Are we biting more than we can chew?

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Pukena is an aggregation of different but related businesses under one brand. We call them service categories or departments.

Ordinarily, each of this departments or services can be a full time business on their own complete with a dedicated team of staff. For instance, ogavenue is an online portal where you can lease venues for your party. Here in Pukena, event venue leasing is just a tiny aspect of events services department. Yet ogavenue has an amazing team headed by my good friend Andrew. Same goes for cameraman.ng that connects you with photographers near you. We do that also in Pukena but as a sub unit of Events services. We have drivers.ng, laundrybros, etc. Amazing businesses known for their niche operations

Conversely, Pukena looks more like chewing more that we can bite. I know that from the beginning. It was deliberate. It looks like a weakness already. But that also is our unique selling point.

I believe in specialization and operating in a niche. That’s what ogavenue and cameraman stands for and thousands of startups dedicated to solving a problem in a particular niche.

But I have a different business philosophy.

In my Cyber Cafe for instance, I designed it in a way that a customer shouldn’t come into my office, pay me for some services and go out looking for a related service to get a full satisfaction. Hence we ensured that every possible thing related to computer services can be found in one place. From internet browsing, to passport, computer training, photocopy, printing, scanning, web design, graphics, etc…all in one place. The one we can’t do, we collect it and go out and do it for you. I want my customer to have it easy.

So that’s the philosophy we are using in Pukena.

Why would a customer log in to many apps for related services when he can get all in one app? You log in to cameraman, get a photographer, log out, log in again to ogavenue; get your venue and log out, and log in again to another portal for your makeup artist?!

That sounds like a lot to me!

So in Pukena, we are building a one stop app for all your everyday services. We would soon add food and grocery delivery! My boss in supermart.ng would not like this…

We know how that sounds. In fact investors prefer specialized businesses. It’s easy to scale. For crying out loud, it’s easier to run an ogavenue than a Pukena.

But I have a plan. That’s gonna be our secret sauce. If we pull this off, then we have a billion dollar Africa Amazon!

And if it doesn’t work, atleast someone has to prove it can’t!

Visit our site: www.pukena.ng

What do you guys think?

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No better bliss than when you’re young, naïve and free. Enjoy the orgasmic burst of optimism while it lasts. Talk is cheap. The execution part will bring you back down to earth.

Supermart is still in business? Wawu. Someone give them an award for perseverance. Wonder if Raphael and that Yoruba ex-Jumia Ops guys (forgot his name) are still running it.

Back to your original question. You’re probably doing too much if you feel you need to ask the question. It’s always wise to start super small then grow after each category stabilizes. Once upon a time, Amazon only sold books.

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I had a lot to say till I saw this

All the best!

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I think you guys should find ways of improving your UX in a few places, for instance users should be able to search through the event services by categories instead of having to look at services they might not need. Another thing is the order pages, users shouldn’t have to select the name of the service provider from a long list right after selecting that particular provider.

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Lol. Mrcharles dont call someone you have not see young, naive and free. I might as well be older than you in age and in business.

To the topic, I understand your point. I even noted it myself. But let’s watch and see. We are getting there

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Nice observation sir. I will look into that as soon as possible. Thanks for the feedback

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How about integrating the services you mentioned (API’s) with your site. Less stress.