Designing, activating, and empowering a digital community of informal micro-entrepreneurs
For the past decade, Kenya — like many other African countries — has grappled with a phenomenon typically referred to as a “building youth population.” With close to 80% of Kenya’s population younger than 35, this young and keen group could be a great support to Kenya’s struggling economy.
However, the formal sector can only accommodate less than one in 10 of them — the rest must create their own jobs through entrepreneurship in the informal sector. Established in 2018, MESH is the first online community for entrepreneurs in the informal economy in East Africa. It’s the place for young Kenyans to learn how to make it in business by getting ideas, improving skills, finding gig opportunities, building networks, and receiving expert support.
In 2021, MESH and Shujaaz Inc joined forces with Mastercard Strive to implement an ambitious program aimed at understanding and addressing the unique challenges and needs of young informal micro-entrepreneurs, including supporting them to digitize their businesses and gain access to online markets. The program funded the development and implementation of a data-driven digital community offering its members — MESHers — business training content, networking, gig opportunities, and thematic discussion groups to share challenges and seek and receive advice.
Over the past two years, MESH has grown into a thriving online community of thousands of Kenyan micro-entrepreneur members who are positively addressing the needs of informal entrepreneurs while contributing to the country’s economy. As of September 2023, 72% of micro-entrepreneurs aged 18 to 34 on MESH are earning through their own business or through paid gigs—up from 44% who were doing so before they joined MESH.
This success did not happen overnight. MESH invested a lot of time into responsive and iterative platform development, encouraging engagement between members and implementing a rigorous monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework. In this paper, MESH reflects on its journey to building a thriving digital community, the decisions they made, and the solutions they developed.
The lessons and best practices highlighted in the paper will enable other organizations supporting small businesses to better engage micro-entrepreneurs in online communities.
