AfriOn for
Entrepreneurs
Register now to use AfriOn from any web browser, or use the links below to download the mobile application.
As an entrepreneur, why should I use AfriOn?
The highest percentage of entrepreneurs among adults of any continent in the world is in Africa – TEF Report. Africa is also host to some of the highest GDP annual growth rates – World Band & OECD. You’re already aware of this, I’m pointing it out because albeit the tremendous progress made in recent times, launching commercial enterprises in Africa remains a herculean task. Roadblocks are seemingly at every corner. The sweat, blood, and tears you’re willing to provide matter little if you don’t get and remain lucky throughout your journey. Say you already have your idea and plan for an exciting new business, the entrepreneurship services infrastructure is virtually non-existent to enable your project to succeed in Africa. This is not a level playing field when we look at the support entrepreneurs receive elsewhere in places like the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Your 1st Challenge – Meeting investors
Capital limitations are everywhere. Banks, who usually lend to entrepreneurs elsewhere around the globe, will likely turn you down. Those lucky can turn to family for support. But even then, Personal connections aren’t scalable as your dreams and business footprint grow bigger. For those less lucky, the options are either to keep looking endlessly or to postpone their project financing until better times arrive, as there’s nowhere else to find funding.
Your 2nd challenge – Building a team
Key people can’t be found. Entrepreneurs usually network online or at events to find key individuals for their organisations, whether they need a cofounder, board member, or director. However, for those with projects in Africa, finding a cofounder is like looking for a needle in a haystack while wearing blindfolds. Again, the standard solution is to turn to friends and family; but, should that not work out, you’re stuck carrying all the responsibility alone.
Your 3rd challenge – Getting advice
Without sound advice, crucial decisions are left to guesswork. Usually, behind every successful businessperson is a legion of mentors, who share their experience and advise you on the right calls. For the African entrepreneur, this role is usually left empty or assigned maybe to a relative with a successful career which isn’t enough. Certainly, lots of general advice is available online, but that does you little considering the unique context of your market.
There must be a better way to resolve the funding, mentoring, and hiring issues you face. Here’s where AfriOn comes in. Regardless of where you’re based, AfriOn helps you find these critical contacts for your African project and make a great first impression, the rest is then up to you.
How is AfriOn different?
While we do have competitors, none of them is as serious about their vocation. Some make you go through a month-long account validation process; whereas others claim to help you meet the right people in all African countries, but only in one or two in reality; many are only in it to collect your email and personal data so they may market you stuff. With AfriOn, you can start making worthwhile contacts within minutes of creating your account.
A majority of competitors do have a digital database, but some limit your access behind numerous paywalls, and virtually all of these platforms have either a complicated or limited interface, making you want to log out as soon as you eventually log in. While there are some performant entrepreneurship-networking applications out there, they generally cater more to European and American projects, at the expense of African ones, so using them is like asking the mechanic for medicine.
Save yourself the hassle of using slow, offline methods and mediocre-at-best, online software to search for your next investor, cofounder, and mentor. Cut through the noise and set up an AfriOn account today. Whomever your project needs, we’ll introduce them to you!
How it works
1. Open your Account
The first step is to register to use the application. You can do so either by downloading the Android or Apple mobile application or by using the Web application on any device with a screen and an internet connection. After verifying your email address (please check both your inbox and spam folders for the validation link email), you’ll be able to log in to the application. Congratulations! you are now the closest you’ve ever been to the contacts that have long escaped you.
2. Add professional details
Start by adding a personal summary, then provide your educational and career history (optional). You can also link all your professional social media accounts and website to show others how serious you are. Keep in mind that the more complete your personal information is, the more trustworthy you will appear to other users. We assign all AfriOn profiles a professionalism and completion score, which allows us to maintain a high-quality environment with fruitful interactions.
3. Create your Projects
On AfriOn, entrepreneurs, or project proposers, are requested to create a “proposition” type project involving a business plan section (used to pitch your business idea to collaborators who can help you). We’ll ask you to specify the business legal form, industry, country, and development stage. These parameters allow us to match you with the correct “collaboration” type projects (those projects made by contacts interested in working for, mentoring on, or funding your business).
4. Attach your goals
The goals can be funding, hiring, or mentoring goals. Each goal type will require certain details; for example, funding goals request the amount of capital needed, and its currency, delivery country, and transaction date. So, for example, if you’re in receiving investment for a project in country A, for business type B, under industry C, that’s in the development stage D, you’ll be matched with investors looking to fund opportunities with the criteria A+B+C+D.
5. Complete the business plan
AfriOn gives you the opportunity to present your idea in the way investors and other collaborators expect to see it, by providing a ready business plan template. We help you out with thorough explanations for everything, starting with the executive summary, to the target market brief, to the SWOT analysis, with file attachments possible to visually present your project. You can also keep most details private until you manually allow a contact access once you’ve had a chance to discuss with them.
6. Browse your Matches
After creating your project, you can start browsing the available matches for the goal(s) chosen. With our simple business card inspired display, reviewing the database for opportunities feels more like a breeze than a chore. Our smart algorithm will present you with the matches which correspond most to your needs, ranked from strong to weak in suitability. Matches is a two-way system, you’ll be able to see others’ collaboration projects, and they will be to see your proposition project(s).
7. Review the opportunities
You can either browse the results based on the match score generated for your criteria, or by applying your own filters, allowing unique and dynamic combinations for project type, industry, country, stage, and goal. Keep in mind that if you have multiple projects to propose, you can create more so the community knows about all the opportunities you’re pursuing. And don’t forget, you can bookmark, hide, and report the matches you see for a better browsing experience.
8. State your interest in a project
Once you like a collaborator’s project and would like to get in touch with them, it suffices to send a contact invitation with the option to add an introductory note. Once they accept the invitation, you’ll be able to contact them. For entrepreneurs who choose to keep their business plan content private, after you send or receive an invite, you will get a request per contact where you decide to give access to the full project details. Access is given manually per new contact.
9. Talk business with your Contacts
AfriOn provides you with a messaging centre to talk securely with your new contacts, and to save you the trouble of sharing your personal contact details. You can exchange texts, voice recordings, and files (with video and voice calls coming soon) to close the deal with your contacts. The messaging centre is a rolodex of all the people who’re interested in your business; it is light, quick, and encrypted end-to-end to eliminate the risk of information being lost, leaked, or copied.
10. We are but a click away
We appreciate all feedback, and need as much as you can provide so we create an improved solution. So remember to let us know your thoughts on how to improve AfriOn. And if at any stage you’d like our assistance, you can easily reach out to the AfriOn customer service team. We’re available 24/7 to offer you a better experience. You can send us a message through the helpdesk by clicking on the agent icon inside the main menu. Don’t be shy, we are all ears!
