Done Deal, Uganda’s Daily Deals Site Raising Funds to Expand Regionally

“Yes. Done Deal, together with a few more ventures are currently setting the foundation for the e-commerce sector in Uganda. It’s hard work, but I believe the timing is perfect,” she told TechMoran. “When I came to Uganda 1.5 years ago there were very few online ventures, and mainly local ones. But the last since then a number of ventures has efficiently taken place in the space and a number of general e-tail platforms started to pop up.”

At the moment, Done Deal has one or two competitors in the market but with much broader focus and less attractive offers. Done Deal uniqueness lies in the fact that it hand picks its merchants based on requests from its users. It also aims to further build long-term relationships with the merchants and guide them in the process of generating more customers.

On why there are few Internet success stories in the region, Iliana says her experience from working as a start-up coach with an office at Makerere University’s IT college taught her something.

“I saw so many good ideas and innovations go to waste because of one simple reason – lack of business skills in the start-up teams. Tech start-ups here tend to have a core team of great developers, but no business people. They can spend months on developing a product but not even one day on doing a market survey beforehand. I believe this is one factor that holds back the sector in the region,” said Iliana and added, “Another one is the investor focus on social enterprises and innovations that limits the opportunities for other ventures. Personally I believe the number one social impact you can and should strive for in this region is job creation. And as far as innovations goes I don’t see why everyone has to reinvent the wheal, innovations are high-risk. Our business model is already proven in a number of markets, more attention and investment should be channeled for proven business models in a market this virgin.”