diversity brings to our organization and work collaboratively to leverage these differences. We believe that our differences make us stronger, and we appreciate each team member's unique perspective and contributions.

However, we also recognize that building a truly diverse team is not enough. It's essential to create an inclusive culture where everyone feels welcome, valued, and supported. This requires us to listen to each other, respect each other's perspectives, and learn from each other's experiences.

EQUITY: At Hebronplug, we are committed to providing equal opportunities for all team members to thrive. We understand that each team member has unique emotional, social, physical, and mental needs, and we take these into consideration when developing goals and strategies to ensure everyone is equipped to succeed. We offer flexible working arrangements to accommodate diverse needs and support professional growth and development opportunities for all.

We also recognize that barriers can prevent certain groups from accessing the same opportunities as others. To address this, we are actively working to identify and eliminate these barriers through regular reviews of our policies, practices, and processes. We are committed to fostering a culture of transparency and accountability to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

INCLUSION: Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do at Hebronplug. We believe that every team member has something unique and valuable to contribute, and we seek to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas. We strive to create a culture of inclusivity where no one is left out. Our team is like a family, and we support and stand by each other both inside and outside of the workplace. We prioritize teamwork, ensuring that all team members feel supported and integrated, even in challenging circumstances.

Our startup is dedicated to providing a seamless shopping experience to customers through our online platform. Our major source of revenue generation is through the commission model, whereby we take commissions for every sale, either as a percentage or fixed prices, depending on the category and price of the commodities. We run a B2B2C model, providing a platform for university students who own businesses, thus connecting them to their customers who are individuals seeking a wide range of products and services.

Our platform has been designed with ease of use in mind, and customers can access products in various categories, including electronics, beauty and fashion, foods, transportation, and services. We have implemented a thorough verification process for vendors before they are approved to sell on the platform. This verification process is meant to ensure the safety and comfort of our users. We have policies in place, including product verification and quality control, to ensure that customers get maximum satisfaction. Additionally, we have a refund policy in place in cases of dissatisfaction.

We have made the registration and user-interface experience easy to use for vendors, and we provide stand-by support and help to make the entire selling process seamless. The payouts are easy, and vendors can easily withdraw their money from their wallets. We have also ensured that the payment system is secure and well-monitored for both vendors and customers.

As a startup, we plan to generate revenue through various channels, including merchandise sales, adverts, and talent promotion. Our startup is focused on promoting the talents, skills, and business-savvy nature of varsity students. Through our platform, we aim to create a vibrant community where vendors can showcase their skills and products, and customers can benefit from a wide range of quality products and services.

In conclusion, our startup is committed to providing a seamless shopping experience to customers through our online platform. We have implemented policies and procedures to ensure the safety and comfort of our users, and we are dedicated to promoting the talents, skills, and business-savvy nature of varsity students. We believe that our platform will create value for both vendors and customers, and we are excited to be part of this vibrant community.

As a digital platform for university students to sell their products and services, our primary source of revenue generation is through a commission-based model, where we charge a percentage or fixed price commission based on the price of the product. This model has been successful for us as a startup and is our major source of revenue generation.

We also look at applying for grants as another way for us to generate revenue. Grants could be a significant source of fundraising for us, and we aim to continue exploring these opportunities. Additionally, we have applied to various accelerator programs that offer opportunities for us to raise funds while giving out equity.

To further generate revenue, we plan to leverage the pool of talent on our platform by creating opportunities for advertisers to display their adverts. Advertising revenue is a potential revenue stream that we believe can significantly contribute to the growth and sustainability of our platform.

In addition to advertisements, we are also generating revenue through partnerships with services and businesses that do not have a digital platform or website. For instance, our transport scheme on the website is a partnership that enables transport bookings to be made via our platform, generating revenue for us through a service contract.

So far we are in our early stage where the MVP is being tested. Our major source of revenue generation is the commission generated from the sales. That's where most of our finances are from. The service contract, also generates a fair amount of income, just that it's only limited to the transport service scheme and its seasonal. 

The adverts too also generate revenue, and this is usually in peak periods when events or activities are happening.

For us the grant applications are just in the first stage and we've not raised any amount from grants or accelerators.