salonebuy

SaloneBuy is a Classified mobile app software used for the users to buy and sell their products. Users can register with the app and then they can post their ads through their mobile phones. To post an ad they just have to take a picture of the product, add product description, set pricing and submit to list for sale. The product will be displayed on the app and website so other people can see and contact with the seller to buy the product. The role of this app here is to make links between buyers and sellers.

1. half of the businesses in Africa lack online presence with no website or a landing page.

2) Low income and exposure for businesses 

3) Un-employment and Poverty 

4) Poor Standards of business delivery and customer satisfaction

5) little or no Connection and trust between sellers and customers who need their services

6) No Job/work flow data existing in communities showing demand and supply.

7) lack of technological know-how.

8) half of the population still use personal networking and traditional advertisement.

our customers include local businesses, individual consumers, small and medium size enterprises(SMEs) corporations, Government agencies, clubs/associations, startups, educational institutions, and currently we have access to about 1,500 businesses pre-launch.

1. Provides a free platform for buying, selling, and communicating locally or internationally thus solving the problem of personal networking, sourcing local or international goods, for e.g. someone want to rent a house , buy a car or search for a job , you can easily go to salonebuy.com and search for your house and contact seller easily without the need of a third party known as agent or the need for a local social megaphone or just a place for users to meet online.. Same goes to someone who want to rent their home or sell their cars, they can just take a picture of their product and upload it to the website and list their price That’s the beauty of this platform…it can solve unlimited problems because it is alive to a certain extent… free classifieds for humanity meme let go for the world to use and only limited by the user’s imagination…and our terms for use.

2) Low income and exposure for businesses we allow clients who has low income and business exposure to advertise their products and reach out to a wider audience for free.

3) Un-employment and Poverty Our direct and indirect employment opportunities are expansive, we have youth who would fill up our operation base, and others who would serve as representatives for the organization.

4) Poor Standards of business delivery and customer satisfaction

5) little or no Connection and trust between sellers and customers who need their services 6) No Job/work flow data existing in communities showing demand and supply.

1) Our business model, revenue model approach, and persona of users that exceeds what most existing business have today. The User Interface, customer journey and customer experience - we use analytics to optimize the experience for each user (both client and customer).

2) First one stop page for free adverts, free community dialog, free searchable database type platform in Sierra Leone. Yes, this is not a completely new innovation, but we are way different and better. Having been involved in consistently hacking this solution for close to three years. We are the first listing-customer solution that fully aims to represent, the non-digital savvy advertisers, and still ensure quality is not tampered with.

3) Platform Variability - Our solution is offered everywhere, we aim to have major representation in every major city we are in, and our platform can be accessed via Mobile Apps (Android, IOS, and Windows), Web - (Via any browser at all) with a very high responsiveness and consumed less data, we can also be met via physical walk-ins to our office and provide strong customer support. currently we have access to about 1,500 businesses pre-launch.

4) Futuristic application: SaloneBuy.com is not just about customer and seller connection, although this is our start point, we aim to be the major drivers and contribution to progress that steers Africa's transition to the 4th Industrial revolution, combining huge data analytics and A.I models to help us transit.

HTML ,AJAX  , Software & Apps development, API  and php.

Having been involved in consistently hacking this solution for close to three years. We are the first listing-customer solution that fully aims to represent, the non-digital savvy advertisers, and still ensure quality is not tampered with.

we conducted a lot of surveys on different focused groups, through questionnaire, interviews etc .

The Market Size Global, but we are launching nationwide first in Sierra Leone. Estimated global market value $85.6 Billion Estimated Sierra Leone Market value - $300 Million Average unit deal amount = $15 Estimated Total yearly transactions = 20 Million Deals /Year

We are currently serving over 10,000 people and over 1,000 businesses;

we hope to serve over 30,000 in one year, and over 10 million in fiver years

Our next goal would be the design of a SaloneBuy.com app so users can download and install the app to post more quickly and easily. Also, the idea has come up to train young people in the community to post ads for businesses or individuals that lack the technical know-how to post which can create employment for young people in Sierra Leone. This could be a contractor that solicits businesses and offers the service of making them adverts of their products for a small fee…negotiable by both parties beforehand. The free market can guide this next step. This idea.

Another is the need for marketing and promotions. Ideas include running Facebook ads for exposure as well as printing out SaloneBuy.com stickers to paste on local taxis and keke’s to get people aware of our free service and used to the idea of posting and searching for goods and services online.

Office space in the next year, accompanied with signup of our more than 100,000 businesses in  year.

Another is to also train youths so they can help the non digital savvy to post their businesses.

Be able to replicate our business to all West African countries and reach thousands of businesses and millions of people.

1) Operation Management- From scale, our biggest threat is the fast pace of expansion and growth required to meet the market demands, and the various activities a small can barely management, which is why we have a growth module 

2) Resource availability - Before we hit sustainability, operations would be ran by sponsorship or self-funded within the team 

3) Long term -Infrastructural and capacity management issues due to large number of users, (Server farms, staff etc.).

Less than 15% of citizens of Sierra Leone use the internet.

Lack of funding.

Lack of a support network.

We consider what we have built so far, our business model, our revenue frames as impressive, and after trying to analyze critically we have found only few loopholes and bottle necks, we are relying on the solve Competition entrepreneur program to also provide critical insight and analysis to where we may have not considered, looking through our documentations, the customers and the product itself, to provide us foresight we can use to make our start-up even better. We also are relying on the large experience, expansive network of the program to gain a network of innovator that can contribute and act as early adopters and a persona of the market to feedback, criticize and contribute to the development of the next iteration of the product, as we also contribute to making other entrepreneurs better at their solution. We also are looking at using the Seed capital effectively to push scale and improve the product and its social impact. Since we exist in a seemingly new industry (Tech Outsourcing) in Africa, we are aiming to get more refined market and customer data to aid our analytics refine our data to being better. In summary, we aim to better social entrepreneurs, Business Skills and Structuring the company.

number of full-time staff 4

part-time staff 3

The team is built of highly experienced individuals with remarkable profiles with Collaboration, Leadership, Creativity, Written communication, Coding, Data management, time management, Customer service, Critical thinking, We have young and vibrant people with different expertise and experience in working with software engineering, finance, business management, sales, and marketing and who are very passionate about solving unemployment and poverty in Sierra Leone and Africa.

1. Sorie Sankoh –Founder & CEO, He has a demonstrated history of working in the technology industry and social entrepreneurship, He brings strategies and handles day-to-day business activities. A profound software engineer experienced in Java, JavaScript, PHP, Android, Front-end and back-end systems and Database. He leads the technical team into the development of the Web platform, Mobile App and APIs as well as prototyping and piloting stages.

2. Memunatu Barrie – Head of customer support, Memunatu leads the customer support team in making sure our customers are always happy and social media pages to increase our presence in the market.

3.Cherry Barrie - Leads Operations and sales

We are currently partnering with Innovate Salone, Directorate of Science and Technology, Sensi TechHub.

We have reps reach out to various business unions and cooperatives 2) Digital

marketing to get clients and customers use the platform 3) Traditional marketing (radio, TV, stickers etc.) and via large events 4) B2B partnerships with organizations (Churches, Mosques etc.) 5) Community engagements, contests and Influencers.

Distribution approach: we will use the on-premises distribution approach for our software product being installed and running within a client’s in-house infrastructure, be that a single computer or a local server.

Revenue streams: In terms of generation of revenue, in the next 5 years, we aim to meet an annual target of 5% of the Market value, effectively disseminating $15 Million amongst 50,000 Businesses in cities and communities within Africa. We have four revenue model (2 majors, 2 minor) to help hit and maintain sustainability and profitability. we can use various money generating options from this app. For example, we can charge the advertisers for posting ads, to make an ad featured, urgent or vip. we can also put google ads and generate money from app visits by the users. We are using engagement tactics to bring more views so we also have advertisement and Finally is data licensing.

Marketing Strategy

1) We have reps reach out to various business unions, universities and cooperatives

2) Digital marketing to get clients and customers use the platform

3) Traditional marketing (radio, TV, stickers etc.) and via large events

4) B2B partnerships with organizations (Churches, Mosques etc.)

5) Community engagements, contests and Influencers

6) trainings and seminars

Market Size Global, but we are launching nationwide first in Sierra Leone. Estimated global market value $85.6 Billion Estimated Sierra Leone Market value - $300 Million Average unit deal amount = $15 Estimated Total yearly transactions = 20 Million Deals /Year

Revenue Model

We take a 5% commission off every successful deal from the publishers, we also have premium features for publishers who want more value but at affordable rates of Le500,000 / Month We are using engagement tactics to bring more views so we also have advertisement and Finally is data licensing.

The Meet-ups are excellent places where the SaloneBuy team can get new data, and market forecast, that can aid us in launching in new markets and signing broader partnerships for effectiveness and scale. We are looking forward to getting the SEED CAPITAL to enable us upscale our Launch and Market Entry strategies to cover more spectrums and cover a better reach more effectively, reducing business drags we may experience. To reduce or mitigate the mistakes lots of startups make especially in challenging markets such as Sierra Leone, we would be relying on the START-UP ENTERPRISE TOOLKIT, and the ONLINE RESOURCE LIBRARY, which means we have a steady guide and tools for success, but not forgetting the ONLINE MENTORING, which to us is GOLD, we always have a go-to place to get customized strategies and feedback.

• Peer-to-Peer Networking 
• Technology Mentorship
• Impact Measurement Validation and Support
• Media Visibility and Exposure 
• Grant Funding

The seed money would be a huge help in improving the app and also provide the capital to get SaloneBuy.com out there in the public consciousness through promotions such as Facebook and printing of stickers and other promotional gear.

We consider what we have built so far, our business model, our revenue frames as impressive, and after trying to analyze critically we have found only few loopholes and bottle necks, we are relying on the Solve Competition entrepreneur program to also provide critical insight and analysis to where we may have not considered, looking through our documentations, the customers and the product itself, to provide us foresight we can use to make our start-up even better. We also are relying on the large experience, expansive network of the program to gain a network of innovator that can contribute and act as early adopters and a persona of the market to feedback, criticize and contribute to the development of the next iteration of the product, as we also contribute to making other entrepreneurs better at their solution. We are looking also out for Seed capital effectively to push scale and improve the product and its social impact. Since we exist in a seemingly new industry (Tech Outsourcing) in Africa, we are aiming to get more refined market and customer data to aid our analytics refine our data to being better. In summary, we aim to better social entrepreneurs, Business Skills and Structuring the company