RedFish Finds the Right Tradesman for South African Property Owners
Today, the five Seedstars World Cape Town winners will move on to the second and final South African round, which is taking place in Johannesburg. One of them is RedFish, whose founder, Theunis Hanekom, kindly answered Nicolas Bry‘s questions to let us discover RedFish more in-depth.
NB: Hi Redfish! You propose a collaborative platform for home improvement. Can you give us examples of your service?
TH: We have over 30 categories property owners can choose from when they have a project that needs to be done. For instance you need new floors: just post your job under the flooring category, indicate the sqm and the material with a brief description and our vetted tradesmen will respond to the job.
NB: What are the typical profiles of your home owner users?
TH: It varies between 18–65 years old, internet savvy.
NB: Are they located in large South African cities?
TH: Currently, yes. Most of the projects come from major cities but we do get requests from smaller towns now and again.
NB: What is the main benefit for them: a lower cost of the service? To find the right skills for the job?
TH: There are multiple benefits — verified tradesmen, ratings and reviews, cost and time saving searching for quality tradesmen, to get the right skills, support local tradesmen close by…
NB: Your business model is based on two main offerings: Basic Package (7.5% of any job awarded), and Premium Package (Pay per month, ZAR 299 per month). How many homeowner subscribers and tradesmen do you have?
TH: We have 2500 unique property owners and a growing number of tradesmen (900 skilled workers). Our growth rate per Quarter reached 42%.
NB: How is it growing?
TH: At 386% per annum. No marketing to date, it’s all through word of mouth and organic growth!
NB: Do homeowner subscribers post jobs on a recurrent basis?
TH: Recurring and new. We have noticed that one customer will post 2 to three jobs at a time.
NB: To make your business work, how many awarded jobs do you need to process?
TH: For us, it is not so much about the numbers right now but more about the national footprint in South Africa. To be the number 1 platform of choice where customers can find quality tradesmen.
NB: Does it mean you have to scale outside of South Africa?
TH: When the timing is right we will definitely look outside the borders.
NB: How do you plan to market your platform toward homeowners and tradesmen?
TH: There are various trigger point: Google ad words, social media, PR, competitions and media.
NB: Who are you competing with, online and offline?
TH: We dont have a true competitor in the South African market, but we do see all directories (printed and online), yellow pages, flyers, social media referrals, Google as our competition.
NB: How do you build trust between homeowners and tradesmen, who do not know each other, in an environment where insecurity is high?
TH: This is very important to us, and in the future we will be much stricter with tradesmen. So verification is key to help build that trust: visibility of profiles and ratings (clear for homeowners to review) and totally democratic from previous customer comments.
NB: Tell us about your team, who you are, where you’re from, what are your skills, how you met, and your mantra?
TH: Our team is quite special — each one of them brings a certain strength and past experience that have put us where we are so far.
Joost — Head of our Technical and Development Department. Ex Werkspot partner in Holland (a similar site than ours based in Holland).
Philipp — Head of Digital with 10 years experience in Marketing and Sales in this industry.
Theunis (Myself) — MD, 20+ years in Sales and Marketing, customer focussed through direct marketing.
Nicholas — Our Advisor and ex CEO of my hammer in Germany.
Joost and Phillip have been mates for a while and have both a keen interest in surfing. That’s how Philipp ended up in Cape Town 12 years ago. He came on holiday from Germany and never went back! Myself and Philipp have been doing work together for a while in South Africa. When I bought a house a few years ago I went through a very painful and costly exercise finding a quality tradesmen. That is how redfish.co.za was born.
NB: What would you describe as a success for your venture?
TH: A great team: authentic, real, where there are no hidden agendas. It is important to take it slow, test the market, and make things as simple as possible. The customer is the most important aspect of the business.
Follow RedFish at: @redfishSA
