America.gov asked finalists from among the more than 700 African immigrants who submitted business plans to the “African Diaspora Marketplace” to blog about their ideas. Sponsored by USAID and Western Union Company, the African Diaspora Marketplace is a contest that will award seed money to approximately 15 winners to help them bring their ideas to life in their home countries.

Kinoti Gituma, entrepreneur:

Kinoti Gituma

Within KinConsult, a U.S. online and e-commerce consulting firm based in Sunnyvale, California, I have envisioned Johari, a Web and mobile portal that will bridge the digital divide in Kenya by providing a platform for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to tap the potential of broader markets. It is currently under development.

By marketing their products and services on Johari such businesses will gain access to a consumer market that transcends local boundaries. And I believe that giving SMEs the platform for information gathering and collaborative technologies will help them grow and prosper. This, in turn, will boost business generally in Kenya by giving consumers a greater choice.

The biggest risk is fraud. Initial challenges include attracting, vetting and listing a large number of SMEs and persuading them to use Johari to list their products on a continuous basis. It will take time for the Kenya society at large to embrace new technologies to reach a critical mass.
Questions for experts:
1. How do you mitigate the risk of fraud in operations of a mobile and Web portal in a developing country?
2. How do you create an effective viral marketing campaign for a quick roll out in a region that has high mobile penetration but very low Internet penetration?

IMRAN QIDWAI, business expert:

As I was reading your blog post, the paramount issue of fraud was dancing in my head. It was good to see you identify that as a major challenge yourself.

Identifying the target market segments that will benefit the most from your business will be a key to your success. You need to identify the type of products that would be best served by your online market within the targeted region, both for the buyers and sellers. Thus, commodities may not be the best unless you are sure that buyers will achieve significant overall savings or benefit from the convenience. You also may need to hand-pick a few merchants for such products that pass through a strict selection filter. You may launch the business with few such merchants and closely monitor the transactions for overall customer satisfaction. Using the best practices learned during the early phases, you may have to come up with your own Better Business Bureau type seal of approval. You will then be ready to scale up the business with more merchants and a greater variety of products. You will need to be vigilant throughout and set up a fair process to vet the merchants. You also may need to encourage buyers to provide their satisfaction ratings for merchants and products upon the completion of transactions. Once you have a well-oiled marketplace that is also profitable for the merchants, I am sure that other merchants will be dying to get in.

As for viral marketing, there is a technique called Word of Mouth Marketing being promoted by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. You may wish to check out their site [http://womma.org/main/] to learn and adapt this and other techniques to the local market.

A Johari promotional photo of a Kenyan Masai warrior

HERMAN NYAMUNGA, business expert:

The impact of fraud on businesses across the globe is phenomenal. Although every effort is being taken to find a lasting solution to this problem, there is no silver bullet yet. However, there are industry-tested strategies that developing countries can employ to mitigate the risk of fraud in operations of mobile and web portal. They include these:
1. Developing a secure platform for information exchange,
2. Effective and efficient electronic verification system supported by well trained fraud analysts,
3. Rolling the portal in phases to permit system modification,
4. Utilizing mobile financial systems like Kenya’s M-PESA – which are transforming the way people save, use, and transport money in poor countries – for most of the transactions,
5. Educating consumers on how to protect themselves against fraudulent activities,
6. Developing and applying due diligence in verifying sellers’ identity before listing them in the portal,
7. And information sharing between credit card companies, businesses, law enforcement agencies, and consumers.

As to a viral marketing campaign, due to limited availability of the Internet, mobile phone networks have proven to be a vital piece of technology for Africa. The technology is ubiquitous and plays an important part in bridging the infrastructure divide. As a cheap alternative, it presents a great opportunity for creating an effective viral marketing campaign to assist businesses in connecting with consumers. The strategy involves recruiting a group of trusted people in every target market, earning their trust and using them as a platform to transmit your message to their network of friends. This strategy has been successfully used in Africa to support initiatives such as Mapping stock-outs, Mobile learning, Mobile search, Mobile Banking, etc.