Why we’re building Jago

We’re building DEMAA, a venture studio. Jago is one of the ventures we’re developing, drawing on our experience with African products.

The first venture that really brought us face to face with the challenges of bringing African products to market was Madame Karité, a shea butter brand.

We thought the hardest part would be the brand and packaging. In practice, everything around the product took the most time: finding the right suppliers, managing quality and transport, and finding buyers.

I then spent a year in Mali. We launched a range of frozen vegetables, cut and ready to cook. We had secured listings with two retailers when the energy crisis hit. Power cuts meant we could no longer reliably maintain the cold chain. For frozen food, that was a fundamental obstacle, and the venture stopped there.

The product was good and we had places to sell it. But just one link in the chain failing can bring everything else to a halt.

We later launched an herbal tea brand, still running today, with some production and packaging done locally. Once again, we had many things to manage at the same time: suppliers, packaging, machinery, quality, transport and buyers.

Each problem can be solved on its own. When you launch a brand, though, you often have to solve them all at once.

These experiences changed how we thought about the problem.

We began asking how we could make this chain easier for shops looking for African products in bulk, and for the suppliers who want to sell them.

That’s where Jago began.

Today, Jago starts with requests from shops, grocers, resellers and online retailers looking for African products in bulk. We gather their requirements, then look for suitable products within our supplier network.

Jago manages the relationship between customer and supplier, with agreed prices and support from the initial request through to the order.

What we want to test is whether this support makes sourcing easy enough for customers to come back when they need something else.

The business model still needs to be validated. Our starting hypothesis is a subscription for sellers or suppliers. We’re taking the time to find the right pricing and terms, informed by requests and our first conversations.

After several ventures where we had to manage much of this chain ourselves, we want to make that work easier for others. That’s what we’re building with Jago.