When Uju Uzo-Ojinnaka, CEO and founder of Traders of Africa (TOFA), was informed about the need for groundnuts in India by her friend in Ghana, she had no idea that her online trading platform would stem from this demand. She discovered that there was no platform to locate groundnut producers, resulting in the loss of the deal.

She woke up in the middle of the night, puzzled. She shouldn’t let this opportunity slip by. Having studied Jack Ma and being able to relate to his frustration of not seeing Chinese beer online, she decided to create TOFA that very evening. This way, she reasoned, Africans will have access to more than just Nigerian peanuts. 

Today, the platform includes food, beverages, apparel, houseware, furniture, beauty and personal care products, packaging and supplies, minerals as well as agricultural supplies and produce. TOFA allows you to search for products and to see their availability anywhere in Africa.

A Pan-African platform

Uzo-Ojinnaka’s aim was to create an online marketplace for products grown, produced and manufactured in Africa and to facilitate trade with and within the continent.

One of the reasons this hasn’t been happening is detailed on the UN Africa Renewal website: “African countries are grappling to undo a legacy dominated by trade with their former colonial rulers rather than with each other.”

This is further unpacked in an article on the same website explaining how to boost trade within Africa. She says that within a month, she launched her platform in five African countries. By September 2017, she had connected with 9,000 suppliers. 

Building trust

But there was a hiccup. Although people were on TOFA, trade was not happening mostly because of distrust. Buyers and sellers didn’t trust each other, and nobody was willing to make the first move. 

This is not surprising. Emeka Ajene, the co-founder of Gozem, defines African markets as low-trust environments and stresses the importance of character, reputation and integrity. 

“It’s easier for someone who is selling something online for $1 because you can risk losing that. But nobody is going to risk losing $20,000,” explains Uzo-Ojinnaka.   

“What we did then was to create an offline part of the platform, which is accessible to buyers and sellers. Through this, we were able to facilitate the building of trust between them.”

It extends to company culture

She adds, “I need to settle my home first, and I tell my staff the same thing. Before they come to work, they must settle their homes first. If their home is not settled, there’s nothing they can do at work. 

“I want TOFA to be so successful that it outgrows me and to the point that I can’t handle it anymore. If, when that point comes that I have to leave and I’ve sacrificed my family, where will I go?” 

And according to Sarah Rice, Chief People Officer at Skynamo, culture isn’t just a set of values. It’s a set of behaviours linked to values. 

Six tricks of the trade

The TOFA founder eagerly shares a few of her biggest lessons but admits that being an entrepreneur means that you will always be a student: 

1. What works today may not work tomorrow
2. Never give up
3. Don’t waste any time. Just start. Now
4. You will always need to pivot and re-strategise, and
5. It is not going to be easy. 

Uzo-Ojinnaka concludes, “I realised that having a dream is not enough. The difficult part is getting people who already have their own dreams to buy into yours. That is what makes companies succeed. The dream is yours and nobody can interpret it better than you.” 

Inc