Present in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa, and several other countries, Afribaba wants to be Africa’s biggest classifieds site and help integrate the classifieds ads business into each African daily live.Jacques Temgo Guiffo the founder and CEO told TechMoran, “I launched Afribaba, because I was somehow disappointed that we did not have a solid classifieds ads business in Africa while it is something we can use in our daily live to better facilite the some services, buy and sell our neighbours second hands stuffs and more.”
Guiffo says he chose Afribaba as a name because of it’s a familiar African meaning in many african countries and secondly because it is very easy to remember. His main is to cover the full African countries regardless of their size or populations or internet connection.
Guiffo says he chose classifieds because it is one of the easier way to buy and sell locally and even provide one’s service locally with extra cost and he strongly believes it should be fully integrated into the African style of living.
Guiffo runs similar sites in Barcelona, London and in other countries and says with a little determination, some daily work, a little courage, a little motivation… Nothing is impossible in the life of a human being.” He’s encouraged to continue working everyday to make his dream a reality.
“I currently hold the Spanish citizenship but I am originally from Cameroon my beloved country. And I am actually the CTO of one of the fast growing and one of the oldest flight company in the web. Since I left my country of origin Cameroon, I have always wanted to do something to help my people and that the reason why I trying my best every day to get something that can truly and freely help my brothers and sisters all around the world,” he says.
Guiffo is still working on the right business model for Afribaba as well as push it to many users in Africa. The 100% free site is more mobile and tablet optimized to target Africa’s mobile generation. Afribaba’s value equation is to get the site 100% accessible from all corners of Africa even with the lowest internet connection possible.
Though he’s running Afribaba with his personal funds his future plans for the site is to make it the most visited website all around Africa and is not afraid of sites like Naspers’ OLX which is present in many African countries and Ringier’s PigiaMe, Kiramu in Kenya and Nigeria respectively and many others players such as TradeStable among others.
“I do personally think that, Africa is the future and we cannot say it is not ready yet, we will need to teach and show people to get into the right path because because is without any doubt the future,” says Guiffo. “I do not know yet but it is something I am thinking already as things are becoming more and more interesting in most African countries where more people discover the products and start massively using it.