In 2020 Mike Otieno together with his two friends decided to start Wowzi, a company to help content creators to build a following and make money creating content.
The company connects creators with brands, enabling them to reach customers in an authentic way through content creators.
“Wowzi is a platform that connects influencers and social media creators with brands. We train young people on how to grow a following (on social media), build a brand and how to monetize their following,” Mike, Wowzi’s president says.
How They Came Up With The Idea
Asked about how he came up with the idea for his company, Mike pointed out to the shift in marketing landscape and the fact that many people spent a lot of time on social media as opposed to traditional media like newspapers, TV, radio and other channels.
Having understood the shift in marketing, Mike realized that the future of marketing is content marketing and therefore went all in to build and bring together advertisers and content creators.
“A lot of marketing is still happening in traditional media but the audience is shifting. A lot of people are spending most of their time on phones as opposed to traditional media. That is a shift I saw and I knew there will be a need for a platform such as Wowzi that will streamline the process of working with influencers,” Mike says.
Currently, Wowzi has more that 200,000 creators across 23 countries in Africa. With Wowzi, Mike says creators do not need to be well-connected to make money, instead they focus on creating content and let Wowzi bring brands to them.
The company also gives creators a starter kit, which has all the tools or equipment that creators need to start their content creation journey.
Source of Capital
Mike and his friends pooled their savings to start the company and bootstrapped all the way until they had a minimum viable product (MVP). Eventually, they attracted investors who believed in their vision.
“We came together and put a bit of our savings and started building the company and overtime we gained traction and eventually attracted investors when we had a minimum viable product and got customers to use the platform,” Mike recalls.
READ: 5 Mistakes That Start-up Founders Make During The Early Days
Mike says that investors play a crucial role in building innovative products because they help to de-risk the venture and to test the product before scaling the company. He is bullish that Kenya is a hotcake when it comes to investments as many venture capitalists prefer Kenya to other African countries.
Serving Customers
When it comes to serving customers, Wowzi president says that understanding the customer’s needs is the most important aspect in the company especially now that they are serving customers from every corner of the world.
“It’s important to understand your customers. We are trying to reach customers in a very fragmented world and we are working with them. We started with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and now we are dealing with big brands,” he says.
Marketing The Company
On marketing, Wowzi boss says that they use their platform to market themselves as well. But more importantly they host events, do masterclasses and online workshops to educate their customers (creators) on how to join and use their platform, engage with them and eventually they will become customers.
Just like Wowzi, Mike says that digital technology is the future and therefore aspiring entrepreneurs should look for ways to tap into it to build companies and solve customer’s problems.
“We are living in a digital world and there are plenty of opportunities because you can sell to anyone in the world,” Mike concludes.
