In an exclusive interview carried out in Slourish’s head office in Port Harcourt, the founder and CEO of Slourish Ltd; Latii Brayllot disclosed how his company is tackling the financial challenges faced by most entrepreneurs in Nigeria.
In his words, “Slourish simplifies fundraising for Nigerian businesses. It basically eliminates the hurdles associated with finding an angel investor or venture capitalist and giving up a large chunk of your equity especially at the seed stage. With Slourish, an entrepreneur can basically start raising funds for his/her startup in about 48 hours.”
It was indeed an interactive session as the 26-year-old CEO answered the questions with a clear conviction of how his company will be shaping the future of Nigerian businesses.
What is Slourish all about?
Slourish.com is a crowd-investing platform that bridges the gap between business fundraising and micro-investments for users. Slourish is basically the place where people go to support their favourite brands and participate in the development stage or invest in businesses.
It’s a community of startups, micro-investors and others looking to earn, manage or grow their money through the numerous programs available on the platform. Members collaborate, share ideas and stay updated on the progress of the startups/businesses.
Can you briefly describe the services offered by Slourish?
While Slourish is popularly known for crowd-investing businesses, we are a bit broader than that. We actually offer several other business support and development services such as incorporation, branding, marketing, mentorship as well as startup incubation. Our platform also allows for a few more perks for members such as loans, savings trust, fixed deposits.
What competitive advantages does Slourish have?
This is quite apparent to the naked eye. There’s not been any platform like Slourish.com before now. All we have around are crowdfunding sites. Platforms such as Wefunder and Fundable that we consider as our competitors don’t even operate in Nigeria. Investors trust us because we carefully vet our startups. Then, the fact that members can directly monitor their investment on the platform is golden. We are focused on building businesses and helping them succeed so, we also provide a lot of support and resources to the vetted startups.
Do you mind sharing some of your marketing strategies with us?
You know things like these are company trade secrets. I can’t say much here but the obvious marketing medium being implemented is the popular affiliate program and review program available on the platform. This basically encourages members to tell their friends about Slourish.com thereby reducing the costs on our advertisements and lowers our marketing efforts.
Tell us about the major challenges involved in running Slourish Ltd.
Some less enlightened Nigerians still don’t know what crowd-investing is or they are just too sceptical about the concept coupled with the fact that most Nigerians are spenders who hardly make investments. Thankfully, anyone anywhere in the world can fund a startup on the platform. Also, analysing/vetting startups that wish to be funded on the platform is not a walk in the park.
How do you go about verifying the startups?
We privately request for their business plans combined with a few more details about the business. Businesses that are already incorporated, own a website, have a track record, run by a strong team, have customers etc. are all part of the things we consider. Then we send an analyst to the business location and we check the background of the entrepreneur. Even when they are approved we still check them out every few weeks. This shouldn’t scare any entrepreneur away as we can still approve a startup that is yet to own any of the above as long as the business and the team can prove to be reliable. Besides, it’s our job to help develop you.
What measures do you put in place to minimize loss?
We don’t send funds to the startup till we are sure it’s worth funding and still, we disburse funds in three major tranches per milestone reached. In fact, each of the businesses needs to have done a thorough market survey that proves that their products are in demand. Then, we try to get the business insured. Another important thing is that we will expose the new businesses to venture capitalists if they need further funding to cover their Slourish investors.
How would an interested startup or investor get involved on the platform?
As an entrepreneur, you simply submit your business details using the brief form on the startup adding page on the platform and in no time, we will check it out and grant you access to our tools and resources as well as creating your own startup campaign and discussion group. Every other person can join the platform in one click using Facebook or they simply fill in the registration form which only takes a few seconds. Once you are logged in, all our packages will be visible to you on your dashboard. Transactions are carried out through PayPal, debit/credit cards or bank transfer/deposits.
Do you offer training courses for members on how to invest or run their startups?
Right now, no. In the coming months, maybe. This is because everything on the platform is straightforward. Any layman can find his way around each section and achieve his goal without any help. Nevertheless, we still built a very strong support system that makes it easy to quickly get help from us. Getting answers to questions is just a click away. Our support team does not hesitate to assist any user in need. Then, there is a whole section where we share tips, guides and information on business and investment.
Where do you see Slourish in next five years?
Among the top 5 FinTech brands in Nigeria. This won’t be easy because there are lots of them. However, Slourish has proven to be loved by many. Slourish will be the major place where Nigerians and micro-investors log on to fund businesses. We are constantly improving in every aspect. Those who joined Slourish 5 months ago know how far we have grown within such a short time. What then do you think will happen when we have been in the industry for 5 years?
Is there any news, offers, deals on Slourish for your audience?
Well, I would urge everyone who can afford to spare some cash, to start thinking of creating some investment for themselves especially since Slourish allows such micro-Investing. By supporting these businesses, we are not only gaining assets but we are also indirectly building our nation, creating jobs and securing our future. For those not ready to invest, there are still quite a few ways to benefit from Slourish. One of them is our HPS program that enables participants to earn monthly interest on their funds. Members of the platform are also leveraging our affiliate program, review program and insights contribution program to earn, in addition to our savings trust and loan acquisitions packages being integrated.
