Ziada.

Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the highest unemployment rates globally, with an average rate of 7.7% in 2019. However, in some countries, the rate is much higher, particularly among young people and women. Despite efforts to create more job opportunities, high unemployment rates persist in the region due to factors such as economic slowdowns and population growth.

Most young people who are unable to secure formal employment end up working in the informal sector, which is estimated to employ over 372 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, with Kenya alone having over 18 million informal workers. Those working in the informal sector as service providers face various challenges, including low income, limited access to resources and support, and difficulty in growing their businesses to provide for themselves and their families.

One of the main challenges faced by informal service providers is the lack of proper market channels to connect them with clients. They often rely on referrals to get income-generating opportunities, which limits their earning potential. Additionally, these service providers lack access to proper equipment, tools, and advisory services, which can hinder their ability to efficiently run and grow their businesses.

Ziada is a tech-enabled platform that supports informal service businesses in Kenya by providing three main solutions. Firstly, it offers market linkage that connects service consumers with service providers across twelve categories; auto, education, events, farm & garden, finance, food & beverage, health & beauty, household, legal, pets, skilled trade, and technology. This helps service providers to expand their client base and increase their income.

Secondly, Ziada provides access to tools and equipment that enables service providers to perform a wider variety of jobs through its equipment/tool rental services. Based on the results of its pilot tool rental service in the skilled trade and food and beverage categories, Ziada is pivoting towards a peer-to-peer rental model that is easier to scale and more sustainable.

Thirdly, Ziada offers business advisory services that aims to empower informal business owners to run holistic businesses. These services range from cashflow management and digital marketing to compliance and regulation, which helps service providers to improve their business practices and grow their businesses.

Ziada helps to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth and decent work for informal sector service providers across Kenya. By providing these three solutions, Ziada is able to support informal service businesses and enable them to overcome the challenges they face, such as limited access to resources and support, which ultimately helps them to succeed and contribute to the growth of the economy.

The target population that Ziada is working to directly and meaningfully improve are informal service businesses in Kenya. This population is largely made up of young people and women who have been unable to secure formal employment, and have resorted to starting their own businesses in the informal sector. Across sub-Saharan Africa, the informal sector is estimated to employ more than 372 million people, with over 18 million of those being from Kenya.

These informal service businesses face a number of challenges, including limited access to resources and support, low income, and lack of proper equipment/tools and advisory to efficiently run and grow their businesses. They often depend on referrals to get income-generating opportunities, which can be unreliable and not enough to sustain their businesses. This makes it difficult for them to grow their businesses and provide for themselves and their families. Additionally, they are often excluded from the formal financial system, which limits their access to credit and other financial services.

Ziada's solution is designed to address the needs of this underserved population by providing a platform that connects them with clients through market linkage, offers access to tools and equipment for rent, and provides business advisory services. Market linkage connects informal service providers with clients in various categories, which increases their income-generating opportunities and improves their financial stability. The tools and equipment rental service provides informal service providers with access to a wider variety of jobs, which can help them grow their businesses and increase their income.

Additionally, by providing these services, Ziada is collecting data on the performance and financial health of informal sector service providers. This data can be used to build a credit-scoring model that considers non-traditional factors, such as job performance and client satisfaction, to determine the credit-worthiness of MSMEs and individuals. 

This creates new avenues for Ziada to partner with, digital financial service providers  through collecting and analyzing data on informal sector service providers that helps these institutions to better understand the credit risk of MSMEs and individuals in the informal sector and provide them with access to financial services that were previously inaccessible.

Ziada's leadership team has a mix of experience working in multinationals, social enterprises and startups. The leadership team has experience working across Africa, Asia and Europe.

The founders' collective experience and knowledge of the challenges small business owners face and how to effectively offer these solutions is extensive, as they have been running small businesses in the informal sector for over a decade. They have established clear and measurable goals that align with Ziada's mission and have come up with an actionable strategic plan that outlines the steps needed to achieve Ziada's goals. 

In addition to its exceptionally skilled team, Ziada has sought the expertise of various industry experts to act as our advisors and help guide us in this journey of transforming the informal sector. Together they complement our team and drive Ziada to achieve its goal of being a tech enabled support partner for informal sector service providers.

Ziada currently serves over 5,000 service providers in Kenya, with a focus on informal sector service providers who are often underserved and lack access to resources and support. This includes individuals who work under the 12 categories Ziada offers as mechanics, plumbers, cleaners, hairdressers, cobblers, and many more.

As an early-stage startup, we face a number barriers that is limiting our ability to achieve our mission of empowering informal sector service providers in Kenya.

We need support in integrating and refining our technology platform to ensure it is user-friendly, reliable, and scalable. We also need to build trust with our target population and overcome any skepticism or mistrust they may have towards digital platforms. This requires us to engage with them on a personal level, understand their needs and concerns, and design solutions that are culturally sensitive and relevant.

Financially, we face the challenge of raising enough capital to scale our operations and reach more service providers across Kenya and funding for our planned aggressive marketing campaigns.

We believe that Solve can play a crucial role in helping us overcome these barriers and achieve our mission of empowering informal sector service providers in Kenya by connecting us with partners who can support us overcome these challenges. We are excited about the opportunity to work with Solve and its partners to develop and scale our solution, and to make a meaningful impact in the lives of our users.

Ziada is a unique solution that leverages technology to address the challenges facing informal service businesses in Kenya. Our platform takes a holistic approach to improve the livelihoods of informal sector service providers by providing them with access to market linkage, business advisory services, and equipment/tools rental services.

Our market linkage solution is designed to address the challenge of finding work in the informal sector. By connecting service providers with customers who need their services, we enable service providers to access a larger pool of potential clients and increase their earning potential. Our matching algorithm also takes into account factors such as location, availability, and price, ensuring that customers can find the right service provider for their needs.

Our business advisory services address the challenges of running a successful business in the informal sector. Many informal service providers lack the knowledge and resources needed to manage their businesses effectively. We provide training and support on topics such as cash flow management, compliance and regulation, and digital marketing, empowering our service providers to run holistic and sustainable businesses.

Finally, our equipment/tools rental service is designed to address the challenge of limited access to equipment and tools. By providing access to a wider variety of equipment and tools, we enable service providers to take on a broader range of jobs and increase their earning potential. We are pivoting to a peer-to-peer rental model that is easier to scale and more sustainable, based on the findings from our pilot.

Our use of technology enables us to reach a large and diverse group of service providers, and our business model is sustainable, ensuring that we can continue to provide these services over the long term. Our platform can be replicated and scaled to other regions facing similar challenges, enabling more informal service providers to access the support they need to succeed.

Furthermore, Ziada's data-driven approach to pricing leads can change the market by promoting fair pricing practices. This can also lead to increased trust between platforms and service providers, which is critical for building sustainable long-term partnerships.

Ziada's innovative solution for informal service providers in Kenya has the potential to catalyze broader positive impacts in the market by promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth, improving access to credit and financial services, and promoting fair pricing practices.

For next year, we want to increase the number of registered service providers from the current 5,000 to 10,000 to improve access to services and generate more leads, get to 7,000 monthly leads providing more opportunities for service providers to earn an income, develop and implement a credit-worthiness assessment tool on the platform to reduce bias against borrowers who have traditionally lacked equitable access to credit.

Our goal is to expand our platform to at least two more sub-Saharan African countries within the next five years to increase our impact on a wider population and improve accessibility to our services. To achieve this, we aim to increase the number of registered service providers to 100,000 to offer a greater variety of high-quality services. Additionally, we plan to collaborate with digital financial service providers to offer financial education and access to credit for service providers who require it. We also aim to partner with other digital solutions to embed more features, such as invoicing and accounting tools, to provide more value-added services to service providers. We will improve the credit-worthiness assessment tool to be more inclusive and comprehensive, and to reduce any bias against borrowers who have traditionally faced limited access to credit.

To achieve these impact goals, we will need to continue to grow our team, expand our marketing efforts, and seek partnerships with key players in the financial and service provider industries. We will also need to continue to gather feedback from our users and adapt the platform to meet their changing needs. With these efforts, Ziada will make a significant positive impact on the lives of MSMEs and individuals in sub-Saharan Africa by improving access to services, generating income, and reducing bias in credit-worthiness assessments.

In order to measure the impact Ziada has made, we will have access to data such as changes in income and business growth for the small business owners and independent workers who use our platform. We will also measure the number of transactions made through Ziada, as well as customer satisfaction ratings.

To estimate the impact of our marketplace, we will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. We will conduct surveys and interviews with small business owners and independent workers to gather data on changes in income, business growth, and overall satisfaction with the platform. We will also use econometric methods to analyze changes in income and business growth over time. Additionally, we will conduct an impact evaluation to estimate the causal effect of Ziada on these outcomes using experimental design such as Randomized Control Trial(RCT) or Regression discontinuity design(RDD).

To ensure the validity and reliability of our data, we will use established survey methodologies and work with experienced data analysts to ensure that our data is collected and analyzed in a rigorous and unbiased manner. We will also work closely with partner organizations to ensure that our data collection efforts are tailored to the specific needs of the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa. 

By providing support and resources to informal sector service providers, we can help to address some of the key challenges that they face, such as limited access to markets, financial access, and business advisory services. Our approach is designed to promote social and economic empowerment for this demographic, with the ultimate goal of reducing poverty and promoting sustainable economic growth.

Our activities are focused on providing a range of services and resources to informal sector service providers, including access to market linkage,  access to tools and equipment, business advisory services, training and opportunities. Through these activities, we aim to achieve a number of immediate outputs, such as increased access to markets, improved business skills and knowledge, and expanded social networks.

In the longer-term, we expect these outputs to lead to a range of positive outcomes for our target population, including increased income and financial stability, improved quality of life, and greater economic opportunities for themselves and their families. In turn, these outcomes are expected to have wider positive impacts on the communities in which these individuals live and work, such as increased economic growth, improved social cohesion, and reduced poverty.

We support the existence and strength of these links through a range of mechanisms, including third-party research which we conducted among informal sector service providers through Dijitali, findings from interviews with our registered service providers through the surveys and interviews to better understand their needs and the impact of our services on their businesses and livelihoods. 

We utilize a range of technologies to power our Android app and provide our services to informal sector service providers. At the heart of our technology platform is a custom-built application that serves as the main interface for our users.

Our app is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, with a focus on providing a seamless user experience for informal sector service providers and clients. It includes a range of features such as an Ad Space for service providers to advertise their services.

We also utilize a range of other technologies to support our app, including cloud-based hosting and storage solutions to ensure scalability and reliability, as well as a variety of APIs and integrations to facilitate data exchange between different systems and platforms.

Overall, our core technology is designed to support the unique needs and requirements of informal sector service providers, and to enable us to provide high-quality, accessible, and effective services to them.

Ziada is committed to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment, and incorporating these principles into all aspects of our work. We actively seek out and recruit individuals from diverse backgrounds, and aim to create a workforce that is representative of the communities we serve.

We provide regular training and education to our staff to promote understanding and awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusivity, and to foster a culture of inclusion.

We engage with our users to better understand their needs and perspectives, and ensure that our services are accessible and responsive to their needs.

We actively seek out partnerships and collaborations with organizations and individuals who share our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity, and work together to promote these principles in our shared work.

At Ziada, we regularly assess and evaluate our policies, practices, and procedures to identify areas where we can improve our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity, and take steps to implement changes. By incorporating these principles into our work, we aim to create a work environment that is welcoming, respectful, and inclusive for all individuals, and to promote social and economic empowerment for the communities we serve.

Ziada connects informal sector service providers to potential clients, offers business advisory services, and enables access to equipment/tools through rental services. The platform targets informal sector service providers in Kenya, who are currently underserved due to limited access to market linkages, tools and equipment, and business support services.

The products and services provided by Ziada are aimed at improving the lives of informal sector service providers by creating economic opportunities, improving their earning potential, and helping them to grow their businesses. 

Ziada generates revenue by charging a fee for every lead that a service provider accepts. Service providers must pay Ziada a fee, known as a token, for each lead they accept. A lead is defined as a customer contacting a service provider (through the app) about a job that needs to be done. Currently, one (1) token is priced at KES 100 (approx. USD 1) to unlock one lead. Through this model, service providers know that if they do a good job, they will be unlocking a client for life as clients will retain them for similiar services.

Additionally, small business owners who run multiple businesses in tandem have an opportunity to manage up to three of their businesses on a single account at no added cost. This was from our observations on the nature of the informal sector where owners are running several businesses concurrently. 

The revenue generated by Ziada's pay per lead model enables the platform to remain sustainable and continue to provide valuable services to our key customers and beneficiaries.

Ziada has a clear and sustainable revenue model that allows the company to generate income while also providing value to its users. As the platform grows, Ziada plans to adopt a dynamic pricing model to ensure that fees are tailored to the specific needs of each user, which will lead to increased usage and revenue.

In addition to this revenue stream, Ziada is also exploring other potential sources of funding. We are currently raising a pre-seed round to fund our marketing and expansion goals, and to further develop our platform to better serve our users. We are seeking investment from a range of sources, including impact investors, VCs, and strategic partners.

We believe that our innovative platform, which addresses the needs of a large and underserved population, has significant potential for growth and impact. Our goal is to build a sustainable business model that allows us to continue to expand our reach and impact, while also generating revenue to cover our expenses and support our ongoing operations.

Ziada uses a pay per lead model and due to its juvenile nature in sub-Saharan Africa, we began to issue free tokens to new service providers so that they could not only better understand how the model works to unlock job matches but also gain confidence in buying tokens. The issuing of free tokens has allowed us to educate our users and encourage adoption of the new model.

In mid 2022, we began to see service providers purchasing tokens, indicating that they were understanding the value of the pay per lead model and were willing to pay for good leads, likely to convert to jobs. This is a positive sign for our business as it demonstrates that our model is gaining traction and generating revenue. This innovative approach to monetizing our platform will make it easy for us to scale to new markets with reduced payment barriers.

So far we have received funding from Catalyst Fund by BFA global an accelerator and Unconventional Capital. We also won first prize from MIT Africa Sloane Pitch Competition.