mobical.me platform was established as a means to help entrepreneurs and SMEs create their own web presence in under an hour.
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With the growth of internet penetration in Africa, it is no surprise that all businesses are transforming digitally. For small business owners, however, it is not as easy, as they are sometimes unable to use the internet because of a lack of funds. Mobical.me, a platform that gives entrepreneurs and SME's an opportunity to create their own web presence in just under an hour was developed in 2013. The tool gives entrepreneurs the chance to sell products or services, plan events and run fundraising campaigns. SME's can share their activities via instant messages, email or SMS and on social media.
“As an entrepreneur myself, I know the challenges SMEs face, and know how beneficial it is to have a digital platform that is the face of your company, school or organisation – a tool that can actually help SMEs operate as a successful business without the corporate costs,” said Saadiq Mathews, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Mobical.me.
Mathews added that more South Africans are looking for alternative ways to make a living and are turning to entrepreneurship, which ties in with the Quarterly Labour Force Survey – QLFS Q1: 2017 recently released by Statistics South Africa. The report shows that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 27.7 percent quarter-to-quarter, with the number of people unemployed at 6.177 million.
“We also know that the South African internet user population passed the 20-million mark for the first time in 2016, reaching 21 million. This figure is expected to grow to at least 22.5 million in 2017,” said Mathews.
“With an expected 4 percent penetration of internet users, it goes without saying that if you are an entrepreneur your business should have a digital presence but few have time or the depth of understanding to manage multiple platforms such as a website and social media.”
The all-encompassing Mobical.me platform can be used to sell products and services, plan and manage events, run fundraising campaigns, and communicate with a database of your contacts and the wider Mobi community via email, SMS or using the Mobical.me app.
“The development of the tool was very much a collaborative approach. We would introduce users to Mobical.me and then learn from them what their challenges were in terms of business operations. From this we go back to the drawing board with their feedback and create new features that we knew our users would use,” says Mathews.
The development of the platform was started by founder Thabiet Davids in 2013 as Mobical BETA and was launched as a mobile calendar for arranging and managing events both large and small. Today, the mobical.me has over 5,000 individual users, with a loaded database of over 100,000 contacts, which continues to grow.
Edited by Fundisiwe Maseko
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