We Gave Away 10 Million, Here’s What We Learned

Published in

NALA

6 min readJan 3, 2020

It’s the start of a new year and we, here at NALA, have spent the past couple of days reflecting on some of the great moments and lessons that we’ve had in 2019. We are privileged to have had the opportunity to work on improving our product, and achieving many of our milestones along the way, but perhaps one of the most rewarding experiences was the chance to get to give back to our community.

Towards the end of the year, we created and launched a campaign dubbed; “Mama Kasema: Kujifunza Ni Mtaji” which literally translates to “Mama Said: To Learn Is To Find Capital”. It’s a bit of an odd choice for a campaign title, to be fair, but it fits very well with our purpose.

So what is Mama Kasema, really?

“Mama Kasema: Kujifunza Ni Mtaji” was a business plan competition that aimed to empower one Tanzanian entrepreneur in starting or growing his or her business. The purpose was not only to provide a monetary grant of 10 Million Shillings (approximately $4,350), but to also impart some of the product, user interview, and general business insights that our team has acquired over the course of our journey.

We are firm believers in focusing on people first and foremost, before ever thinking about building any product or service. As a company, we invested many hours conducting interviews (see how NALA was built), in an effort to truly understand the challenges and problems that our potential users faced.

We believe that it is crucial for any upcoming entrepreneur to spend time learning and falling in love with the problem that s/he is trying to address, all the while keeping the customer front and center.

It was against this backdrop that the slogan “Kujifunza Ni Mtaji” (“to learn is to find capital”) was chosen. To kick off the competition, we shared this video on various channels, and requested all applicants to:

Submit their business plans via an online form; and
Gather NALA product feedback from at least 10 of their friends who use the application

Gathering this product feedback was of course helpful for our product team here at NALA, but in addition, it served as an opportunity for these budding entrepreneurs to practice collecting user feedback/conducting user interviews.

Here’s what happened💡

We ran the competition for a month, starting from October 28th, 2019 to November 27th, 2019 and received over 2,000 business plan submissions and 1,127 product feedback submissions, far exceeding our expectations. Applications came in from all over the country — from peri-urban areas to the Dar es Salaam metropolitan area (Tanzania’s largest city). The businesses and business ideas that were submitted were just as diverse, with entrepreneurs from the agricultural sector all the way to the tech industry.

NALA Team, Guest Advisors and our 20 Finalists.

After the close of the application submission window, an independent panel of judges sat down to review all applications and selected the top 20 finalists (list below), 11 of whom came from provinces outside of Dar es Salaam.

Top 20 Finalists 🔥

Irene Enock, Mrembo Naturals — Dar es Salaam
Gabriel Mkami, Lapagra — Dar es Salaam
Gerald Magooge Reuben, Nitume Sokoni — Dar es Salaam
Doreen Urio, Reenpad — Dar es Salaam
Edmond Ng’walago, Bio-Pesticide — Pwani
Fredrick Semainda, Mpishi Smart Initiative — Dar es Salaam
Isack Amini, TakaCycle — Dar es Salaam
Yohana Liganga, Laser Engraving Services — Pwani
Abdurazack Moh’d Amour, Pembatours — Pemba
Tungaraza Bwire Tungaraza, Vifaa Vya Michezo — Dodoma
Emanuel Sylvester Kwaslema, Gecoso — Mwanza
Anyamlye Mtetemela, Chili Republik — Pwani
Adam A Duma, SmartClass — Dar es Salaam
Karatu Vegetable Supplier (KVS) — Arusha
Samweli Kisinga, SAKIGI — Ruvuma
Elias Mgala, Kevin Mayai Supply — Mbeya
Adolf Mtalemwa, Karagwe Fish Dealers — Kagera
Samson Rumanywa, Uuzaji wa Mpunga — Katavi
Dianarose Kilabuko, Dee-dee Juice — Dar es Salaam
Erick JN Maleza, WOAS Leather — Dar es Salaam

On December 18, 2019, the finalists were invited to Dar es Salaam for a feedback session and final review with the NALA team.

Isaya Yunge, Thatcher Mweu and Godfrey Magila

We were fortunate to have 3 guest advisors conduct in-depth feedback sessions with each of the entrepreneurs, while the NALA team, in parallel, ran various workshops on business sustainability, strategy, accounting, finance, and marketing.

Isaya Yunge is a technology entrepreneur who started SomaApps and Smart Kaya, LLC in Tanzania. He was recently listed on Forbes U30 2018 for Africa. Thatcher Mweu has worked with multiple industries and organizations in Africa, she currently works as an analyst with Open Capital Advisors in Nairobi, Kenya. Godfrey Magila is the founder of Magila Tech, a leading technology development house in Tanzania. Godfrey was also listed on Forbes U30 2017 for Africa.

Mama Kasema — Winner: Samweli Kisinga 🏆

Watch the inspiring journey of Samweli Kisinga.

When all the entrepreneurs finished attending each of the workshopsand the judges completed their final deliberation, we announced the winner of our competition, Mr. Samweli Kisinga. Samweli is an entrepreneur from Songea district in Ruvuma, Tanzania — a good 937km, 15-hour drive from Dar es Salaam.

Samweli was a former teacher who quit his job to follow his passion for conserving the environment. Samweli and his team collect trash and recyclables from their community and use it to create ceiling boards and roofing decorations. We are excited to support his journey and we will provide close mentorship to him throughout the year.

It should come as no surprise that Mama Kasema: Kujifunza Ni Mtaji had a great impact on us as a company. We got a rewarding opportunity to lend a helping hand to a local entrepreneur and at the same time, got a chance to learn how to improve our NALA product through the feedback that was collected from over 11,270 data points.

We were humbled by the response that we received from these top 20 finalists, many of whom expressed how helpful and inspiring they found the day to be. It is our hope that some of the learnings that were imparted will help shape the contestant’s communities and influence the Tanzanian business community at large.

A word of thanks 🙌🏾

We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the support of the following people:

All the applicants for “Mama Kasema: Kujifunza Ni Mtaji” 2019 Competition, we appreciate the time and effort you put into participating. We encourage you to focus and keep pushing towards making your ventures happen.
The panel of judges who spent hundreds of hours reviewing every single application with us.
Seedspace who offered up space for us to host our finale event.
Global Publishers who hosted our press conference and supported us throughout the competition in creating awareness.
Special thanks to Thatcher Mweu (who flew in from Nairobi), Isaya Yunge and Godfrey Magila who volunteered their time as guest advisors.

Going forward, we plan on running this competition on a yearly basis, perhaps with a different campaign and slogan, but certainly with the same ethos. One that encourages today’s Africa entrepreneur to seek knowledge and understanding of his/her potential customer and problem-to-solve, then using it as the initial capital in building successful businesses.

Mama Kasema competition in numbers:

2,000+ business plan submissions
11,270 data points worth of feedback on NALA
20 finalists from all over the country

Video recap 📹

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