Ssempebwa’s SpareWo on chasing money online

“It is probably one of the biggest contributors to where we are right now.” That is the first thing Mr Edrine Ssempebwa says when he examines the kind of childhood he had. You would not believe he is making reference to his father’s, Mr Godfrey Kiwanuka, auto spare part business in downtown Kampala.

Building experience
He worked as an attendant at the family business during school holidays and remembers how disinterested he was. Had he been more enthusiastic about it, he would have dipped his toes in the water sooner.
“I hated working there and the first chance I got, I started working with the Old Budonians club as an administrator while studying Arts in Economics at Makerere University,” he says and returns to how building his own business was always his singular desire.

By graduation in 2013, he’d founded his first company, in the creative design niche.
He worked in his early years so he would not have to be too dependent. Not that he is too old now, he is 28 years. Chasing his desire has helped him found and run his second company, Spare Wo, for the last four years.

He’d bought himself a Subaru Forester and five days at the wheel, he got into a bad accident. The car was repaired to get back on the road. But it took losing count of the garage appointments to start Spare Wo.

“The issues were recurring. When I got fed up, the engine coil blew, I replaced it expensively. Three days later, it blew and I bought another. It got me thinking that I have history in Kiseka and there are other Ugandans like me,” he narrates.

He had also heard experiences of theft of car parts in garages. There was a problem to be solved hence an opportunity.

“I realised our spare parts market is broken as some people are not professional,” Mr Ssempebwa says.

Online, there were no homegrown solutions. So he did research on how other countries operate. In 2017, with Shs3m, he designed the company around the Internet to enable car owners reserve diagnostic tests and purchase spare parts cashless. The company partnered with merchants to find the cheapest prices for customers. Lessons from his father’s spare part shop came in handy in identifying credible merchants.

“There is no single shop that can stock all those parts. Also, setting up a physical shop was what everyone has done. We sign contracts with merchants, they give us commission off the spare parts,” Mr Ssempebwa says.

First customer
A year later, his first customer brought him his first shillings after fixing his suspension, brake and multimedia systems.

“Building a culture where people buy their spare parts online was the biggest problem. People fear online purchases so it was hard to convince someone that they can sit home, order, pay and have the parts delivered to them,” he remembers.

Feedback improves services
The original online was sophisticated, requiring visitors to feed in things like a particular number for the spare parts. Feedback from users has seen SpareWo simplified over the years to create convenience for customers.

“We now require customers to put in as much information as they can, our technical team finds the spare part number, price and we send the quotation,” Mr Ssempebwa says.
Because he believes in marketing, he has chosen to get out word using social media, from posting recent car fixes to paying influencers to interest potential customers.

“We have tripled customers and we are actually growing fast. In a good week, we work on 10 cars. In a bad one, two. We work with 50 merchants in Uganda and eight abroad,” he says. The company is funded by him and Tendo Wasula, his partner, and is fortunately starting to make money that can sustain its operations.

“We are not profitable by far but there is money to pay employees, rent. We are looking for funding from investors but it is difficult to sell your dream. Banks need you to have some things which we are working on,” he says.

Sales
“We make sales worth Shs4m to Shs5m a month.” He singlehandedly run the company in the beginning and today he has eight staff. But the moments in between finding the right human capital are daunting.

He thinks the business processes in the country bring many startups to their knees. Maybe it would be easier if the red-tape was eliminated, he says.

This is the year for making big moves. He is now hatching plans to integrate a car wash and hustle-free car servicing and all this will be at a click of a button.

“We are working on a mobile application because it is more intimate for car owners. There are many more things possible with an app. We have invitations to start similar business in Kenya and Ghana so we are looking to expand next year,” Mr Ssempebwa says.

However, the idea of running a business in a physical store still seems inevitable and in future, SpareWo will be no exception.

Ssempebwa’s tips for running business
• There is a lot of opportunity in online business. Our internet usage is growing. The Chinese phones enable this and most people now have a computer in their pocket. The world is closer and the opportunity is that reaching people through advertising on digital media is easier than outdoor. Young entrepreneurs can easily sell businesses at lower costs.
• Starting an online business is about finding a unique problem and solving it using the internet. If you are already online, each and every friend is your billboard. Ask people to post about it. You have to also be active online because you are your business’ influencer.
• I bring one thing to the table and everyone else does. You cannot have a business and successfully run it alone because you only see things from your perspective. There could be another way so get someone with experience in that business and partner with them. Friends make good partners but all partners have to believe in what the company stands for.