Bizfundi is a business information website that started running at the tail-end of 2017. It recently released an Android app version of the site.
The Bizfundi platform currently has more than 3,000 registered users, who access its content from both the app and the site. The platform curates useful, relevant, and up-to-date information on the economic dynamics in Tanzania.
As a startup itself, Bizfundi was incubated by the Enabling Growth through Investment and Enterprise (ENGINE) program; funded by USAID. Other than just hosting useful business information, the platform also serves as a link between various businesses.
For instance, it can introduce retailers to wholesalers, and all of them to distributors. It essentially provides a networking platform that can push up the hustle of small business owners just starting out in the industry.
How Bizfundi works
Bizfundi is a searchable directory for business advisors in Tanzania. Advisors that are trained by the USAID ENGINE program, which allows startup founders to make informed business decisions within the Tanzanian economic system. The founders can also quickly get access to information on who is selling what in whichever part of the country.
“Initial user testing showed there was also an interest in users also being able to do B2B searches, so we added that in as the next feature. Over time, we have opportunistically added additional services that would be useful for small business users and give them more reasons to come back to the site,” said Scott Bennett, the technical director of private sector development at ENGINE.
Bennett was addressing a section of the media, and added: “These include a Tanzanian business news feed, a podcast player with curated content, a searchable directory of online training courses, an online marketplace, video tutorials for using various features, users dashboards, small business loan facilitation, and a searchable directory of bank and MFI branches.”
Bennett admitted that while the pay business advisory market in Tanzania is so small, many small business owners, especially those just starting out, are yet to know about the availability of the service. It is, therefore, safe to argue that an entrepreneur would be willing to pay a small amount to be informed on something that will prevent him from making a decision leading to losses.