Bumpa: Businesses Get Bigger and the Informal Sector, Smaller.

Nigerian products are becoming really hard to forget, one of the reasons why I am writing about this product is because I can’t get the word Bumpa out of my head. It’s honestly really brilliant considering how the product name itself depicts what it intends to do for its customers and users. Bumpa which could also go for Bumper can also be Bigger, the name also takes me back to the Nigerian song “Bumper to Bumper” and I think that’s what makes it catchy.

The product is one of the easiest to use business tools out there and comes out on an application available on the play store and app store. One of the reasons why I am excited about GetBumpa is because it serves as a management tool for anyone who wants to sell stuff online, it practically gives any business owner and even potential business owner their own virtual store and goes even further to provide some marketing functionality.

Why Is Bumpa So Perfect?

The perfection in Bumpa would be in its simplicity and accessibility, it’s a product that does not take the user out of a domain or experience they are familiar with, it enables business owners to manage their stores online and gives them marketing functionality on platforms they are familiar with. A lot of business solutions in the past that have no/low code have only been accessible on the desktop making it difficult for business owners in Nigeria where people mostly use their smartphones, in the past year, we have also seen some noteworthy solutions for e-commerce but they mostly have been streamlined to enabling payments. A lot of solutions in the market are keen on helping business sell efficiently but Bumpa wants you to sell better and get bigger and the most effective way to boost sales is marketing. Another brilliant thing about the marketing feature is that Bumpa helps its customers/users target marketing towards channels they are familiar with giving and it provides them with analytics that will help them track growth.

Lastly, the pricing is absolutely beautiful because its free!

Bumpa offers things like SEO, Free websites, Integrations, Inventory Management, Marketing to social media, analytics etc. I like to think of Bumpa as the Canva for small businesses management . Canva made designing easier, affordable and highly shareable and when you think about it Bumpa does the same thing for small business owners. Canva has grown to be one of the most used design tools beating the likes of Coreldraw and now serves enterprise businesses . This only means that simplicity is scalable and keeps products relevant.

Bumpa will actually become more than a tool but will be that cool app you have on your phone when you want to start a business, in this case instead of just having a business idea, anybody can just go on canva and build a logo and go on Bumpa and set up a website, buy inventory and manage their growth through Bumpa, at this point, it becomes a necessary good for anyone who is used to only selling on their WhatsApp status and wants to be more intentional about their growth. The movement from Idea to hustle to a growing business registered and operating via Bumpa does something incredible, it reduces the number of informal businesses out there.

The State of The Informal Sector:

The informal sector is the working part of an economy that is unorganised and unaccounted for by the government. Think of the Kiosk on the road, the barber in a stall and the guy that sells burger and smoothies to you. These are SMEs in the informal sector, they cannot be taxed and are usually not registered as businesses. The formal sector on the other hand comprises of more organised businesses registered and recognised by the government making them traceable, taxable and entitled to programmes. Most of Nigeria’s employed which is over 80% according to the International Labour Organisation is in the informal sector which means both the business owners and employees in these informal businesses. In Nigeria a lot of these businesses are referred to as Small and Medium Sized Businesses(SMEs) and in any economy they are a huge driver for employment and contribute immensely to the GDP of a lot of countries even developed economies. For Example: SMEs in the UK accounts for about 61% of employment and the same is more profound in places like China where there has been a 10% annual growth in the number of SME since 2017.

The state of SMEs in Nigeria and even some parts of Africa right now is that most small businesses are just winging it and all the government wants to do is exploit these businesses for taxes and additional revenue. Right now Bumpa seems to be the only one trying to focus on getting SMEs ready for expansion and actual business.

Bumpa and The Informal Sector

There is a lot of material and ideas on how to start a business, in fact some people say: “Just Start” but a lot of times, people aren’t actually ready to sustain a business and a lot more don’t know how. Bumpa helps businesses do one essential thing, manage inventory and see the state of your business via what you have to sell and this provides business owners the ability to measure and with that comes the ability to grow. The Informal sector is greatly characterized by lack of structure and the size of the businesses in the sector being small. Over the next few years, Bumpa businesses would expand and with that would be the need for structure, access to funding, more banking, registration, compliance and ultimately an entrance into the formal sector. To simplify things, the cosmetics seller on Bumpa today will end up having a chain of cosmetic shops or a talcum powder manufacturing plant.

Bumpa will definitely give more businesses structure and reduce the level of informality in the Nigerian entrepreneurship space.

A very intentional government would actually form some sort of partnership with Bumpa and use them as a channel to get businesses registered and compliant, organizations that offer grants and loans could also partner Bumpa and give loans to well performing businesses ready for expansion.

The Future:

Bumpa is clearly not yet at the stage it needs to be at (emphasis on needs). Yes, MSMEs need Bumpa, economies need Bumpa and this means their growth in the future would be unfathomable.

As a product person I’d take the following steps :

1. Offer more integrations with financial institutions to get businesses more access to funding. A good idea would be a partnership with Brass and helping businesses on Bumpa set up SME accounts as they grow.
2. Expand to other countries and build a community of SMEs that can provide commodities to each other. This can also help more small businesses secure import and export partners via Bumpa.
3. Help businesses plug into government organizations like CAC and get registered while charging a commission for the servive.
4. Build product messaging to serve a wider niche in more sectors such as health care, transport, etc.
5. Develop enterprise solution for high growth businesses on Bumpa that used to be MSMEs and tailor requirements around the business needs whilst keeping the product simple, accessible and useful.

CONCLUSION:

If you are a small business owner or if you are even thinking of starting a side hustle, you should stop thinking and just start.

If you are a large business and you spend time managing software than actually doing business, you should get on board and try it out.

Go get started on Bumpa!