Blocstreets (Formerly Baselocal)

Hmmm for my bootstrap founders who have been following me, you’d know I’ve chatted about this before. For distribution in Africa’s informal markets, you do not need to convince 10,000 people. You need just 1 cluster.  Conquer 1 cluster first, move to the next cluster. By the time you get to the 4th cluster, the ripple effect has started. The first to second month in the first cluster will be trial and error, listening and feedback, balancing strategies that reflect and balance ROI, revenue, expenses, etc. The third month is the same thing but you are already getting a hang of the mathematics and their ways. By the end of the 4th month you’re balancing. You need 3 - 5 field agents to get this done.  Or you can just go the traditional route. Get a shop in the market. Hire 3 agents which one doubles as admin. Give them a target. Conquer there and move to the next market. And if you are that cracked, you can turn the shop to your own office that you open in the morning and close at night. Lead the team and be the admin/lead agent yourself.  There is a neobank we are currently distributing. This one is even very interesting because the founder was very specific about his target numbers in target days. His team is running feasibility studies to see if what they envision can move. They just need the real target users in the monthly GMV to test the app for that time frame.  I connected with 2 Phone store girls in Computer Village. One of them is a close acquaintance of mine. They pulled in 2 more of their friends who are also sales girls in big gadget stores. Just a small commission in getting bosses in their network to use the app. It’s like a side gig for them since it's just 3 months thing.  Distribution is very tough and costly yeah but know that it is a cluster conquering thing. Once you earn the trust of 2 to 5 clusters, they will continue the work for you. I think where founders are getting it wrong is in the misconception that distribution is a marketing function. I do not know about other continents in the world but I know that as far as Africa is concerned distribution is a social function. Our people don’t adopt something because they discovered it. They adopt it because someone they know has tried it and that’s reduced the risk of them trying it too. This is why distribution is harder in Africa. You’re not just earning attention, you’re earning trust.  Be sincere, the reason you as a digital savvy person started using OPay or moniepoint is because everybody is already using it. Yes or no? You reach there, Opay. You go there, Opay. Social function!   You do not have funding like OPay or Chowdeck. You’re just a lone struggling founder who got intrigued with an infrastructure solution from one corner in Ajah Badore. That funds you are looking to pour on an ad that won’t likely reach your target audience who are busy 9-7 in the market. Employ 5 smart talkers inside that Ajah market. Place them on salary and commission based performance. I usually tell founders on budget to base salary around minimum wage. This is Nigeria. You will find your people that will work with you at the cost you have. Gradually follow them through 1 cluster at a time.

Oh now it makes sense. I remember Kuda used to do this in their early days, you can’t complete a transaction without adding narration. Don’t know about now though. The constraint with narration for users is that our way of life and business culture here is constant movement. “Sharp! on the go, unto the next!”. So no one wants an extra tap or typing when they are trying to quickly send 5k to a POS woman.  So, for resource-constrained founders, I think here are a few almost no-cost ways you can get Nigerians to consistently add narrations without making payments feel slower Lucky draw entries: Nigerians love monetized competition. Let them know they stand a chance to win #500 cashback or airtime or voucher at the end of the month if they consistently add narrations. You need just one or 2 winners. Celebrate them publicly on the app. (Unrelated: watch them be the one referring people to use your app cause what you mean you posted me on your app?)  Simple badges or streak: If Nigerians know they can move up a ladder and earn titles. It triggers a “likely future reward” dopamine in their brains.  Public recognition: Ghost04 completed a 30 days of narration streak. Clear, direct, visible.  Unlock insights: After enough narrated transactions, show them things like; “Your transport cost increased by 18% this month”. “You spent 280k on inventory this month” It could be notification pop ups.  Help them accumulate points: “You earn 10 points today for adding narration” . These points could accumulate over a month and be exchanged for small rewards. “You earn an extra 10 free transfers”. “You earn #300 this month”. Etc.  Reward consistency and not necessarily every transaction. After like 5 -10 narrated transfers, airdrop airtime or 20 - 100MB of data. Apps already buy airtime at heavy-discount; the marginal cost is almost nothing but Nigerians see it as sweet free money.  Micro Cashback. You can automatically credit #10 - #30 to wallet or next bill payment for hitting weekly narration targets. Fund it from a tiny slice of the lending/fee revenue the richer data generates. Users will feel the money and the app recoups many times over. Once you’ve unlocked lending or other financial products, this can easily pay for itself. For businesses, you have to make narrations work for them. Instead of a blank text field, let them quickly choose things like Restock, customer payment, Salary, etc. A repeated narration to the same account can be customised. Pepsi supplier, etc.  That said, apps like chipper cash do some advance prompts that work “Is this for rent?” or categorizing transfers.  Some of these ideas only make sense after you’ve earned financial attention. I’m still curious what other low-cost ideas founders can steal to enforce narration habits and will share them as I focus on that angle more in the coming days.

As we continue expanding our network across Nigeria, we’re onboarding additional Field Agents. If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to work at the intersection of technology, growth and on-ground distribution, this might be for you.

It's been a long week of calls with founders across fintech, healthcare, commerce and SaaS discussion on ground distribution with us @blocstreets. One thing kept coming up. Most of them think distribution means hiring agents and sending them out into the field. Not quite. Distribution is very relative. Before deploying a single agent, we first try to understand existing user behaviour, where trust already exists and how decisions are made within that market. 📍 A merchant payment startup may need trade associations. 📍 A freelancer card product may need creator communities. 📍 A healthtech startup may need women groups and antenatal networks. 📍 A retail software company may need distributor relationships. The mistake founders make is assuming every product should be distributed the same way. Whereas, the job isn't to find people. The job is to find where trust already lives, then build distribution around it. The most valuable thing in African distribution isn't reach. It's trust. One year+ on the ground across Nigeria taught us this. Along the way, we've built relationships with association leaders, community gatekeepers and local decision-makers across different market clusters. Sitting in this image is one of the Iya Loja of Sabo Market in Ife, Osun State. On the right is the Babaloja of Panseke Market, Abeokuta. One of my favourite parts is that on general campaign days, they often leave their shops and sit with us under the shed. That's when you realize that distribution isn't about foot traffic. It's about trust. And trust compounds.

Really appreciate all the conversations, partnership requests and inquiries coming in around on-ground distribution and field operations 💙 We’re currently going through messages and mentions one after the other as carefully as possible. If we haven’t gotten to yours yet, please be a little patient with us. Also to clarify for now: our current focus is mainly startups, digital products, platforms and tech-enabled businesses looking to solve growth, onboarding and local distribution challenges through field operations. A lot of exciting conversations already happening behind the scenes and we’re genuinely looking forward to building with many of you💙

That’s where we come in @blocstreets boss. We already have trained field sales agents on ground that we can deploy if you need a team immediately And if you also want your own internal agent network instead. We can help you hire, train and structure one around your company’s goals.

That huge funds you’ve budgeted for digital ads next month. Take 50% of it. Hire 10 smart talkers in highly concentrated areas. People that are popular and know their city roads like the back of their hands. Put them on salary and performance based commissions. If they don’t outperform your paid ads projected results by August, come and tell me “Yewande you are a liar!” I will delete my Twitter account for you and leave crypto.

Last week @baselocal_ we introduced our new cohort and street onboardees to 3 web3 wallets: Coinbase, MetaMask, and Onboard App Here is what their experience is like; 🧵

Hi @francescoswiss I run @baselocal_ where we take crypto products to the streets, introduce it to them, make them use it, get their feedbacks and follow up their onboarding process (as evident in the attached frames) I believe I’d be of immense and unique addition to the group via my community.