Shamba

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Inspiration

Shamba is a good definition of an evolving idea. The idea came to my mind back in 2019 but at that time I called it Shamba Auto. I participated in a hackathon sponsored by Pwani innovation week. Initially, the idea was to build an IoT technology that monitored the pH and soil moisture on the farm. We won the hackathon and I was privileged to do my first historic pitching in the go blue event(JUBEIC) which took place in Malindi. Later through Liquid Telcom the company that had introduced us to the new technology we were incubated in Techbridge Incubation Center. At this point, my team and I were very green on everything that happened but excited about the new experience and a shift of how we saw entrepreneurship. After the incubation we pitched, however, we did not qualify top 3 however we made it to the finals. Another thing we noticed the initial starting capital was very high. After the program, I tried to bring the team together but most member seems to have given up on the idea. Only one team member showed up, in which I discussed with him on my idea of evolving the idea into something less capital-intensive. That's when I dropped the auto and rebranded back to shamba. Since the previous team was less cooperative I had to create another team. With the present team, I have been able to come up with an e-commerce platform that is still under improvement. Its is three years now and am glad I never gave up. The market research, I have done and the constant refactoring of the idea promises a great future for Shamba.

What it does

Shamba is a one-stop online shop platform where farmers or any person interested in farming can easily shop for all types of farm accessories or acquire any farm-related service at the touch of a button. Agriculture in Kenya accounts for 26% of the GDP with 40% of the population employed in this sector with 70% of the people living in rural areas. The high number of people involved in agriculture shows approximately the need for agricultural tools and services required to efficiently make farming possible. Shamba is geared at making these services easily available at the touch of a button at very affordable prices. Shamba platform services are subdivided into categories namely: Machinery and equipment, Crop production, Animal health, Agricultural waste, Pet supplies, Veterinary services, Farmland buying and leasing service, Pipe installation, and Shamba automation. Through the platform, the farmer is allowed to compare a variety of items in one place before deciding to purchase. The farmer is also able to easily hire agricultural professionals for a specific task thus saving time and money. Our main mission as Shamba is to centralize the market for inputs required to make farming possible in Kenya, therefore eliminating the intermediary who as result makes the above services expensive for farmers. We aim to directly link the producer of these products to farmers which will enable them to acquire them at very affordable prices. Shamba is also specialized in incorporating technology into a farm through the shamba automation service where a variety of equipment will be sold to encourage smart farming among the farmers. This adoption of smart technology such as embracing IoT (internet of things) will transform agriculture by optimizing, monitoring, and enhancing production. Another outstanding service we offer is making the leasing of land easy in Kenya. This will make it easy for those who wish to embrace farming to easily get a start on the second stage after research. When all leasing is done legally it will increase the confidence of the farmers. Shamba will disrupt how farming is done in Kenya, we not only aim at giving farmers a unique shopping Centre but also transform shamba into an informational Centre. As shamba, we believe that easily making the above services available to farmers will increase production and thus boost the growth of agriculture in Kenya.

How we built it

Being the originator of the idea, while I am good at programming and graphic design my partner is good at programming. However, we shared tasks, I mainly specialized in the business development of the project while my partner did most of the programming, however, we also shared tasks. I am responsible for the design of the UI/UX which I constantly improve based on what the market wants. At Shamba when it comes to the building we are open to ideas. We have built our architecture such that it is easy to design and redesign components.

Challenges we ran into

-The main challenge was building what the market does not need, we had to re-configer the site . -Another challenge is starting capital to push the innovation to the market. -Uncooperating team members were initially a challenge until I had to recreate the team from people who believe in the vision -Lack of experts is also a challenge

Accomplishments that we're proud of

-Able to launch the site online for testing -Registration of a business name -A series of successful market research programs

What we learned

We learned that no matter how good an innovation is if it does not capture the market is as good as none. A good innovation should have the interest of consumers at heart.