South African on-demand couriering startup WumDrop has launched its iOS app, designed to complement its existing Android and web offerings, while promising a number of new rollouts in the coming months.
WumDrop had been working on the app since February, and believes it will help the startup grow as it goes “hell for leather” for sales.
Co-founder Simon Hartley told Disrupt Africa it had made sense for WumDrop to roll out on the world’s incumbent premium handset off the back of a promising first year of operations.
“WumDrop’s consumer facing service is about convenience. The WumDrop iOS app makes the service conveniently accessible to a large portion of our existing users, who until now have been relying on a mobile responsive version of the web app,” he said.
Hartley said the company’s growth had been “very encouraging” so far, but it was focused on increasing revenues and reach.
“We’re going to go hell for leather with sales in the next three months, aiming to sustain a growth of 30 per cent month-on-month over the next two quarters,” he said.
WumDrop, according to Hartley, is only around 25 per cent complete in terms of its offering, with new products set to be revealed in the next few months.
“We’re particularly excited about our forthcoming suite of enterprise products and payment terms, which ought to quench the agony of delivery for businesses across South Africa,” he said.
“Think tracking, trucks, daisy-chains, and programmatically discounted pricing by volume.”
WumDrop users are able to request a courier using the app, at which point WumDrop drivers receive a trip request. Once a driver accepts, they collect and deliver the requested item, billing the user ZAR7 per kilometre, 70 per cent of which goes to the driver and 30 per cent to WumDrop.
WumDrop uses both professional drivers and students to do its deliveries, with Hartley saying drivers earned more through the service than they would in ordinary jobs. He said the company is operating in a market that is going to become increasingly popular, but felt WumDrop was built to scale due to its business model.
“It’s a sexy idea. In the same way that Groupon was a very sexy idea. That has no bearing on whether it is a good business or not. There are going to be a lot of people that do what I do and I think they’re going to do it soon,” he said.
