If there is someone who epitomises sharpness, it is Dennis Makori. At a time when most campus students were praying for employment, Makori decided to focus on innovation. He is glad he did. Now he is reaping the fruits in a kingdom where value-added services on mobile phones are turning in a pretty penny.
Mr. Makori, who studied electrical and communications engineering at Moi University, started toying with the idea of Onfon Media in 2006 as a student before fully commencing operations in 2007.
“While at university, I started teaching myself computer programming. Later, I came into the market as a freelance software developer,” he says.
At the time, demand for value-added services was growing. This nudged him to set up the company.
“I didn’t have a lot of money, but I used personal savings. I decided to put whatever I was making from freelance jobs into running my business. I was working and funding the business. It’s not like I saved a lot of money to set up the company.”
As the chief executive of Onfon Media, Mr. Makori runs one of the biggest software and systems development firms in town. A decade ago, there were only 20 providers. Today, the industry boasts more than 100 players. That’s huge growth, he says, adding that the industry generated Sh2 billion in 2007 and grew to earn Sh7 billion in 2013.
“We’ve had tremendous growth especially in Kenya, and it is the Kenyan branch that has helped us venture into the rest of Africa,” he says.
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While stories of stalled start-ups vastly outnumber successful ones in this tech space, it is not quite the same with Onfon Media. Constant innovation ensures roll out of new services that resonate with the market, which includes corporates.
One way Mr Makori has achieved his goal is by focusing on regional markets into which they ventured by opening branches in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Our target is to have a presence in 20 African countries in the next two years,” he says, confidently.
The firm has added new products along the way with the notable one being variety of skiza tunes – My Skiza –, and “Name Tunes”. Onfone researched on people’s names, voiced meaning of those names, and patented the Name Tunes idea. Subscribers are charged 75 cents daily per name to use the service, which gives meanings to the subscriber’s name. Skiza tune, on the other hand, costs Ksh1.5 per day.
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“It’s a product we hope will do well. It was launched in August 2014,” he says, adding that to get quotes, users can simply dial *811*88#.
In such a technical field, team work is very important as Mr Makori works towards getting the best from his 65 employees.
“We are very passionate about people. We don’t have a hierarchy. We embrace a collegial style where we work together regardless of position,” he says. “We value excellence and we always want to do our things differently, and deliver services that no one can deliver. We are innovating all the time and asking the question, ‘what more can we do to our products?’
Onfon is getting more efficient and is also riding the wave of mobile banking, offering banks interface of USSD where users can press (*), as an example, and get a menu that allows them to enjoy mobile banking services like transferring money from an account to a mobile money wallet such as Mpesa, and vice versa.
“Kenya is becoming too small. We want to tap into the international markets. In less than five years, I want to list on the New York Stock Exchange. When that is done, I will lay down my tools and go home,” Makori says.
Competition is driving the need to be innovative as customers gain more interest in their services, thanks to huge mobile phone penetration. At the moment, there are so many entrants in the market but he expects realignment in the industry in about a year’s time.
With an explosion of service providers vying for the same market, it means that they have to get creative to touch the sky. “Apart from content provision which entails assortment of products from inspirational quotes to ringtones, love quotes to Bible verses, we also conduct promotions,” he says.
“We also offer bulk SMSs service. We have a system that you can use to send one SMS to a large data base.”
