Category Posts: Startups

Zimbabwe’s daily deals startup dhiri.co.zw suspended sending out daily deals last Friday, apparently so they can ‘regroup’ and come back stronger. The startup sent out a tweet and a Facebook update on Friday advising it’s followers they were taking a short break that will last a couple of weeks.

If you are a FinX subscriber and you somehow didn’t get your usual email news updates this morning, you’re not alone. The service is having problems today. We just got notified this morning by the FinX managing director, Nyaradzai Chigwida, that the service is down and that the FinX team is working to restore things.

The February edition of Forbes Africa has a feature profiling the top 20 startups from the African continent. As expected, mobile played a dominant role with Mxit coming up tops as the most promising startup. In the truest sense of the word startup, Mxit might not qualify as it went through institutional investors and is more than seven years old. Definitions and valuations aside, the geographical origins of the startups profiled serves as yet another call to action for those of us in Zimbabwe.

Today, 1 February 2012, is the commencement date for the southern Africa region Apps4Africa Climate Challenge. The challenge will run for 2 months to end of the 30th of March and invites African innovators to develop innovative, web-based and mobile technology solutions to local climate change challenges. According to the Apps4Africa website the challenge centers around the strategic themes that were debated and decided upon by world leaders at the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) conference in South Africa last year. The challenge is sponsored by the US government.

Another exciting year in information technologies lies ahead with a lot of promise for the continued growth of the sector. Below, we provide our thoughts on what we think 2012 holds. It would be great to know what you the reader think in the comments.

With less than two days left before the close of the year, we thought we’d post a listing of all the top stories we covered this year. This has been our busiest year since.

Online music stores have been on the rise globally and continue to gain momentum. Selling music files on a per-song, albums and/or subscription basis at lower prices has become a phenomenon. Online music stores such as iTunes and Amazon MP3are now the biggest music retailers in the US, selling almost 25% of all music in the US. This represents opportunities for businesses in developing ICT markets like Zimbabwe and can help revive the countries’ music industries which have been on a downward spiral.

Yesterday, iZimbabwe, the new portal by Umuntu media announced the availability of a business directory platform on their website. Business directory means online classifieds in the mould of the Zimbabwe’s leader of online classifieds classifieds.co.zw.

It is 01 December 2011. D-day for Dhiri. The new startup promised two weeks ago they’d launch today. And launch they have, with their first daily deal sent to subscribers on email and SMS:

So, how do you currently call for a cab in Harare when you need one? Give the cab driver a call? An SMS? Does it cost you airtime every time to do this? Do you always get a response on time? If you have a smartphone, (or just a regular internet connection at a desktop) there’s a new service in town you might want to give a try. It’s called Tweet-A-Cab.

If you’re one to keep your ear on the ground about new local web based services you’ve probably already heard about dhiri.co.zw. You guessed right, it’s a local deal-of-the-day site offering discounts on products available at merchants. The site is by C2 Media, a local creative digital agency with offices in Harare, and in Australia.

Last week, Webdev opened its social network to the public. The name Social has been discarded in favour of a shorter and simpler sha.co.zw. SHA is short for the ‘Shamwari’, the Shona word for ‘friend’. There’s already some activity on the site, and I have received a few friend requests from some familiar faces.

This post is by Mukela co-founder, Tawanda Sibanda, was originally posted on Launching Tech Ventures. It contains Mukela’s experience selling their idea to Hotels locally. Some great advice in there for tech start-ups. Mukela won the the inaugural ZOL Start-up Challenge in September this year.

We came across a lively young lady after yesterday’s Breakfast Briefing on Cloud Computing. While the event was a success, this young lady touched on a few details that could make such events even better. The highlight of her feedback was that there were only four women in attendance at the event and that promoting a more balanced atmosphere is good for the sector.

Speaking to the many tech entrepreneurs we meet locally, they all tell you they prefer registering .com domains over .co.zw. It is way easier, cheaper and faster the argument goes. “Why do I need to wait a couple of days just to get a domain registered?” is the question that follows.