QPON is said to be the Tinder for business and it is launching on the 1st of December in South Africa.
According to the co-founders, Arno van der Merwe (CEO) and Marli Steyl (CMO), “We hook up businesses and customers, it is just that simple. Giving answer to the age old dilemma of businesses wanting to sell more and customers wanting to save more.”
Innovation Village had a chance to talk with the QPON team – Arno van der Merwe and Marli Steyl. Here are some of the excepts from the interview.
Innovation Village (IV): Tell us about your experience in eCommerce
QPON team (QPON): Both of us have worked in and around the eCommerce industry for quite some time now, I would say going on about seven years. It wasn’t always on the tech side of things and more often than not it was on the side of support to either merchants or end-users. The fact that we both also functioned as account managers gave us insight in to what it is that Business owners want from a service provider as well as what is required in terms of support.
We aim to employ the knowledge we gained in these positions to our business model to create and maintain a simple yet effective platform for businesses and customers to communicate and find value whether you are the former or the latter.
IV: How you have raised money to kick start this service. Is it bootstrapped or you got money from angel investors?
QPON: When the idea started to develop a couple of months ago we mainly did everything ourselves in our spare time, doing market research and feasibility studies. Any expense that occurred during this period was paid out of our own pocket up and to the point we decided that we need to get a developer involved.
We got multiple quotes and eventually found Vertex Central who provided a reasonable quote and matched it with amazing service. At this point we either needed to get a business loan or get people to buy into the idea. We proceeded to apply for the loan but after pitching the idea to some potential investors two of them loved the idea and fronted the money for development for a marginal profit share. We were happy to proceed this way and were happy to see that other people believe in QPON as much as we do.
IV: Who are your competitors?
QPON: Although we are moving into the deals/advertising/savings industry which have many players we are of the opinion that our product/service is unique.
We can however say that GROUPON was obviously our main concern when the idea came about and at the moment I would say our main competition would be Daddy’s Deals.
IV: What is your competitive advantage over your competitors?
I think the main thing that sets us apart from our competition is the fact that we will not be charging businesses/merchants any fees, no sign-up fee, no monthly fee and no commission or percentage of redeemed deals whatsoever.
This means that businesses can get no risk free exposure and they can run their deals indefinitely and to as many customers as their business can handle because they still turn a profit on each redeemed deal. Thus giving answer to the age old dilemma of customers wanting to save more while businesses want to sell more.
The QPON App will be available for download on the 1st of December 2016 and the best place to get the latest details till then will be to go to the website www.qpon.co.za and then following the links to Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels.
All the deals will be available right on your mobile phone through our innovative QPON App with multiple filters so that you only see the deals that really interest you.
Redeeming your coupons have also become easier. Simply open the app, click redeem on the coupon you want to use and show your phone’s screen to your waiter or cashier and claim your discounted deals. No more printing! So its better for the environment too!
