Founded by two software engineers and two computer engineers Nelson Malekela, Grayson Julius, Ilakoze Jumanne and Jackson Twalip, African Fashion a mobile platform for local African fashion designers to promote and advertise their designs to local and international market, and for African fashion lovers a platform to share, learn and explore the true beauty of African Culture.
Julius tells TechMoran that though they haven’t haven’t launched yet, they have a minimum viable product in Google play store.
“Our inspiration was when we saw our sisters who were eager to embrace the African Fashion and were struggling to get designs online so we built African Fashion App to help our sisters and all fashion lovers but mostly to give a our local fashion designer a platform to be recognised for what they do to a wider audience both local and internationally,” Julius says.
Here is the Q&A we had with him.
What are your milestones?
By December 2015 we target to have a complete product tested with at least 100 Fashion designers.We are starting with Dar Es Salaam,Tanzania then expand to Nairobi and Kampala,then the rest of East Africa by the end of 2016 which according to our research there are more than 50,000 Fashion designers . Currently our platform its only in Android, we have plans to develop for iOS and web.
What challenges have you faced and how did you tackle them?
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First and for most is daily operational costs in developing our product, some time we have to take side gigs in order to get something for paying bills and meals.
What else are you working on?
We are share holders in another startup known as Guumzo,and currently we are giving back to the community by training android development to the internees at Buni Hub.
Who is your competition in your amrket?
There are different mobile platform who are promoting African Fashion i.e. Nigerian Wedding Asoebi and Latest Fashion Styles Africa app these are our direct competitors among other advantages over them, we deal directly with local African fashion designers who the world forgot about and we have a way better user experience and interface design moreover most of the fashion platforms in Africa are based in west Africa fashion but with our platform we cover the whole of Africa.
How much have you raised so far, how much do you need to grow?
We haven’t raised so far, we are looking for a strategic partner and raising 80,000 USD at which 30% will be dedicated in marketing and customer acquisition and 40% for daily operations and the rest for product development.
