BongoLive! is an SMS services provider based in Tanzania. Founded in 2010, it aims to help individuals and businesses use SMS as an efficient group messaging and marketing platform.
Founder Taha Jiwaji and I have been friends since the second grade. We happened to attend the same university for our undergraduate degrees, and created CampuSMS with Kenyan colleague John Mumo while in the US. Taha has been working tirelessly to end up back in Tanzania to add value in his hometown, so I asked him a few questions in hopes of sharing his entrepreneurial experience with others.
1. What is/are your long-term objective(s) for BongoLive?
I see Bongo Live! as a launching pad for an array of mobile and internet based services for the Tanzanian and greater East African market. I also would like to help foster a stronger technology and entrepreneurial community that educates members and the public about new technologies as well as nurtures start up companies in their early stages. We see successful models of this in other parts of Africa (Kenya, Ghana and South Africa).
2. What makes you think now is a good time for Bongo Live! to start working in Tanzania?
I feel that the mobile market in Tanzania is maturing after five years of rapid growth and consumers are looking for value added services for business and pleasure. This, coupled with the introduction of higher bandwidth and cheaper internet services, creates the right environment for Bongo Live to start its operations.
3. Will you be working with local mobile service providers like Tigo, Zain, and Vodacom? How so?
We will be working with all the mobile operators in Tanzania so that we can support all mobile users in Tanzania.
4. Does Bongo Live bring new opportunities to young entrepreneurs? How so?
Bongo Live! hopes to assist young entrepreneurs in two ways: First, by providing enabling technologies, and second, by offering internships and mentoring. In the future we hope to release an API (Application Programming Interface) to access our systems so that young technology entrepreneurs can leverage those to build their own applications. We also aim to provide short term internship opportunities to allow young entrepreneurs to gain some valuable work experience as well as get a feel of what it takes to manage and run a start up.
5. If there was one thing you would change about the current mobile industry in Tanzania, what would it be?
The incumbent mobile operators in Tanzania are very cozily reaping heavy profits from mobile users. In order for companies to be able to use their gateways they firstly require you to disclose your entire business model, pricing etc which is a huge issue because entrepreneurs can’t ensure their intellectual property is secure. Secondly, they demand either very high volumes of bulk sms purchases or if you are charging the end consumer the revenue sharing will be ghastly favored towards them making any such services highly unprofitable.
Thanks for the time, Taha. Feel free to comment and question further below, and be sure to watch out for Taha’s posts on technological development right here on Vijana FM. He can also be reached on taha (at) vijana (dot) fm, or by visiting http://bongo-live.com/
Excellent initiative Taha and team. Quick question:
I am personally annoyed with spam mail/sms. How will your initiative make sure its clients (companies/entreprises) do not use subscriber’s details for sending a flood of regular updates/spam?
i like this, and i like the concept…we should think of doing something like this but visually, kama ku-record video ya mahojiano, ingetoka poa sana, if we could actually see Taha answering those questions..but good concept, i like this…
@Bahati no doubt; would be neat to have more interviews that are over audio and visual mediums as well.
@mdau – Thank you for asking the question as it is very important. Our marketing system is targeted in that you only receive ads about things you are interested in. Secondly you can opt-in and opt-out at anytime on the website.
As far as clients sending excess messages to their subscribers. We firstly advise them that this is usually unappealing to subscribers. Second subscribers can opt out by replying to messages and lastly we monitor our traffic so that we can act on clients sending spam.
I hope that answers your questions. If not please feel free to send me an email.
@bahati – We can look into doing audio interviews as a start. Check out http://www.mixergy.com (this guy has mastered it).