SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Nigeria Based Referbox hits 52 on Waitlist. Student Founder Launching Paywall Next Month Targeting $1k MRR
14 Dec 2022
Chapter 1: What is Referbox and how does it aim to help businesses in Africa?
The easiest way to do that is to go to getlatka.com and use our filtering tool. It's like a big Excel sheet for all of these podcast interviews. Check it out right now at getlatka.com. Guys, referbox.app, he started coding it back earlier this year, 2022. They've got 52 on the wait list.
They're launching pricing here in one month, hoping to get a thousand bucks in MRR quickly by getting customers to pay 30 bucks a month. Their idea is to build on top of Flutterwave down in Africa, Nigeria, specifically this referbox app will enable you to get more referrals into your stores to sell more product.
They're working on building integration right now to Flutterwave, again, as they look to scale. Hey folks, my guest today is Damilare Olade. He is the founder of a company called Referbox App, which is a referral marketing tool for Africans.
Chapter 2: Who is Damilare Olade and what inspired him to start Referbox?
He's a software developer and launched this back when he was, he started his journey when he was 20 in terms of the startup world. His team won the top 10 teams awards at Africa Hacks Hackathon in his home country of Nigeria. And he's passionate about solving problems with code. All right, Damilare, are you ready to take us to the top?
Sure, let's go.
All right, so the website, well, what is the website? It's referbox.com?
Referbox.app. We couldn't get it.com domain. Yeah.
Chapter 3: What challenges do startups in Nigeria face when acquiring customers?
That's okay. Okay. Referbox.app. And talk to me about what your customers look like. Who are they? And give me an example of how they use you.
Yeah. So major customers are startups who want to use referral marketing as a leverage to acquire customers and also like grow their customer base. But we have a second market segment, which are small businesses. And I don't know if you want me to run you through how we started.
No, well, I mean, I'll ask all the questions. Tell us first, what's the average customer paying you per month right now?
So the funniest thing is that we're still in private beta. We just put out our private beta a few weeks ago. Incredibly, we have about 52 startups who are on our week list of private testing with three startups in Nigeria.
So you're pre-revenue right now. You haven't launched yet, but you have five zero, you have 50 startups on your way list. 52. Tell me how you got them on your way list. How'd you build it?
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Chapter 4: How did Referbox build its initial waitlist of customers?
So I just made a tweet that we just launched and I spoke about the problems current startups in Nigeria face when it comes to acquiring customers. You need to do ads, you need to do influencer marketing and all of this does not really guarantee you the type of customers you want. And referral marketing B, it's a platform where you need to do less to get more.
And with that, surprisingly, we're able to get about 52 people on that weekly. And these are businesses that have hundreds and even thousands of customers.
That's amazing. So when do you plan to launch your pricing, your paywall?
Yeah, we plan on launching in about a month because we have a start-up competition we are planning for in about a few weeks. So that's one of the things that's actually pushing things back.
So you're launching in one month?
Yes, in a month.
And how much money do you want to make in the first month?
In the first month, in terms of maybe $1,000. $1,000.
And how many customers would that be? How many people do you have to get to pay you to make a thousand bucks?
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Chapter 5: When is Referbox planning to launch its pricing model?
How many?
30 active. Yeah.
Okay. So you're going to charge like 30 bucks a month, something like that.
Yes. And the interesting part is big, big companies tend to pay more because then they have like bigger user base and like we require more API requests and all of that. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Did you build this yourself or do you have a co-founder?
Yes, I have a team. I have two co-founders.
How much equity did you give them?
Yeah, I don't know if I can say that.
You can say it. They're not listening.
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Chapter 6: What pricing strategy does Referbox plan to implement for its customers?
Okay, so you have 33%, they each have 33%, and you're off to the races.
Not that equal, but yes, somewhere in the balance. I'm the CEO. We don't have roles yet, but I'm the main guy in the team.
Yeah, fair enough. Are you guys bootstrapping or have you decided to raise capital?
Yeah, we're bootstrapping. We're bootstrapping because we have a roadmap we want to meet and we want to make sure we do what we really want and also grow at a steady pace.
Interesting. And obviously, if you're bootstrapping, that means you have to pay for rent and meals and all that right now. You don't have any revenue from the company. So how are you paying your bills?
Yeah, so I'm a student and I also work part-time building websites for brands and businesses. So I make money from that. My co-founders also work in different companies where they can use it to source for funds. But that's how we make money for that.
So when are you guys going to quit your full-time jobs and go all in on the company?
So the thing is, we're students and I'm in my third year. I'll be finishing next year.
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Chapter 7: How are the roles divided among the co-founders of Referbox?
So by then, I'm That's awesome.
When did you write the first line of code for Referbox?
It was February 22nd this year. And it was, it just came as an idea. And from there we are like, into what it is now.
Referbox.app. Very cool. So 52 on the wait list, launching in one month. You want to get 30 customers paying 30 bucks a month for your first thousand bucks in sales. Your bootstrap. Is there anyone else working on this besides the three founders?
No, no. Just the three of us.
Just the three of you. Okay. And how do you split the roles? Do you do all the engineering?
So my two co-founders are major engineers.
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Chapter 8: What are the future plans for Referbox in terms of expansion and features?
So I do front-end development, the UI, UX, and also I do the business side. And my two co-founders are like basic engineering, back-end stuff. So we split the roles since we're kind of building like a very technical product. So we're trying to focus more on the engineering part first.
That makes sense. And why is $30 a month the right price point? How did you come up with that?
So first, we did a research on existing platforms around the world. Obviously, there's none in Africa yet. So we did a research on GrowSolve, ReferralRock, and the rest. And we figured that that's like a good enough pricing amount. Yeah.
Okay, well, we'll see what happens. We're rooting for you. Anything you want to sneak in here before we wrap up with the famous five?
So there's something really different about Referbox that I really love to talk about is the fact that, so we started Referbox as a platform to help small businesses, acquire customers and all of that. And our major plan is to provide APIs and plugins. So allow these small businesses to integrate on platforms, like, for instance, Shopify, or there's a Nigerian platform called Flutterwave Store.
I've heard of them. So, for instance, there's a small business. In Flutterwave Store, you can create a referral marketing campaign, share it to your friends and your family, and they join. And we have a marketplace app for those people, so they can manage their rewards. If you're giving them coupon codes, you can manage it on the app. So, this is what other platforms are.
So, Damoleri, are you launched? Are you launched on the Flutterwave AppExchange already?
No, we are working on that because Flora is a big company and we are trying to take it step by step.
We're rooting for you. In the meantime, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite book?
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