Mzizzi.com - free ecommerce platform for financial inclusion

Businesses have to contend with limited capital, but this is more pronounced in Africa. Limited access to financial help means that starting and growing a business can be entirely difficult. Access to larger markets and stiff competition means that micro and small businesses have to contend with the stiff competition since they don't have the capacity to expand their market. Logistics; challenges in the transport and logistics services means that these entrepreneurs never have a chance at growth.

Mzizzi.com provides free eCommerce shops that allow these MSME's to have a wider market reach beyond the places that they are located, faster access to payments which are critical to ensuring the business stays afloat and grows and access to the Delivery by Mzizzi logistics, which means they can deliver goods countrywide within a day or less.

Mzizzi.com can easily be adapted to multiple languages and can receive payments in multiple currencies.

Problem: Most African governments give very little support to SMEs thereby neglecting a vital economic trigger and should form pillars of development. SME's employ over 70% of the population and are a major contributor to economies. The process of starting a business is however very cumbersome. Most small businesses have restricted  locally-based  markets  which  by  their  nature  are  limited  in size. These businesses are under-capitalized and generate limited profits if any at all, which  means  that  they  have  little  opportunity to grow and every penny really counts

Mzizzi serves SME's (Micro, small and medium), businesses. We work with women's groups, artisans, small importers, makers and we provide them with a platform that they can use to compete with bigger players. We give them tools that they can use to manage their business.

Case Study - Tendaji Creations -tendaji.mzizzi.com - https://twitter.com/Kurlycheek...

•     Our free eCommerce shops allow the MSME's to start a business with limited expense and lower the cost of the market entry. Tendaji used to make most of her wares from her house and rely on word of mouth and referrals to grow her business. Mzizzi enabled her to open up her business to the world growing her business by over 300% month on month.
•     Instant payments: Most of the earlier customers of Tendaji would get the goods on credit and promise to pay at a later date. With instant payments on their Mzizzi shop, all orders are paid for in advance and therefore they avoid the pains of debt collection.
•     Delivery by Mzizzi: Our delivery system takes away the hassle from the business owners and they can focus on production and business growth.

Solution: Mzizzi provides these small businesses with a free eCommerce shop that helps entreprenuers affordably start their businesses and scale at a level that they are comfortable. There are several competing e-commerce solutions in the market such as Jumia (Online Marketplace), Masoko (Online Marketplace), SkyGarden (e-commerce subsites) but none offers the same value as Mzizzi. We practically make it easy and seamless for anyone to start and grow their business easily from the house. Our main differentiators are as below.

Mzizzi has four main components:

1) Free eCommerce shops. The Mzizzi shops are all uniquely and individually branded in line with the business, hereby helping the business find and grow its identity. In addittion, all the eCommerce shop backends have features such as reporting to help the business owners understand how they're perfoming and stock management tools.

2) Instant payments. All goods sold via Mzizzi shop are paid for in advance and as long as there is confirmation of delivery, the seller can withdraw the money to their mobile phone or a bank account instantly.

3) Delivery by Mzizzi. Mzizzi collects all the goods sold by the businesses and has mechanisms in place to ensure delivery of the goods in as little as 2 hours to a Max of 24 hours countrywide. Mzizzi also does international deliveries that take an average of 48 hours, which means that businesses have access to global markets unlike when they sell locally.

4) Mzizzi Marketplace. A collection of all the goods sold by the merchants into one portal that makes it easy for buyers to search for what they need. Mzizzi.com

Mzizzi provides a solution that addresses the three most critical elements of starting and growing a business. The cost of setup - by creating uniquely branded, free e-commerce shops, together with the tools that help manage a business we make it easier than ever to start and grow. We have a proprietary payment processing platform that enables customers to purchase goods through any preferred mode of payment and we consolidate all the payments together for easier withdrawal by the business owner instantly. In contrast, other eCommerce platforms, make the business owner have to wait for long periods of about a week which takes away critical resources from the business. Our logistics tools enable us to track and make deliveries fast anywhere in the country and can be scaled to work globally.

Our eCommerce platform is very easy to use and can be easily accessed through a mobile phone, this means that access to informal businesses is catered for. A basic understanding of computers is adequate and the use of SMS notifications to the sellers means that they are able to attend to their businesses even in areas with choppy internet connectivity. As we scale our payments collection backend we'll be able to accept currencies from other countries in addition to more payment methods allowing businesses to have an even wider market. Artificial Intelligence is also used to observe trends in business growth and can be harnessed to offer business loans to the sellers.

As trust grows and populations increase there will be a continual increase in the demand for more accessible platforms or methods for shopping. This means that purely traditional approaches like neighborhood shops will start to attrition.

As more people own smartphones, traditional methods of selling are being left behind for the eCommerce platforms that offer more variety and convenience. Shoppers are more inclined to look for the things they need from the comfort of their offices or homes while also being able to also find better prices. Fast delivery mechanisms that deliver within a few hours mean that local shops are left only for the very critical items.

Mzizzi solves the problems highlighted above by allowing SME's to take advantage of technology and logistics networks that were previously the preserve of large companies, while not having to go the extra mile. 

Through the use of Mzizzi, small businesses are able to access larger markets, compete more favourably and deliver goods much further.

Further reading...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/c...

https://www.orangemantra.com/b...

Mzizzi currently serves over 600 businesses which have been acquired in the last 8 months. We project to able to serve over 3000 businesses within the next 1 year.

Over a period of 5 years Mzizzi envisions to serve over 15,000 businesses directly and over 150,000 businesses indirectly through purchase of goods from the small businesses that we'll have grown their capacity.

1.) Grow the number of businesses that we serve to over 3000 and in effect the number of jobs created. By providing a source of income to families and employees of the business owners, there will be a multiplier effect of better financial inclusion.

2.) Improved product. We are looking to build Mzizzi to the next phase of growth. Through the use of AI we'll be able to make predictions of buying behaviours which can be shared with the businesses to help them make better decisions in product development and creation.

3.) Stronger financial inclusion. Already some of the business owners use our platform as a way of saving for their businesses, this means that they are beginning to have better financial literacy.

Over the next five years, we would like to make a direct and indirect impact to over 5 million people. We will roll out solutions such as short term lending facilities that can allow the businesses to grow and meet their demand needs.

1.) Financial - we require funds to enable us to grow our team and add critical skillsets. The money will also be used to grow our outreach and create more awareness of Mzizzi.

2.) Cultural  - current eCommerce penetration is at about 5% in Kenya, this will definately grow over the next few years but isn't very large at current.

3.) Logistical/market barriers - African countries are multilingual which means they most likely have different cultures, different currency, different languages and regulations

4.) Literacy rates - Even if all the infrastructure and

integration issues are fixed, illiterate citizens may be unable to
participate directly on e-commerce sites that require reading and
writing skills.

1.) Fundraising: We are currently planning for a seed fund round that will help us get the much needed capital to scale

2.) Awareness: By educating the population especially the informal, rural populace we will open up and increase the demand for eCommerce services

3.) Use of technology: By evolving our platform to handle multilingual and multicurrency demands we can address the needs of the different countries.

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We are a team of 7 full time staff.

The founding team is made up of 2 members.

Dayvee Ngugi - The CEO and architect. Dayvee co-founded his first startup,NyeriOnline, 10years ago as a news and business directory, it went on to become one of Kenya's top 10 websites by 2010 wholly bootstrapped. He later setup his second startup, a CRM product, Peach CRM, which he sold in 2013 for US$250,000 after 2 years. Dayvee is passionate about solutions that simplify business processes and has consulted for government and private companies for over 5 years in such a capacity.

James Munyeria - The ecommerce guy. James co-founded NyeriOnline and worked on building it one of the most visited websites in Kenya, eventually being featured in a Google sysmposium. He has over 10 years experience in building of ecommerce platforms. James helped build a transport and logistics company and helped them scale to making deliveries to over 3 countries, he built the software that was used to manage the operations and the processes.

We also have a mix of advisors from top CEO's to market leaders that help us chart a path for successful strategies.

Mzizzi has partnered with two categories of partners:

• Banks and Financial Instituitions - We have partnership with Ecobank (Africa's largest bank), Equity bank and Kenya Commercial bank for integrations and payment platforms
• Logistics - DHL and G4S group to help with international delivery and local delivery of merchant goods

Our business model entails connecting local businesses to market and supporting them with product delivery services and payment solutions. We make money as a percentage (4.5%) of volumes traded through our platform.

We've primarily grown through word of mouth and social media. We have generated sales of over 15000USD for our merchants with minimal market push and are especially proud of the numerous return customers. We can significantly grow our merchants and revenue once we inject much needed marketing funds. Our current operations budget is currently financed through savings and short consultancies.

We operate on a fee for service model which grows as the merchant transactions grow. We project that to reach sustainability we will need to have at least 10,000 merchants at which point we can have a positive EBITDA

"Well, the MIT reputation is certainly a factor. We would be proud to partner with an institution with such a long history of leadership in the industry. We are also excited to be part of a network of organizations and companies that do similar things with us. It provides a great forum for exchanging experiences and business skills. Through solve, we are also able to access a global network of experts outside our region, of which we do not have many connections. We are able to find partners that can help us solve our current challenges such as financial requirements and technical skills."

Product advise: through meeting with industry leaders, we can get experienced answers to some of the pressing challenges and questions to how we can evolve our product

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• Technology Mentorship and Training
• Peer-to-Peer Networking
• Solution Validation and Support
• Media Visibility and Exposure
• Grant Funding

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If we are to win the GM prize, we would focus the winnings to specifically recruit and empower women's groups that create products and help them find new markets online and grow  their ventures. Women form the backbone of African societies and families and by empowering women, we get a chance to see more families uplifted financially.

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