Stanley Njenga left a well paying job at Hellofood, a Rocket Internet, MTN and Millicom backed online food ordering and delivery firm to start his own venture because he needed to be his own boss.
He denies being in the company’s bad books and says he left because he did not see if he was expressing his full potential there. Now Njenga is building a startup that aims to disrupt the local hospitality industry.
“Being the 1st employee and heading operations, I realized I could be doing the same on the various ideas I had instead of developing others. I also did not see if I was expressing my full potential there. I needed to be my own boss, thats why I had to leave Rocket,” Njenga tells TechMoran.
His new venture, called Two4one, is a deals platform for hotels, clubs, restaurants and flights and also has a loyalty program for local banks.
“Two4one is a revolution in the hospitality industry that is aimed to expose all the deals, discounts and giveaways from our hotels, clubs, restaurants and Flights. We aim to introduce Loyalty program in partnership with local banks by use of Prepaid Loyalty Visa cards,” he says.
So far the firm Njenga says the firm’s traction has grown emensely to his suprise with a card subsricption of over 4,500 people and over 10,000 follows on social media in just its 6 months of operation. Two4One has signed up over 500 Clubs, 1,000 Restaurants, over 220,000 Hotels across the grobe and all international and regeonal flights on the site.
According to Njenga, the number keeps growing daily with many establishments requesting to be listed and joining the loyalty program. Currently Two4One makes money from listing clubs and restaurants, and as well earns commisions from hotels and travel agencies via its hotel and flight booking platform. Njenga says he also does direct marketing for various packages from tour companies and other products.
Ringier’s Rupu.co.ke and local restaurant guide EatOut are the close competitors but Two4One’s model is slightly different as it provides individual establishments a platform to update their profile, has loyalty programs not only for hotels and restaurants, has deals and offers and also is headed towards being a one stop shop for all hospitality industry.
With a team of three, the startup is not in a hurry to launch everywhere but Njenga says he has plans to expand it into the entire East Africa region and he recently visited Rwanda to study the market. He is also seeking financing to help sign up more customers and expand regionally. He says he has already signed up for a profile on Angel.co and VC4Africa so as his company can be easily found by investors.
Njenga who doubles as a farmer, also runs other startups-one a property listing site and another, a car hire and sales site. His biggest challenges have been finances especially on loyalty cards for customers as producing them is so costly. He has also contacted a Nairobi-based seed fund to look at his model and maybe invest. In the meantime, Njenga is setting up affiliate accounts for several partners as an additional revenue stream apart from charging for listings and promoting them on social media.
