As South Africa enters the age of the app, much of what we've come to expect of traditional service delivery is being challenged. With apps such as Uber - a US-based company connecting passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire, recently launched in SA - we're seeing a new kind of efficiency made possible through the growing adoption of smartphone technology. Realising this, former University of Cape Town friends Roy Mathieu Borole and Simon Hartley launched WumWum, a nappy delivery service.
"I think the moment we knew we should expand on that idea was when we realised we knew nothing about children," laughs Borole. "Why focus on nappies when we could focus on everything?"
In keeping with the on-demand delivery idea but allowing for a greater array of options, they launched a beta version of an app they named WumDrop, which in September made its 1 000th delivery and was officially launched and made available in the App Store.
How it works
Similar to the Uber approach, the app primarily functions to connect users with a team of drivers operating their own vehicles. Once a user requests a courier, the drivers will receive a trip request. The first driver to accept the job will proceed to the user's location with the requested item for delivery, sending a notification once they've arrived. The user is billed R7 per kilometre, with a minimum fare of R35, of which 80% goes to the driver and the rest to WumDrop.
"We're not proposing anything new," says Borole. "We're just saying a lot of people have cars and downtime, so why not create an employment opportunity for deliveries?"
"We invest a lot of time and energy in our drivers - they're the face of the company and the reason it'll be a success," he emphasises.
"The hardest part of hiring is the quick screening of people. We create little hurdles such as getting the applicant to send a meeting appointment on Google to ensure they have a basic grasp of technology. If they're able to handle this and are remotely sociable, they've got the capacity to work for us."
WumDrop drivers, currently numbered at 35, are immediately recognisable by their custom red-and-white striped uniform. Appearance is important to Borole, along with punctuality and behaviour in front of clients. "It's not rocket science, just the basics of customer service."
For Borole, the likelihood of such an idea being adopted is all about timing. "If you'd come up with this concept in South Africa two years ago, no one would have understood or been willing to use an app on their phone to order something . But today, people's ability to understand the technology is infinitely higher than it's ever been."
An unspoken force
Borole attributes this greater adoption to what he describes 'the unspoken force of mobile technology', driven by mobile networks in the business of pushing data usage. It's this force that Borole believes will, in the long run, give mobile the edge over competing technologies, such as wearables.
"It's like vitamins versus an aspirin," he muses. "You might take vitamins when you don't need to, but aspirin you'll take because you need it. It's the same with having a phone." Having recently been named 'Best South African Android app of 2014' by MTN, WumDrop is set to move beyond its Cape Town perimeter and take on the rest of South Africa.
"We're hoping to be in Joburg by early November, in time for Christmas," says Borole.
Along with expanding the app's reach, the team also hopes to soon integrate with various e-commerce vendors and retail-on-demand services, the idea being to offer WumDrop as a delivery option at checkout.
We want to take the word WumDrop and make it almost a verb.
Roy Borole
"We want to take the word WumDrop and almost make it a verb. So when you, say, need to buy a gift for a girlfriend, or you've run out of booze, you can just, 'WumDrop it'," notes Borole. "It's about creating that top-of-mind domination, where no service can compete with you."
Borole believes the biggest drive behind WumDrop is a focus on 'making the world flat'.
"It's not about charging people a lot of money for delivery. It's about making sure your daily life is made easier by our existence.
"You want to be the aspirin. You have a problem? WumDrop is here to solve it quickly."
First published in the November 2014 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
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