Wits students start-up gathers momentum

Things are starting to gather momentum for three aspiring entrepreneurs from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).

Within four months of enlisting the help of Wits Commercial Enterprise, the trio has garnered the interest of an American consulting firm, Mutualism, and is working on securing funds for their beta programme with the vision to have their virtual mall app, WhatsOnSale, available to the public by November this year.

The app, aimed at the youth, will offer users the ability to engage with top brands on the latest retail specials and promotions.

It all began in March 2018 when Milaan Mashele and Emmanuel Mareme approached Jalome Chirwa with the idea.

Mashele is a Metallurgical Engineering Student at Wits, Mareme has a BSc Chemistry and a BSc Chemical Engineering from Wits and is currently studying towards his masters in entrepreneurship and new venture creation at WITS Business School, and Chirwa is an honours student in the field of Information Systems.

Mashele and Mareme came up with the idea to create a virtual mall where the specials and promotions of favourite brands could be profiled and accessed in one place.

They had conducted a survey on youth purchasing and brand loyalty, and noted participants were using several resources such as websites and blogs to keep up with specials and promotions from their favourite brands. Some would spend a lot of time wandering through stores and malls on the hunt for specials.

They wanted to make it easier for people to stay abreast of news, innovations, specials and promotions from favoured brands, while honouring brand loyalty. And so, their concept of a virtual mall for mobiles was born.

Chirwa explains that WhatsOnSale honours brand loyalty on three levels, namely brand, product and store level.

“We will offer users the ability to stay up to speed with promotions and sales from their best brands and retailers, the ability to find out about promotions relating to specific products, as well as the ability to locate the nearest stores offering specials on their preferred brands.

“WhatsOnSale will provide all of this functionality in one place. While keeping users in touch with their favourite brands, WhatsOnSale presents brands and retailers with a convenient and powerful platform for marketing sales and promotions to the very target audiences that love them.”

According to Chirwa, the team applied for the start-up incubation programme, eKasiLabs, at Wits’ Innovation Hub.

Through this programme, they were able to secure office space and other facilities at The Wits Tshimologong Precinct.

“Christel Wolmarans, the Innovation Support Manager at Wits Enterprise has assisted in our journey by helping us with our financial projections for our beta testing.

“We also received legal consultation on how to protect our product from copyright infringement and how we can also avoid any legal issues.

“Wits Enterprise, the Innovation Hub and the Wits Tshimologong Precinct have played a pivotal role in getting WhatsOnSale off the ground by connecting us with other like-minded entrepreneurs and funding institutions as well as through offering consulting services and providing us with a cohesive workspace.”

Wits Enterprise’s Innovation Support assists aspiring entrepreneurs and researchers on their research-to-products journey and helps bring to life new innovations for commercial or social benefit. 

The unit offers guidance throughout the innovation journey including fundraising, marketing, spinouts/incubation, negotiating commercial deals and intellectual property protection strategies

Chirwa concedes that funding has been, and remains, their biggest challenge.

“We are trying to secure funds for our beta programme. After failing to obtain funding from local institutions, we reached out to an American consulting firm, Mutualism, which has shown interest in investing in the project. We have a working MVP running on Android, iOS and Web.

“We are also currently accepting signups from brands and individuals on our website.

“Once beta testing is complete, we expect to have collected data on brand awareness amongst the youth and modify our platform accordingly to align with the interest of the users and have the bigger brands sign onto our platform.

“We expect to have the app publicly available by November 2020.”

WhatsOnSale will be free to download from the iOS and Android app stores and will accessible via www.whatsonsalesa.co.za.

Chirwa, Mashele and Mareme would like to see an average of 100 daily signups onto the platform in the next two to five years.

“That’s our goal,” he says, “We would also like to secure more strategic partnerships, specifically with major retail brands such as Edcon, retail stores such as Shoprite and brands such as Coca-Cola, Mofaya and many more.

“For now our focus is to secure the funds to get the beta programme wrapped up and start bringing more brands and retailers onboard.”

Any questions related to the WhatsOnSale platform can be directed to the following email: info@whatsonsalesa.co.za and anyone interested in taking part in the beta programme can sign up on the website at http://www.whatsonsalesa.co.za