ZigWay Company Limited

Miranda has over a decade of experience across entrepreneurship and finance globally, and believes in the alleviation of poverty by using entrepreneurial principles to support women.  Miranda led the Asian investment team at BlueOrchard Finance, an impact investor focusing on microfinance, worked as a Finance Advisor at United Nations Development Programme, and financed infrastructure projects for institutional banking clients at ANZ.  Miranda was selected for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's inaugural Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp class and holds a Master of Applied Finance from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

1. In Myanmar, millions of people live in poverty, finding themselves at a disadvantage when sourcing sustainable means to purchase food and healthcare. These households typically rely on daily wages from factory jobs or microbusiness incomes such as street vending. They obtain essentials on a daily basis, inevitably leading to them paying premiums for small purchase quantities.

2. With our subscription service, these disadvantaged households will be able to attain a sustainable means of acquiring daily essentials such as rice and oil at bulk purchase prices. We work with wholesale suppliers and producers to secure low prices for our customers.

3. The benefits resulting are improved financial resilience and freedom. Cost savings provides our customers with increased financial buffers to respond and recover from financial shocks. Additionally, the ability to secure food and necessities imbues financial freedom and peace of mind, especially to Burmese women who find themselves in charge of household affairs.

In Myanmar alone, 15 million people live in poverty and have trouble finding ways to secure sustainable ways to purchase daily essentials. The daily purchase pattern results in these households paying a “poverty penalty” of up to 20% more for their staples in comparison to purchasing in bulk. By simply spending more on everyday goods, these households struggle to make ends meet, let alone building up savings for unexpected situations and financial shocks. These issues have been exacerbated by the onset of COVID-19, where many Burmese households have lower incomes due to loss of factory jobs, customers and even their entire livelihoods in certain cases. Without savings to fall back on, the consequences for households can be dire. Low income families resort to borrowing from predatory informal moneylenders for emergencies, charging exorbitant interest rates of up to 1,800% per annum. As women bear the brunt of household responsibilities in “traditional” societies such as Myanmar, they are inadvertently the most disempowered. This issue is not specific to Myanmar. Globally, 700 million people live in poverty and find themselves in similar situations.

ZigWay offers a monthly subscription service that helps low income families save money by buying essential goods and services at bulk purchase prices. Subscribers can select household goods which include rice and cooking oil. These items are delivered door-to-door while saving up to 20% compared to making individual purchases. We partner with wholesalers, NGOs, and manufacturers to source quality essentials. ZigWay is working to expand its suite of offerings to include healthcare and education products. ZigWay’s services can be accessed through its mobile application which drastically improves ordering, logistics and supply chain efficiencies. ZigWay’s digital conversion of non-digital transactions enables a transformative data-driven approach to improve services for low income families. Additionally, ZigWay has pioneered its “Super-User” distribution network in order to reach last mile customers who do not actively use smartphones nor have access to mobile applications. Super-Users are women within low income communities who are locally recruited, trained, and incentivised by ZigWay to help non-digitally literate customers access ZigWay’s services. Super-Users are trained in digital literacy, financial literacy, e-commerce and business skills, enabling them to use ZigWay’s mobile application to help register customers, request orders, record individual payments, review customer histories, and transfer funds digitally via mobile money.

At the heart of ZigWay’s subscription services are the individuals we are serving. These are the underprivileged and underbanked who live at or below the poverty line in Burmese society. Most of these individuals work as either factory workers or operate street vendor stalls, selling items from cooked food to raw vegetables and betel nuts. We have engaged them with on-the-ground surveys in Mid-2020 in order to understand their needs and wants, investigating potential products and services they would like to see us offer. Our survey also included questions regarding mobile application usage and delivery preferences for our customers, such that we will be able to better meet their needs as a service provider. ZigWay regularly engages our customers every month when compiling orders and noting dissatisfactions with any products we have sold. In addition, through our delivery team, we have provided hand sanitisers and other PPE equipment during the COVID-19 outbreak for the health and hygiene of our subscribers. As women bear the brunt of household responsibility in Burmese society, our subscription service benefits them the greatest, providing them with greater physical and financial freedom in their everyday lives.

As in all societies, those traditionally left behind are the low income households who do not have access to sufficient financial services. As a result, when they experience unexpected financial shocks, they are forced to borrow at exorbitant interest rates which keep them stuck in debt traps. ZigWay’s subscription service elevates opportunities for these underbanked and underserved individuals in Myanmar by allowing them the means to build financial resilience and a sufficient amount of savings to weather unforeseen circumstances. By focusing on low income women especially, ZigWay’s subscription service truly seeks to give access to equal opportunity to all.

Laurent and I met at MIT’s inaugural global entrepreneurship bootcamp in 2014. At the time, Laurent was completing his fourth project with Doctors without Borders in Papua New Guinea. Sharing a passion for entrepreneurship and working with poverty on a daily basis, we were inspired to create our first social enterprise, CityTaps, that helped people in poverty prepay for water.

In 2015, West Africa became increasingly dangerous to reside in. We then created a 15-country spreadsheet with socio-economic determinants to settle on our next country. We chose Myanmar, influenced by the country’s rapid growth in smartphone usage coupled with the opportunity to help millions escape poverty.

Interactions with over 100 low income families in Myanmar revealed that people struggled to survive daily. Households were paying high prices for basic essentials and had no savings. As emergencies struck, they turned to informal moneylenders while greatly indebting themselves in the process.

Inspired by the Graduation Approach, we broke our moonshot into various stages. Firstly, we addressed the moneylender issue and helped people escape debt traps in 2017. This allowed us to build our Super-User model and technology. In 2019, we transitioned into our subscription model, adding suppliers into our growing network.

When I was born, my parents were operating a Chinese restaurant that they had built from scratch. The restaurant was frequented by celebrities and sports stars but was forced to close due to crushing debt when I was 3 years old. In the years that followed, my mother worked from home in a poor migrant neighbourhood selling homemade dresses. A deliveryman would send materials to our small flat and mother would spend the night sewing. She worked hard and developed the skills to advance to bridal dresses. When I was 12, she started her own tailoring business selling custom bridal wear. After advertising for two years in local classifieds, she developed a loyal customer base and achieved success.

As a result, I was able to get a university education to pursue my dreams. However, the more I travelled the world, the more I saw women like my mother. They had the ability and desire to work for their families but they struggled without access to proper financing. Prevented by debt traps, impossible medical bills, they lived while worrying about the security of their next meal. I was determined not to let another family slip through the cracks.

Our team at ZigWay has the skills, background, and experience to deliver this project successfully. We currently have a 13-person strong team with experience in sales, finance, operations, and technology services. They comprise of graduates and are complimented by mentors and volunteers who are experts in their respective fields.

As Co-Founder & CEO, I have almost two decades of experience across banking, microfinance and entrepreneurship. My roles ranged from business development and assessing credit risk to data analytics. I've undertaken due diligence of over 50 microfinance institutions across Asia, interviewing everyone from customers to board directors. My diverse experience across roles and interactions puts me in a position to drive the company forward.

Our CFO is an ICAEW qualified chartered accountant who has trained in London at the UK National Audit Office. Following four years in public sector audit, he moved into the industry, working as a financial accountant. He subsequently chose to use his finance background to pursue a career in the social enterprise sector, joining ZigWay in 2018.

Our COO is a Burmese national with 17 years of experience in leading operations. She previously worked at Proximity Designs, Myanmar’s first ever social enterprise, as Operations Manager of the microfinance department. She has brought a wealth of experience in both microfinance operations and local Burmese culture.

It was a bittersweet moment in 2018 when my ZigWay co-founder decided to leave for the United Kingdom for personal reasons. We had been working together for 4 years and had developed a formidable partnership.

Now, it became my responsibility to step-up and lead ZigWay independently.

When facing obstacles, we normally fall into bouts of negativity and for myself, the fear of failure became a hindrance. I doubted my skills, questioned my actions and their potential for negative consequences.

Having a process to overcome challenges became paramount for myself. I began by redefining my motivations, my intentions, and my heart for the issues at hand. Then came acknowledging and understanding the negative thoughts that filled my mind, the underlying fears and solutions to address them.

I reminded myself of past triumphs, relying on a support network for advice and reassurance. Being practical and breaking difficult tasks down into smaller, manageable steps became my forte in addition to holding myself accountable with the help of close friends.

With my renewed mindset, I was able to rebuild my team with a greater purpose, continuing to take ZigWay closer to achieving its vision of lifting 20 million out of poverty by 2030.

I have always believed that leadership is about setting a vision that inspires and influences people around you to rally together for a larger cause. There is no greater testament to that than seeing how a team reacts in a time of crisis.

Before COVID-19 hit, we were on track to double our sales from the prior month. The development of the virus pushed us into the unknown, a time of great uncertainty.

Our first priority was to ensure the safety of our customers and staff, and then to ensure we could operate. This was when the troubles began. Our major supplier cancelled our orders three days before delivery as many workers left Yangon for their hometowns.

In the face of adversity, the team came together. We found a new supplier and took risks to support low income families. We saw how we could contribute, making sacrifices along the way by working late nights and weekends. We were also able to leverage unsolicited donations from the community to aid our struggling customers.

The strong response and unity from the team proved that I had successfully built a culture of problem solving and self-belief, that no obstacle is impossible to overcome.

ZigWay uniquely uses a hybrid mobile and operational model to support the needs of the poor and non-phone savvy, while ensuring our model is sustainable and scalable.  While our services are offered through our mobile application, our Super-User distribution model allows us to offer services to the 17 million mobile users in Myanmar who do not use mobile applications.  We have also ensured all our products are flexible, convenient and timely for our customers; people can apply and pay at any time 24/7. This is made possible by our technology which fully automates the registration and payment process to ensure discretion, flexibility and convenience. This is particularly demanded by women whose daily schedules and movements are often constrained by traditional household duties, such as looking after children.

ZigWay is a fintech social enterprise that was incorporated in Myanmar in 2017. It is funded by the founders’ capital, grants, and awards. The business has three core segments.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: ZigWay offers a monthly subscription service that helps low income families save money by bulk buying essential goods and services.  Subscribers can select household goods such as rice and cooking oil, that are delivered door-to-door, which saves them up to 20% compared to making individual purchases.  We partner with wholesalers, NGOs, and manufacturers to source quality essentials.

LOANS: ZigWay has developed technology to support low-interest nano loans that assist families in need. In addition, these loans are used to help kick-start small businesses. ZigWay has created a mobile application, a machine-learning based credit-scoring model, and a supporting back office system to help onboard and manage customers who wish to access cheap, convenient and flexible credit from regulated lenders. This is offered at a fraction of the interest charged by informal moneylenders. ZigWay’s sister company has submitted an application with the Financial Regulatory Department (FRD) to obtain a Microfinance licence. 

TECHNOLOGY SERVICES: ZigWay offers technological and operational support to financial institutions, NGOs, and social enterprises that wish to offer digital loans and subscriptions. ZigWay has partnered with A-Bank as part of the UNCDF Women's MSME Fintech Innovation Fund.