Just about a month, my editor told me about an invitation to a football match at the National Stadium Surulere in Lagos. A part of me was surprised at how it appeared things are downward spiral motion career-wise a tech writer is being invited to a football match. Luckily enough, I asked who invited me to the event and I was told it was Efritin.com, a platform that sells used goods.
“Lord, is this a sign, are you trying to tell me something?”
Few months earlier, I was at the company’s sprawling office at the heart of Lagos where I had a sit-down no holds barred chat with its Managing Director, Zakaria Hersi, who has now left the company. But back to the football match invitation, I was told it was one of the events to mark the first anniversary of Efritin.
During one of the events, the company also introduced its new Managing Director, Gbenro Dara.
In his speech at the event, the Chief Operations Officer of the parent company, Saltside Technologies, Zubair Riaz, acknowledged how far Efritin.com has come since that first decision to start it. It has met with challenges, like every start up would but has also found ways to deal with them. He also reiterated that the Swedish owned company has in line with its mission and in the weeks and months after its launch in 2015 continued to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to growing and developing the online marketplace in Nigeria. “By our unique approach to securing and ingraining trust in the online marketplace in Nigeria, we have bolstered the standard of excellence in the market and users now realise their rights to safety, the reason why many consider Efritin.com to be their safest choice”, he said.
Beyond the PR frenzy, I got curious about the prospect of changing the company’s MD about one year after it began operations. Even though I heard the former MD’s departure was amicable and based on personal reasons, it still didn’t feel right bringing an entirely new person on board. So I sought to interview Dara on his plans, objectives and aspirations for the company.
Dara, by the way, used to be with Autogenius before joining Efritin. So I started by asking him what made him jump ship from Autogenius to Efritin. In response, he said he didn’t really jump ship since he co-founded Autogenius. According to him, the best way to describe his engagement with Efritin would be that he has taken up new responsibilities and challenges.
“With immense potential for growth and recent achievements, it is the company of both now and the future. When you see a brand that is as good and strong with such potential, you want to be a part of it,” he said.
He said he envisions Efritin as a leading online market place in under-served markets.
“Our vision is to be the leader in Nigeria and we have no doubts, sooner than later we will achieve this,” he said.
Even though he said he will continue to align his plans with that of the parent company, he hinted he would be reluctant in introducing some new stuffs that will be tilted towards solving the problems that sellers and buyers face daily in the marketplace.
“However, my immediate focus will be to firm up internal processes for optimal performance of these products and the achievement of our stakeholders’ objectives,” he quickly added.
The company has already started its second-year journey so when I asked him what to expect in the second year, he chose his words carefully.
“There is definitely a lot to look forward to and I am not saying this because I am the MD. Unfortunately, I cannot let the cat out of the bag just yet. But one thing I can tell you categorically is that this coming year, we are very much committed to building on the successes of the first year and deepening on our focus on achieving our mission to build leading online marketplace sooner than later. So just be on the look-out.”
The rest of us can only fold our hands and await the time when they will finally release the cat so we can have an idea of how the future of the company would look like. What I can only say affirmatively is that if the company continues with the former MD’s passion for the company and are not afraid to be innovative and disruptive, they can have a competitive edge in an already choked up space.
