Founder and CEO of The Owlet Ltd, Elijah Kolawole Olusehinde, sat with Disrupt Africa in an exclusive interview to reveal the ins and outs of his African startup and their big dream to expand to foreign territories by 2028.
The brand founded in June 2020, expanded from two to 108 employees, with footprints in five countries across Africa. Read the interview below.
DA: Please explain in more detail what the company does.
EKO: The Owlet Ltd currently comprises three products; The Owlet App, The Owlet Online, and The Owlet P2P.
The Owlet App is an online marketplace that brings entrepreneurs closer to willing buyers. It allows buyers and sellers from all over Africa to trade their goods and services. We connect individuals, businesses, and brands across the continent.
On the other hand, The Owlet Online is a social media marketing platform that is changing the digital marketing space for businesses. The Owlet Online works with brands to boost their posts, engagements, and profiles to get increased sales.
Lastly, The Owlet P2P allows individuals and businesses to trade social media assets. People can securely purchase and sell valuable social media content via The Owlet’s P2P platform.
How/when was it formed? What is the team etc.?
The idea for The Owlet Ltd rattled in my head since my undergraduate university days, but it took time to come to iterate and come to fruition. The Owlet Online kicked off official operations on June 29, 2020, before we delved into the app and P2P platforms later on. The company started with two employees, but we have expanded over two years. Today, The Owlet Ltd has 108 employees dispersed around ten states in Nigeria. We have outreaches in all these states. We also have outreaches in Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya. We have been able to spread ourselves far and wide without spreading ourselves thin.
What gap in the market did you spot? What is the competition?
After years of working in the market as a young child, I noted how inefficient physical markets are for buyers and sellers. I watched elders and nursing mothers, who came to buy goods, struggle to manoeuvre around crowds of people. Nigerian markets are inconvenient, especially in Lagos, where overcrowding is a problem. Transportation to and from the market is also a problem.
The market experience was not ideal for the sellers either. I saw how difficult it was for Nigerian businesses to get customers’ attention. Sellers shouted or blared loud music to attract attention and ran between shops, struggling to meet the demands of their customers. I established that the shopping experience in Nigeria could use a change, and that was how the idea for an online marketplace came along.
The Owlet allows traders to get their business/wares in front of more people than ever, and buyers can purchase goods and services from local and international markets at their convenience.
Our aim as a company has always been to help people shop more conveniently while enabling businesses to make more sales than ever. With this core vision in view, we do not see any competitors.
How are you funded? Any other serious landmarks?
The Owlet was a personal project. Its funding came from my pockets. However, the company reached sustainability quickly and has since started expanding. We have not taken any additional investors/funding. This decision is because we do not want to distract ourselves chasing profitability. We recently crossed 20,000 transactions on The Owlet App, and celebrated this milestone across our offices.
What has uptake been?
We struggled at first to get early adopters from both buyers and sellers. However, we currently have over 70,000 vendors using the app and have recorded over 30 million orders on The Owlet Online.
What markets are you operating in currently? Any expansion plans?
We operate in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, South Africa and Kenya. We have outreaches in every country listed, and our people go out to sensitise buyers and sellers about our product. We help our traders with crash courses in bookkeeping and delivery while we help onboard sellers and ensure they have the best shopping experience.
We have plans to spread throughout the African continent by 2028 before expanding into foreign territories.
How do you make money? What are revenues/profits like so far?
We charge business owners to display ads on our platform. Our app is geo-mapped. Sellers can target ads to buyers within their proximity.
What difficulties have you encountered in launching?
We struggled to get both buyers and sellers to adopt our product in the initial stage. It was an imposing hurdle that we had to deal with.
Human beings are set in their ways. We struggled to get customers to use the product despite seeing how valuable our product was. Buyers did not see how they could casually shop food cooking items from the comfort of their homes and have them delivered safely. The sellers struggled to believe they could make more sales on our platform and build better customer relationships.
However, we changed our marketing approach early on. We designed outreach teams to go out and help both parties (buyer and seller) to understand the value of The Owlet. They also helped them register their businesses and accounts and onboarded them. This tactic achieved significantly higher results.
Keep up with the Owlet App and the Owlet Online on social media with @owletapp and @theowletonline.
