Johannesburg - Lebeko Mphelo, founder of payment solutions company Whoosh Innovations, is one of the eight beneficiaries of the MultiChoice Innovation Fund.
His entrepreneurship skills have always been with him as he grew up selling something or other to make some money.
“There was always that yearning to really participate in the entrepreneurial journey.
“I worked in corporate and I left after an opportunity to have a stake in a farming business somewhere else.”
This was after doing several projects for other people, including launching the Tshwane WifiTV and helping a Portuguese company set up in South Africa.
It was at a friends party in 2013 that took place in a remote venue that he got the idea for Whoosh.
“When we had to pay in cash, that meant driving all the way to the ATM and coming back to pay.
“I asked why we couldn’t have card readers to swipe and he said his events were mobile and that required card readers that could do the same.”
As someone who is always searching for solutions, Mphelo made it a point to figure out how to make mobile payments work better.
“This is where we started on our own journey. It took so long to raise funds that companies like Zip Zap and Yoco were already establishing.
“We went back to the drawing board and pivoted towards us being a payment platform or detour,” he said.
Whoosh is a payment solutions company primarily hosting a Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant payment gateway.
The company facilitates online transactions for merchants selling products over web portals and mobile applications.
“Our clients come to us. For instance, if I have an online shop and need to do payments, we integrate our solutions in the background and when somebody pays they are paying through us.”
The name Whoosh came from Mphelo wanting an easy name for people to recognise.
“It was a name that resonated with a common action. We were pleasantly surprised to find it actually had a dictionary definition.
“Our dream is to one day have our company name be in the vocabulary like “I googled it”, have people say ‘I whooshed this’.”
Mphelo’s role as chief executive and head of product development is complemented by Thabang Wessie as chief operations officer and head of business development.
Whoosh employs a team of 15, comprising developers, designers, account managers and commercial specialists. Whoosh applied for the MultiChoice Innovation Fund and were grateful when they received a call back.
“It really goes a long way when someone affirms what you are doing. The funds we received have helped us to stabilise our business and focus on our implementation for growth.
“Our goal is to be the ‘Joshua Doore’ of payments,” said Mphelo.
For Swypa Delivery, another beneficiary of the MultiChoice Innovation Fund, the support they received has allowed them to grow their company.
“We used to run three newspaper publications in Tembisa and Daveyton.
“What made us different was that it was youthful publication and we focused mainly on profiling businesses.
“We met different people in different industries.
“When the newspaper publications had to close down, we came up with the idea of food delivery,” said Thabang Kgopane, the managing director of Swypa Delivery.
The company is a service provider for township-based businesses, offering logistics solutions that assist with delivery of food, liquor, groceries, parcels and medicine and supply business support.
Established in Tembisa in 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic saw them growing their offering rapidly, to help safely deliver products such as food, masks and hand sanitiser.
Through their deliveries they service over 40 local businesses in the food, liquor, laundry, pharmaceutical, daily essentials and auto spares trade including a number of lifestyle and clothing brands.
“In these times of Covid-19 there are people who manufacture masks and we are able to deliver those types of things for them.
“Anything that is concise and can fit into our box.
“We have helped to grow the township economy and people are now more aware of each other and they can trade among themselves,” said Kgopane.
The Swypa app is still in its testing stages while they continue to use Business Whatsapp or direct phone lines for orders.
“We are launching the app next month.
“The reception has been amazing because when we started a delivery service, people were eager.
“We took a month to push it on Facebook and by the end of that month, we were overwhelmed to a point where we could not take some of the orders.
“Everyone wanted to test and try it out with us. Every month, we have been growing our numbers,” said Boitumelo Monageng, founder of Swypa Delivery.
The fund has helped them work their manual system better.
“We are getting more orders than we can handle because of the manual system we are using.
We needed things like a proper app, a proper call centre set up and more delivery bikes and they were able to help in that aspect.
“They were also able to help in terms of financial management and things like that,” he added.
The two manage a team of 20 and hope to grow the business into a free-to-use township business-focused delivery service for consumers, nationwide.
The Star