Godfrey Thabede, Collen Maine and Echo Kubeka are the techpreneurs and cofounders behind Cramdown, a food-sharing platform which just launched on Playstore and the Huawei App Gallery.
This collaborative and enterprising trio is also currently studying at the University of The Free State – and already putting their studies to practical use. They founded their company, DotActual (Pty) Ltd in June 2022, and released their flagship product, Cramdown, in June 2023.
Thabede is in his second year studying Bcom in Business Management, and is acting Chief Product Officer. Maine is doing his third year in IT, and is the Chief Executive Officer. Kubeka is in his final year, doing a Bachelor of Administration, and is the Chief Marketing Officer.
We chat to them about tech innovation and collaboration.
Q. What is Cramdown, and what was the inspiration behind developing this app?
The Cramdown app enables individuals to engage in the buying and selling of various food items directly to each other, encouraging a more sustainable and localised approach to the food market.
We noticed a very visible disconnect between fast food services and consumers. The food you can typically purchase lacks individual customisation and options are limited to what the establishment offers. With a more decentralised market, both the consumer and seller needs can be met. Everyone could easily sell a variety of food straight from their stoves, while buyers have access to bigger variety.
The best part is it’s all free. The sellers are not paying anything to list their food on our platform. This could also help unemployment and promote entrepreneurship within communities.
Q. What has been your biggest challenge thus far?
The product development itself has been challenging, as we had to write the entire code and manage the databases ourselves. There was a lot of trial and error, and many of the initial functions we had intended to add to the platform had to be constantly changed or modified.
Q. How are you financing your venture?
We have not raised any funding yet. We opted to finance the company ourselves at the beginning, and focus on the development and growth of the app. But we intend on raising seed funding within in the next few months.
Q. It’s obviously still early days, but what’s the growth plans and bigger vision?
We only launched the app 2 months ago. Social media and radio interviews have been very useful in helping us reach an audience, and we have managed to steadily sign up users.
The main focus has been to get feedback from these users, which would allow us to improve and finetune the platform, and get ready for the growth-stage. We will have an official app launch within the next two months.
As for the growth, we are aiming to get 10 000 daily active users by the end of the year.
Q. Do you have a mentor? How are you navigating running a business?
We currently have no mentor, and are learning from first-hand experience. All three of us have business classes in our respective courses, which has greatly benefited us in understanding business concepts and how to apply them accordingly in our company.
We are also focusing on our strengths: Me (Godfrey) and Collen, are focused on the technical aspect of the business, which mostly entails the development of the platform and the database management. Echo is in charge of the marketing and strategy to reach, engage and grow users for our platform.
Q. What excites you about technology?
If correctly developed and monitored, technology solutions can be seamlessly integrated into our daily lives. This can have a positive impact, and help people to excel in tasks that they previously found challenging.
Q. Parting advice to fellow young entrepreneurs?
Our advice to students and entrepreneurs would be to enjoy both the ups and downs of the journey, and try to learn as much as possible!
