The volume of e-commerce in the Egyptian market is expected to reach more than 93 billion pounds in 2022, according to a research paper published by the Information and Decision Support Center in the Egyptian Council of Ministers. The delivery market is also expanding, thanks to the support of emerging businesses, such as the “Rabbit” platform, which has been able to achieve great success in this market.
The company is getting ready to enter the Saudi market, and co-founder and CEO Ahmed Yousry has spoken about the company’s economic and societal goals. Last year, “Rabbit” closed a financing round of $11 million, making it the largest pre-establishment financing round in the Middle East and North Africa at the time.
Why did you decide to start your business in this industry?
I’m not a patient person by nature, so when I opened my refrigerator one day and discovered that there was nothing inside, I started brainstorming other time-consuming requests I might have on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, such as fast food, produce, groceries, and even electronic products that you have to go out and look for and compare to the best. Hence, the inspiration for Rabbit. Providing the consumer with all of this in the quickest time feasible while maintaining the greatest level of quality.
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And how did the company prevail in the fierce competition with other delivery and e-commerce firms?
We have a very strong work team that has enabled us to achieve what we have, and each individual has responsibilities and roles that he masters. This is especially true considering our management method is unique and there are no job grades; instead, everyone collaborates in a harmonious system. The work team is the secret to making a difference and securing a unique position in this market.
Our strategy is clear and simple for the entire work team, which helps us implement it quickly and effectively and helps us gain space and time more quickly. The idea is always the hero of our story, not the individual, and we deal with mistakes differently. In particular, we celebrate those who make mistakes because they gained experience.
How do you generally perceive the competition?
Competition is not a factor in our calculations because we can see that there is plenty of room for growth in the market and that it has not yet reached the point of saturation. The customer also continues to have needs beyond what is readily available, so there is no need to worry about competition..
The problem is not competition; rather, we are working to create a market, a supply chain, and a way to deliver goods to customers faster and for less money. By doing this, we can improve customer service and facilitate faster money transfers, which boosts the economy overall, especially when it comes to locally produced goods. Of our more than 100 million citizens, only a small portion shop online.
What about Rabbit? Startups have been known to make mistakes in their early stages.
While mistakes were made, we adhere to the idea that this is a marathon, not a sprint. We employ a unique strategy for every step. You shouldn’t start the race running at the same pace as you finish it.
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For us as a startup, it was the logical course of action to try to borrow from tomorrow, in the sense of spending more money today to acquire customers for tomorrow, in order for the company to increase its speed. However, when the money became expensive or unavailable, it took us an additional month and a half to switch to the second course of action, which involved not growing as quickly and trying to rationalise our investments and spend every penny. I believe that this is the single thing we might have done better. Nevertheless, this decision set us apart and enabled us to reach a positive profit margin, which is crucial for the company’s ability to rationalise its investments.
What were the biggest difficulties you encountered?
The most difficult challenge for us was dealing with the Egyptian farms, factories, and suppliers in order to obtain the goods we desired from them in a timely and reliable manner. This is because we do not build a service from scratch; rather, we build people who support us with their services and we help them automate the processes that need to be automated.
What are your thoughts about expanding outside of Egypt?
One of the most significant markets for our expansion is Saudi Arabia, where we have secured the licence. Our expansion is broken up into three stages. First, we broaden into new areas of Egypt. For example, we presently cover three-quarters of Cairo, and our goal is to finish Cairo as well as the remaining governorates. The services and goods we provide to customers have also increased. Thirdly, regional enlargement to other countries. We are examining this in relation to the expansion issue.
What is the company’s goal over the next few months?
In addition to our corporate objective, we also have a community objective. The company’s objective is to create a service for the customer that is made in Egypt for Egyptians and offers him a level of service that exceeds his expectations. As of right now, we can see that we are developing the infrastructure to deliver anything to the customer at the time he needs it because there is a customer who needs his requests to be fulfilled promptly or immediately. We create the infrastructure necessary for each person to be able to get what they want when they need it at a particular date.
Regarding the societal issue, we want to develop personnel from both inside and outside the company to assist other businesses so that they can benefit from our experiences and recognise the mistakes we made in order to jointly create a better future for Egypt’s pioneering market. On this, we will be concentrating a lot of our efforts in the near future. Every one of our more than 200 workers has experience in something, so anyone with an idea or a problem can benefit from what we’ve discovered and build on it.
We didn’t all start from zero to get to where we are now; instead, we all built on existing market opportunities, and the success of any one of us draws us all together.
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Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard