Rafiki USB Cables-Totosci Ltd

Am Anthony Muthungu,Founder and CEO of Totosci Ltd.

Top 40 under 40 Years Men 2018 in Kenya and Top 100 Kenyans 2019.

Most of existing USB Cables rust and eventually corrode when exposed to water as well as breaking at each end points of connectors when subjected to a stress by folding. They also break the internal wires under sheath when pulled accidentally.

Am pleased to introduce Rafiki USB Cables that are rust and corrosion resistant, fire resistant and break resistant as a result of stress through folding.

Our project will create employment since the manufacture ng process involves 16 production lines each with minimum of 10 employees giving a total of 160 employees at minimum.

Most of existing USB Cables rust and eventually corrode when exposed to water as well as breaking at each end points of connectors when subjected to a stress by folding. They also break the internal wires under sheath when pulled accidentally.

According to Global StatsCounter,89.19% of Kenyan mobile users which is nearly 10 million have a smartphone that uses USB Cable for charge and data transmission. This is the magnitude of the market. Rusting, corrosion and breakage contribute to this main problem as well as cheap products from China.

We are manufacturing USB Cables that are resistant to rust and corrosion, fire resistant and resistant to breakage as a result of folding.

This project serves a mobile phone user who needs a high-quality USB Cables to charge his/her mobile device as well as data transmission. This project saves their money since its one-time product with long life as compared to cheap products available with short life span. We are working with youths between the age of 18-35 years who recently graduated from their respective institutions. We train them on work. We have 1/3 gender rule in our employees.

We bought nearly 5,000 USB cables under documented each of them by identifying the cause of their failure and helped me to come up with this product. The damaged cables are bought from the people in the community at a price of 0.1$ per piece. We are providing the users with a long life USB Cables for their mobile devices.

We buy damaged USB Cables from the people in the community at 0.1$ per piece. We sell our products to them at 1.5$ per piece as well as trade-in damaged cables with new cables at 1$ per piece. We also give warranty to our cables as well as accept resale of our cables. We look forward to employ nearly 160 employees once we are able to raise the funds for scaling.

I happened to have 10 damaged USB Cables in my house and one day decided to check what is the cause of failure in all of them. After a thorough check I noted a pattern in almost all cables. I decided to buy other cables from the members. I bought nearly 5,000 cables and studied all of them and noted a repeat challenge in all of them. I quickly thought of how I can fix that. I got the solution and I introduced Rafiki USB Cables. Rafiki means Friend in Swahili.

Nearly 20-50 million metric tons of electronic waste are disposed worldwide every year. Am committed to provide a high quality USB cables that don’t get damaged quickly hence reducing the amount of electronic waste disposed globally.

Am self-motivated and also good in market study. I believe I produce what the market needs and what the user need. I have been awarded locally and internationally for my hard work and achievement as an innovator. Some of the awards include;

• Transformational Business Awards 2019 UK.
• Face of Kenyan Science 2018
• Top 40 Under 40 Years Men 2018 Kenya
• Top 100 Kenyans 2019
• Leaders in Innovation Fellow 2019 UK
• Advancing Healthcare Innovation Fellow 2018 South Africa
• Watson Institute Accelerator Fellow 2020
• Young Entrepreneur Support Fellow 2019
• Innovate Now Fellow 2020

Among others

I bought nearly 5,000 damaged USB cables just to identify a common problem that I can solve .I interview nearly 1,000 Mobile phone users to identify their choice of USB cables as a charger .I interview nearly 500 electronics shops who sells these USB Cables also to identify complain raised to them by bthe users of these cables. I believe am specific to details and committed to identify the need by engaging all sides.

I have been awarded locally and internationally for my hard work and achievement as an innovator. Some of the awards include;

• Transformational Business Awards 2019 UK.
• Face of Kenyan Science 2018
• Top 40 Under 40 Years Men 2018 Kenya
• Top 100 Kenyans 2019
• Leaders in Innovation Fellow 2019 UK
• Advancing Healthcare Innovation Fellow 2018 South Africa
• Watson Institute Accelerator Fellow 2020
• Young Entrepreneur Support Fellow 2019
• Innovate Now Fellow 2020

Our product is]

Rust resistant

Corrosion resistant

Fire resistant

Break resistant

We want to provide people with what they need and something that will serve them for long so that they can be able to divert their money towards other important things unlike buying an USB Cable every month.

Currently we are serving 100 users and we are working towards serving minimum of 10,000  users per year.In five years time,we look forward to have served nearly 2,000,000 users.

Have the product approved for standards

Have the product approved for export since it passes the threshold of 35% locally available materials

Acquire injection molding machine and semi automated soldering machine

Raise a revenue of 2,000,000$

Lack of Injection molding machine for mass production of our USB plugs that adds external injection mold.

Lack of semi automated soldering machine that solder the cables quickly in the connectors.

Lack of advanced electrical performance test machine that checks if the produced cables are functional.

We are currently seeking injection molding services from an independent company.

We are manually soldering our cables though time consuming.

We are currently testing the produced cables by inserting them to the computers which is time consuming.

We highly fundraising to acquire these machines.

Non for now.

We are providing a high quality USB Cables that are fire resistant,rust and corrosion resistant and break resistant due to stress on folding.The cost of production of this product is 2$ and we are retailing it at 5$  the price we came up with after our market segmentation during interviews with 500 electronic shops attendants in Kenya.

We are importing USB Type A connectors at a cost of 0.4$ .We are currently purchasing old and broken USB Cables at a price of 0.1$ from users where we are able to extract the USB Type A connector from them hence saving 0.3$.We are then electroplating these connectors to make them rust and corrosion resistant.

We are also accepting trade in between damaged cables from other brands with our recycled cables that have been fixed by our technicians from another brands.These cables are traded at 1$ per piece.We fix them by replacing the damaged part in any USB Cable.We know exactly when get damaged and how its repaired based on our 5,000 damaged USB Cables documentation.

We also accept resale of our own cables and others from other brands that are still in operation that we term them as refurbished .We take these cables to trade in department.

We are importing USB Type A connectors at a cost of 0.4$ .We are currently purchasing old and broken USB Cables at a price of 0.1$ from users where we are able to extract the USB Type A connector from them hence saving 0.3$.We are then electroplating these connectors to make them rust and corrosion resistant.

We are also accepting trade in between damaged cables from other brands with our recycled cables that have been fixed by our technicians from another brands.These cables are traded at 1$ per piece.We fix them by replacing the damaged part in any USB Cable.We know exactly when get damaged and how its repaired based on our 5,000 damaged USB Cables documentation.

I haven't raised any.I seek to raise from this platform.

I put USD 10,000 myself that came from my personal that i sold to start this project.The funds have helped us to do a through market research and to produce prototypes.We have currently sold 100 units.

We are seeking to raise 210,000$ through grant or equity that will be spent on the following

We seek to acquire an Injection Molding machine for both internal and external molding that cost 60,000$

We seek to acquire semi automated moldering machine that cost 30,000$

We seek to acquire mold plastics at 10,000$

We also seek to acquire other electrical raw materials at 20,000 $

Employment and talent hiring at 30,000$

Research,Innovation and Development  at 20,000$

Marketing(media) and distribution(oversees) at 30,000$

Administration fee at 10,000$

Our estimated budget is 30,000$ if we continue with manual soldering and seeking external services for molding with production of 100 USB Cables per day.

I believe i can provide what the market needs .I believe i can provide a high quality products that can serve anyone despite where you came from.

This dream is being stopped by lack of funds to acquire machinery like injection molding machines and semi automated soldering machines as well as automated electrical performance test machine.With these machinery,i will be able to produce 10,000 USB Cables per day as well as employ more than 160 employees since the production process involves 16 steps each requiring not less than 10 employees.

I believe am good however i still need to learn from others who have expertise and experience.We need coaching on cost cutting as well as cash flow management .We need advisors and board who will be asking us hard questions so that we can scale beyond our county.We also require advise on the best marketing tool based on our target user.

We would like to partner with organizations that can be supplying some of the high quality materials that we need in our production.These includes companies that make high quality copper material wires fro our cabling as well as companies that can supply bus with high quality virgin plastic mold materials.

We also seek companies that are involved in logistics and transport so that we can be able to ship in and out our product to any country at ease.These include DHL or Fedex.