Yesterday, the Wow team visited Imalaah, a specialized massage centre situated on the Avenue Bourguiba, near from Wow office.
This centre that is applying for 5 000 000FCFA (10 000$) to extend its premises is managed by Avelina, who is very skilled and have more than twenty years experience. With a good knowledge of african traditional techniques of healing and massage, the centre proposes three different kinds of activity:
1) Training:
- Two years training in massage designed for girls. And by the end a diploma will give official recognition to the training.
- Intensive training designed for professionals like physical therapists, nurses etc to improve the quality of their intervention.
2) Massage: This activity is presently the most important in terms of incomes.
3) Production and sales of natural’s products made from butter shea, karate, sesame oil and aloévéra. Most of its production is exported.
After describing her activities, Avelina made us known the situation of the business and the purpose of the financing she is asking for.She said she would use it to extend offices so as to raise the welcome capacity.As far the working capital is concerned, she thinks she will be able to face it with the profits of produits sale.
And after a two hours meetings, we left, giving her a new appointment on Thursday for discuss the way to work out the business plan with her.
Amara
9/17/2008
9/04/2008
A rainy week at the office
We started off the week with a couple of to-do items for Linda.
We visited Sigil once again. This time to buy some sample bags to take back with me to the US. The idea is that Linda will then be able to show these to WOW advisors and get their input and feedback. He also showed us a new sample of a shopping bag that was reversible. He is still in the process of finishing it and choosing the right handles for it.
We also had further discussions on possible tags / logs that could be put on WOW clothing / bag merchandise. There are two options – to have them printed or to have them woven. The woven tags tend to look neater and could also include some interesting words. The logo attached here with the words ‘GROWING AFRICAN BUSINESSES’ was one our ideas. Currently, Sigil has his tags printed in Morocco. Perhaps it could make sense for us to have these made in the US.
During our conversation with Linda on Monday, we were able to further refine our thoughts on the immediate hiring needs for WOW. Ideally besides the new CEO, WOW needs a couple of more investment analyst / account managers, accountants and a legal consultant. We discussed these roles further with Malick and were able to write down job descriptions for these positions. Malick and Amara gave us the impression that while the skills required for these positions are extensive, it should not be too difficult to find appropriate candidates in Dakar.
Wow currently has 8 companies in its portfolio, most of which have further funding needs. Further, we have been analyzing another 7 companies. The total funding required for 2008 for these 15 companies is of the order of 200m CFA (circa $500,000). We have summarized the financial needs of these 15 companies and will present these to Linda. If we wish to fund 20 portfolio companies, during 2008-2009, WOW should raise close to $750,000. It is hard to predict what these businesses will need in years beyond 2009. What we do now is that some of these needs are fairly urgent so the investment in these companies needs to be appropriately timed for it to have maximum impact.
Ludo visited us in the office today with his design for the homepage. Christian and I went through every granular detail on the page to make it more attractive, appropriate, aligned with the WOW theme. He was very hands on and made the changes as we discussed. He will work on cleaning up the product further so it can be shown to a larger audience. It is still in its primitive stage, however we convinced him that we must show Linda the design so far (even though it is still very raw). I think working with a website designer based in Senegal is going to be challenging - especially if WOW intends to do this going forward from the US. Our meeting today was very, very hands on, and it is hard to imagine how this could take place across continents. The meeting today was exciting and it was great to be able to see a product transform as we gave more and more input.
Karishma
We started off the week with a couple of to-do items for Linda.
We visited Sigil once again. This time to buy some sample bags to take back with me to the US. The idea is that Linda will then be able to show these to WOW advisors and get their input and feedback. He also showed us a new sample of a shopping bag that was reversible. He is still in the process of finishing it and choosing the right handles for it.
We also had further discussions on possible tags / logs that could be put on WOW clothing / bag merchandise. There are two options – to have them printed or to have them woven. The woven tags tend to look neater and could also include some interesting words. The logo attached here with the words ‘GROWING AFRICAN BUSINESSES’ was one our ideas. Currently, Sigil has his tags printed in Morocco. Perhaps it could make sense for us to have these made in the US.
During our conversation with Linda on Monday, we were able to further refine our thoughts on the immediate hiring needs for WOW. Ideally besides the new CEO, WOW needs a couple of more investment analyst / account managers, accountants and a legal consultant. We discussed these roles further with Malick and were able to write down job descriptions for these positions. Malick and Amara gave us the impression that while the skills required for these positions are extensive, it should not be too difficult to find appropriate candidates in Dakar.
Wow currently has 8 companies in its portfolio, most of which have further funding needs. Further, we have been analyzing another 7 companies. The total funding required for 2008 for these 15 companies is of the order of 200m CFA (circa $500,000). We have summarized the financial needs of these 15 companies and will present these to Linda. If we wish to fund 20 portfolio companies, during 2008-2009, WOW should raise close to $750,000. It is hard to predict what these businesses will need in years beyond 2009. What we do now is that some of these needs are fairly urgent so the investment in these companies needs to be appropriately timed for it to have maximum impact.
Ludo visited us in the office today with his design for the homepage. Christian and I went through every granular detail on the page to make it more attractive, appropriate, aligned with the WOW theme. He was very hands on and made the changes as we discussed. He will work on cleaning up the product further so it can be shown to a larger audience. It is still in its primitive stage, however we convinced him that we must show Linda the design so far (even though it is still very raw). I think working with a website designer based in Senegal is going to be challenging - especially if WOW intends to do this going forward from the US. Our meeting today was very, very hands on, and it is hard to imagine how this could take place across continents. The meeting today was exciting and it was great to be able to see a product transform as we gave more and more input.
Karishma
9/01/2008
Friday at the office
We spent more time on Friday identifying good products for the fund raising activities.
We visited Sigil – a clothes and bag designing company. They make very trendy products using Denim and other fabrics. They showed us various samples of bags / purses at different price points that could be used for WOW fundraising. We could attach a nice WOW tag to these products. They will also help us deign a WOW tag for clothing, bags etc and will get back to us soon with a quote for the designing.
The founder of Enterprise Bracelet (Sini) paid us a visit at the office. She had samples of beautiful necklaces and very cute dolls with her – more products that we could use for fundraising. We asked if her products – necklaces, bracelets, dolls were replicable in larger quantities – and she assured us that it would be possible. Sini is extremely reliable, friendly and enthusiastic about working with us.
The lady from Benn Loxo also came into the office on Friday. Amara had a long discussion with her regarding the analysis that has been done. She maintained that the projections for revenues and costs in the analysis are accurate. She also re-iterated that a loan for her would not be sustainable unless WOW increased the term of the loan to 10 years or reduced interest rates and increased the grace period.
Today, we had a good discussion with Malick about staffing needs for the office – especially once the interns leave and he is the only person here besides the CEO. He expressed the urgent need for 1-2 more investment analysts – people to do work similar to what he has been doing. He hoped they would come equipped with knowledge of fashion, retail, food processing, value chain management – thus adding to the expertise of the WOW team. He envisions that these analysts would work at the office and also on the field with portfolio and potential companies. He also expressed the need for a full-time accountant for WOW who would also be responsible for liaising with the portfolio companies regarding their timely payments to WOW. Finally, he mentioned we needed a legal advisor for contract issues, though this could be done on a part-time basis. He hopes that an operating manual that documents each person’s role in the organization is created – perhaps one of the first few important tasks for the new CEO of WOW.
Karishma
8/29/2008
Visit to Diourbel and Thiés
Today, we paid a visit to the women GIE based in Diourbel and Deendey couture to discuss products that WOW will probably neeed, particularly bracelets and bags. for that occasion, we invited Seni from Entreprise Bracelets because she was working in partnership with that GIE.
We left the office at 7o'clock am to attain Diourbel around 10o'clock.Once there we discussed the products we were asking for, they had exhited some samples of bracelets with many different designes and colours. At end of our discussion, they agreed to make us bracelets with a suitable design and according to the Wow main colours... we also asked to make some bracelets mixing these colours.
We left there at midday and called on Dendey couture. We got to thiès around 1o'clock p.m, finding Mouminou, the Dendey couture owner a bit ill. After salamecs, we explained her the reason for our visit. She made us certain she would be able to make bags according to our needs and wants.But unfortunately, she hadn't any sample of bay because it was not her main product. She promised to call us soon to give the right prices and costs related to the bags producing.
After taking lunch, we left there to attain at 6o'clock p.m. Seni ensured us she would to the office on friday bringing necklaces.
Amara
8/27/2008
Feasibility Considerations
After a long and productive talk with Linda yesterday the team was busy at work today on two important tasks: a plan for the anticipated WOW Business Center and staffing considerations for the next 6 months. We were asked to steer our efforts to these areas after having encountered some difficulty performing a feasibility study for one WOW’s portfolio companies, Benn Loxo in the city of Joal.
Because we spent a fair amount of time preparing this feasibility study – and we believe these kind of studies should increasingly provide the foundation for WOW’s due diligence process – I thought I would touch on this a bit in this blog post. Benn Loxo is a women’s cooperative that processes a diversity of seafood products native to the Joal region. These include a variety of fish and shellfish that are dried, salted and smoked through artisanal methods. The waters around Joal are among the most fish-abundant in West Africa and this draws considerable attention from local and international traders. Women have traditionally processed and traded these products, but because they are rarely organized into cooperatives they tend to be exploited by outside buyers who at times force them to sell their products for as little as 100 CFA/kilo ($0.25/kilo). Benn Loxo – which means “one arm” in Wolof – was begun to strengthen the ability of Joal’s women to collectively bargain with buyers and generate better returns on their labor. At 157 members strong, the cooperative has the potential to do just that.
Recently the cooperative’s founder Fatoumata Ndiaye Lo provided WOW with an urgent funding request for 3 million CFA (approximately $7,500) to provide working capital to take advantage of the brief and lucrative octopus fishing season. While their concept was reasonable, WOW couldn’t act on it as quickly as Benn Loxo required because they were unable to provide any proof that this endeavor would be financially successful. Beyond this short-term project the cooperative has more ambitious plans to set up a central fish processing facility where the women could work as an organized unit (as opposed to their current loosely-organized structure), but have been unable to show that their objectives are attainable or feasible. This is in fact an obstacle to many of WOW’s portfolio companies, one that we are working hard to remedy. For this reason we took the initiative to prepare a feasibility study for Benn Loxo, but after speaking with Fatoumata it became clear that the cooperative was still in their preparatory stages and could not provide all of the necessary information to perform such a study.
Benn Loxo is not alone in its urgent requests for funding. One of WOW’s best organized and most promising portfolio companies – Marché.com – is seeking working capital to expand its operations and has good plan to carry this out. However, as our colleague Malick puts it, “these considerations are not simple,” and as WOW’s principle investment analyst he knows better than most. Malick explained that before WOW can disburse a new round of funding we need to put a new and better system in place to allow us to efficiently and responsibly respond to each requests. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this is one of the responsibilities that the Summer Interns have taken on and we hope to make a solid contribution to such systems before the summer is out! Until next time,
~Christian
Because we spent a fair amount of time preparing this feasibility study – and we believe these kind of studies should increasingly provide the foundation for WOW’s due diligence process – I thought I would touch on this a bit in this blog post. Benn Loxo is a women’s cooperative that processes a diversity of seafood products native to the Joal region. These include a variety of fish and shellfish that are dried, salted and smoked through artisanal methods. The waters around Joal are among the most fish-abundant in West Africa and this draws considerable attention from local and international traders. Women have traditionally processed and traded these products, but because they are rarely organized into cooperatives they tend to be exploited by outside buyers who at times force them to sell their products for as little as 100 CFA/kilo ($0.25/kilo). Benn Loxo – which means “one arm” in Wolof – was begun to strengthen the ability of Joal’s women to collectively bargain with buyers and generate better returns on their labor. At 157 members strong, the cooperative has the potential to do just that.
Recently the cooperative’s founder Fatoumata Ndiaye Lo provided WOW with an urgent funding request for 3 million CFA (approximately $7,500) to provide working capital to take advantage of the brief and lucrative octopus fishing season. While their concept was reasonable, WOW couldn’t act on it as quickly as Benn Loxo required because they were unable to provide any proof that this endeavor would be financially successful. Beyond this short-term project the cooperative has more ambitious plans to set up a central fish processing facility where the women could work as an organized unit (as opposed to their current loosely-organized structure), but have been unable to show that their objectives are attainable or feasible. This is in fact an obstacle to many of WOW’s portfolio companies, one that we are working hard to remedy. For this reason we took the initiative to prepare a feasibility study for Benn Loxo, but after speaking with Fatoumata it became clear that the cooperative was still in their preparatory stages and could not provide all of the necessary information to perform such a study.
Benn Loxo is not alone in its urgent requests for funding. One of WOW’s best organized and most promising portfolio companies – Marché.com – is seeking working capital to expand its operations and has good plan to carry this out. However, as our colleague Malick puts it, “these considerations are not simple,” and as WOW’s principle investment analyst he knows better than most. Malick explained that before WOW can disburse a new round of funding we need to put a new and better system in place to allow us to efficiently and responsibly respond to each requests. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this is one of the responsibilities that the Summer Interns have taken on and we hope to make a solid contribution to such systems before the summer is out! Until next time,
~Christian
8/25/2008
Meeting with Ludo for the website implementation
As per guidance from Linda, we kicked off work on the WOW Investments website. Ludo came to the WOW office and we had a three hour meeting with him during which we discussed various topics
- The layout of the website. We provided him with a detailed document which could potentially act as his site map as he begins designing.
- Website colors. We asked Ludo to work with the three WOW colours as the base; with blue being the potential focus for WOW investments. Linda sent us documents that have the three different color palettes – each focusing on either blue, orange or pink. We forwarded this to Ludo.
- Interactive and engaging website. We talked with Ludo about how we want the website to be interactive and engaging. This could be done by blogs, photographs, videos and allowing users to possibly add content as well. So that the website can ‘connect’ with those that have not been to Senegal, we explained that we would like to use a lot of images and pictures. Linda sent us pics from her previous visits to Senegal. Ludo will get back to us if the quality of the images is sufficient for the website.
- Using flash or not. Ludo explained the disadvantages of using Flash and how the Google crawler can have difficulties finding keywords. We told him that we will discuss this further with Linda and get back to him.
All in all, the meeting was very successful and we were able to make good progress. We will give him the green flag soon to start building sample pages for us and the US advisors to give feedback on.
Linda is going to discuss the website further with Caroline and get back to use regarding domain names we own and content for the different pages.
Karishma
- The layout of the website. We provided him with a detailed document which could potentially act as his site map as he begins designing.
- Website colors. We asked Ludo to work with the three WOW colours as the base; with blue being the potential focus for WOW investments. Linda sent us documents that have the three different color palettes – each focusing on either blue, orange or pink. We forwarded this to Ludo.
- Interactive and engaging website. We talked with Ludo about how we want the website to be interactive and engaging. This could be done by blogs, photographs, videos and allowing users to possibly add content as well. So that the website can ‘connect’ with those that have not been to Senegal, we explained that we would like to use a lot of images and pictures. Linda sent us pics from her previous visits to Senegal. Ludo will get back to us if the quality of the images is sufficient for the website.
- Using flash or not. Ludo explained the disadvantages of using Flash and how the Google crawler can have difficulties finding keywords. We told him that we will discuss this further with Linda and get back to him.
All in all, the meeting was very successful and we were able to make good progress. We will give him the green flag soon to start building sample pages for us and the US advisors to give feedback on.
Linda is going to discuss the website further with Caroline and get back to use regarding domain names we own and content for the different pages.
Karishma
8/21/2008
Thursday at the office...
The team has decided to stay at the office and there were neither meeting nor visit on our daily program. We have planned to think about the WOW next steps and one of the most important points we discussed today were the website. As far as I am concerned, I focused on the Mountaga Tall business plan because Sadio, the CEO has called in the morning, saying she would need it the afternoon. She finally come and recover it around midday. After that, we spent most of our time on drafting the way we should work it out.
Linda called in the afternoon and we have all discussed and agreed on some parts of the design and the content of the website. We have planned to meet Ludovic Lima, the computer scientist who is in charge to set up our website tmorrow at 10 o'clock am.
Amara
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