A business guide for the shops that keep Africa running.
Most businesses in Kenya are one person and a counter: a duka, a salon, a mama mboga, a boda rider. They run on a phone, M-Pesa and memory. The tools that big companies take for granted — stock control, customer records, promotions, a view of the money — were never built for them.
Afriboosta is that set of tools, in one app, built for a phone and a small shop. At its centre is Buddy: a guide who watches the shop's own records and says, in plain Swahili or English, what to do next. Order sugar before Friday. Chase the KSh 450 Otieno owes. Run a 2-for-1 on your quiet Tuesday.
It starts free. Buddy's help is paid by the day, in shillings, from credits you top up — and every week he shows what he added in profit and in hours, so you can see whether he is worth it.
Where we are
Afriboosta is being tested with shop owners in Nairobi and opens in Kenya first. Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda follow.
Who is behind it
Afriboosta was founded by David Leng, who has spent twenty years building mobile money and payments systems for banks and telcos across Africa and the Pacific. The company is Afriboosta Holdings Ltd, with a Kenyan operating company in Nairobi.