'There is massive potential to tap into local online businesses'

Jul 07, 2015

On his visit to Uganda recently, Hellofood Africa founder and CEO, Joe Falter revealed the massive investment potential that lies in online businesses.


By Michael Kanaabi

On his visit to Uganda recently, Hellofood Africa founder and CEO, Joe Falter revealed the massive investment potential that lies in online businesses.


Hellofood, an online food delivery service, has a presence in over 11 African countries and 15 cities.

According to Falter, any internet business with a smart business and execution plan will prosper in the Ugandan market whose potential lies in some 8.5 million users estimated to be accessing the internet.

A 2012 Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) report had placed the figure at 6 million internet users with a growth rate of about 15%-20% per year.

But to succeed, Falter emphasizes in an interview with New Vision, an internet business needs to scale its concept and go large scale.

In the context of Uganda, Falter speaks of an untapped daily market of food-eating people – with some one million eating food every day in Kampala alone.

He believes that if just 100,000 of that number started using their platform to order and purchase food, they would be doing so well and break even as a company. And looking at the numbers, there would still be plenty of room for other players to join the same market too.

Learning on the job
 


Hellofood Africa CEO Joe Falter (extreme right), country manager Ronnie Kawamara (extreme left) pose for a photo with their delivery staff


Keep in mind the significance of having efficient data collection and management systems.

“I have over 10 consultants employed in the area of collecting, arranging and analyzing data in the areas of orders placed, sales made and costs, among other key performance indicators, on a daily basis to filter through all this information and pass on the key numbers for decision making,” explains the investor who quit his job as a management consultant for in London to come to Africa to deliver food.

His company is already processing and delivering over 1000 food orders every week and is growing at 20% in terms of its order book on a monthly basis – all of which are good business indicators.

Being a totally new business venturing in previously unchartered waters, Falter points out that they have had to learn on the job through their own mistakes, which is very costly at times, but they do pick up fast and move forward. 

Internet startups around the world have been known to collapse at the slightest turbulence of the global financial markets, something that has left most of them branded high-risk businesses for various stakeholders including consumers, investors and suppliers especially after the 2000-2001 dot.com bubble.

But Falter believes that with a solid business model and a product that is adding value or creating new value in a particular sector like his, there is little need to worry as failure often results from poorly-planned product duplication.

Bottom line

He says: “To survive in the very open, dynamic and competitive online business world you first of all need to take time to refine your business model so that you can be able to scale (expand) in a uniform way while making sure your team understands your vision and goals 100 per cent because the real money is in the mass numbers; not targeting small groups.

“And as a leader at a personal level, to stay on top of things, you need to be able to clearly define, stand for and push your greater mission while being able to understand the nitty-gritty tiny details of your business model continuously making it easy to use and viable.”

Looking ahead

With increased access to internet and web enabled mobile devices, Falter’s Hellofood Africa business and other internet business can only look forward to growth and better days.

This is because, for example, in his case besides being able to place a food order through their website for any of the 100-plus restaurants they have on board around Kampala, you can also download their Hellofood application on your android or iPhone operating system phone and place your food orders through their apps.

Plans are under way to expand his company to cover more countries and cities across Africa over the next five years. 

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