Somalia’s ‘touch and feel’ e-commerce hit

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

When Saed Mohamed, a young entrepreneur from Somalia, pitched his online shopping business Muraadso as part of an East African start-up competition in 2015, he was prepared for rejection.

And rejection is what he got.

Abdigani Diriye, head of the Somalia-based accelerator, Innovate Ventures, which oversaw the competition, was not impressed.

“We had a few applications from e-commerce start-ups and they just weren’t really doing it for me,” he told the BBC.

But Mr Mohamed and his team were not about to give up.

“We have had a lot of rejections and we have learned to be persistent. We wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he says.

They did eventually get on the programme and ended up winning it.

“The irony is they went on to become the most successful start-up we took on,” joked Mr Diriye.

But the business they were pitching – a online store selling mainly electronics – “failed miserably” at first, admits Mr Mohamed.

Photo courtesy of AMISOM Public Information.

Source: BBC (link opens in a new window)

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