Zurihq.com - Online Beauty Platform

Our online platform is just like Uber, but for beauty professionals, salons, spas, and gyms in Nigeria.

We are solving unique problems for the two sides of our platform:

1. Demand-Side:

People who find it hard to find and book beauty professionals, salons, spas, or gyms online.

2. Supply-side:

For Freelance Beauty professionals and Salon owners, who find it hard to get new customers online and find it even harder to retain existing customers.

Our Solution 

Zurihq.com is an online platform where anyone in Nigeria can find and book beauty professionals, salons, spas, and gyms in their area. 

We also built online software tools to help beauty professionals and salon owners to reach new customers, retain existing customers, and grow their business online.

That way, we can kickstart a whole new generation of beauty professionals and salon owners, who are building online beauty brands powered by our online platform.

The Covid-19 Pandemic dealt a serious blow to the beauty industry in Nigeria.

Please note that there are over 30 million Nigerians active on social media, and approximately 1% of that number offers beauty services online.

Business owners who advertise on Facebook or Instagram can reach over 29 million potential customers.

On the Supply-side of the market we have,

1. Freelance Beauty Professionals:

- Who are their own boss, 

- Rent space to work in salons, and 

- Offer home service options.

2. Owners of Salons, Spas, or Gyms 

- Who employ beauty professionals, 

- Rent their own shop, and 

- Offer home service options.

For these group of people, 

Finding new customers online is hard, and Retaining existing customers is even harder.

This is a serious problem because to grow their business online, they need to have a regular flow of clients monthly to make enough money to cover the following recurring expenses: 

- Paying Salaries,

- Buying Fuel for the Generator,

- Paying for Electricity,

- Buying Beauty Products, and

- Paying for Online Marketing.

After all of these expenses, they still need to count a profit at the end of the month.

Our solution is called Zurihq.com, and it is an online platform that is just like Uber but for beauty professionals and owners of salons, spas, or gyms in Nigeria.

On our online beauty platform, anyone from anywhere in Nigeria can find and book a beauty professional to meet them at home, or they can find and book salons, spas, or gyms in their area.

At the same time, we built online software tools that help beauty professionals and salon owners to reach new customers, retain their existing customers, and grow their business online.

These are the online tools we built:

1. An online booking and appointment system,

2. An online payment system,

3. An online marketing system,

4. An online review system, and

5. A sales record system - to keep track of daily, weekly, and monthly sales records. 

Right now, our online platform is a web app and is highly optimized for mobile users.

We are planning to launch a mobile app by the end of Q3 2021.

About our Target Market:

Just like many other online platforms in the world, we are solving problems for two unique sides of the market - Demand, and Supply.

1. On the Demand Side, we have:

- People who are celebrating or organizing events like wedding parties, birthday parties, graduation parties, etc, and rely on beauty professionals to make them look and feel good for the event.

- Everyday people who book beauty professionals to meet them at home, and don't mind visiting the salon at least twice every month.

- Entertainment Companies that depend on beauty professionals to succeed. The Movie Industry/Nollywood, Music Video Directors, Youtube Stars, and Television companies all depend on beauty professionals to succeed.

2. On the Supply Side, we have:

- Freelance Beauty professionals like Makeup Artists, Barbers, Nail Technicians, Hair Stylists, Massage Therapists, Tattooists, etc. 

These people are their own boss,  in most cases, they do not own a salon, but may rent a space in a salon, and offer home service options to their clients.

These group people are hustlers, and have dreams of opening their own salon, spa, or gym in the near future.

- Owners of Salons, Spas, or Gyms, who employ beauty professionals, receptionists, and in some cases, Salon Managers.

They rent their own space, sometimes they sublet spaces to beauty professionals, and they also offer home service options for their clients.

Many Salon owners are not beauty professionals, and because of this, they don't spend a lot of time in their salons and are always keen to know what happens in the salon when they are not around.

In some cases too, some salons, spas, or gyms are owned by hotels and resorts around the country.

How are they under-served?

1. On the demand side, even though there are many beauty professionals who are active on Instagram and Facebook, it is very hard to find reliable beauty professionals and salons online.

With no reliable review system existing right now for beauty professionals and salons, many people are worried about meeting quack beauty pros online.

Also, because of the security situation in Nigeria, many people are very careful of booking home service options - no one would ever invite a stranger who is not pre-vetted into their homes.

2. On the Supply-side, these people have monthly recurring expenses they can not run away from. 

Expenses like:

- Paying salaries,

- Paying rent, 

- Buying fuel for the generator,

- Paying for electricity,

- Paying for Cable TV,

- Buying beauty products, and

- Paying for online marketing/promotion.

After all of these expenses, they still need to have some money left to count as profit at the end of the month.

This is why their biggest problem is finding a constant flow of customers every month to meet up with these expenses.

They need to find new customers and retain their existing customers every single month.

What we did to understand their needs

As a team, we knew from day one that we had to get our hands dirty, and we did this by opening our own beauty salon.

You can read our customer development story HERE.

Our salon is just like our sandbox, and for the problems that we have identified so far, it was more like building solutions to scratch our own Itch.

We know from personal experience how difficult it can be for a salon owner who doesn't make enough money at the end of the month but still has to pay employees their salaries.

We know exactly how tricky it can be with employing beauty professionals to work in a salon, and how hard it is to even find a beauty professional to employ in the salon.

How our Solution Addresses their needs

This is our promise to beauty professionals and salon owners on our platform: 

When you join the Zuri Online Platform, you can promote your business and reach over 10,000 potential customers every single month.

After they signup to join the Zuri online platform, this is how we work with them:

1. They create an online business page on the Zuri platform - they add their price list, pictures of their best work, and set up their booking times,

2. We partner with them to create a powerful promo offer - for first-time users, we partner with them to offer a 20% discount to anyone who books them thru the Zuri platform, free for 30 days,

3. We work with them to create promo content - Flyers, and Promo Videos,

4. We promote their offer on all our social media handles, and through Facebook and Instagram ads,

5. This cold traffic leads potential customers directly to their online business page on the Zuri platform, and this converts into verified bookings,

6. With our online booking system, they can keep track of each booking, and they can also reschedule or cancel an appointment,

7. Clients who book appointments can leave a verified review on the platform,

8. They have access to the contact information of each client, and they can send follow-up SMS, Email, and Push Notification of recent offers to get their clients to return to book their services again, after the first time,

8. With our online sales record system, they can keep an accurate track of how many sales they made daily, weekly, monthly, and annually.

This way, beauty professionals and salon owners on our platform can set sales targets and reach these business goals on the Zuri Platform.

The Covid-19 pandemic hit the beauty industry very hard, and because of this, many beauty businesses have embraced online platforms like Instagram, and Facebook, to promote their business online.

But to see real business growth, they need access to online tools that will help them better promote their business on these platforms and see real results.

It is even more amazing to note that with access to the Zuri online tools like our:

- Online booking system, 

- Online marketing system, and

- Online sales record system, 

They can become eligible to receive working capital loans in the future.

Right now, we are in our Pilot stage.

The reason is that we are currently testing our offer with beauty professionals in Abuja and Lagos.

We already built a first version of our online platform, where beauty pros and salon owners can:

- Create an account,

- Set up an online business page on the Zuri platform,

- Setup their online booking system,

- Accept online payments, and

- Keep track of the sales record.

After signing up on our platform and work with us, this small group of beauty professionals and salon owners at this stage are willing to give us priceless feedback.

They give us feedback depending on our product, and our business model.

Right now, we have over 400 beauty professionals and over 100 salons, and spas active on our platform.

The beauty industry in Africa, even though worth over $120 billion dollars Globally, is the most under-rated of all industries.

Did you know that during the Covid-19 lockdown last year, no one cared about how beauty professionals or salon owners were surviving?

Right now, many of these beauty businesses still rely on using physical notebooks to keep track of their business.

For many of them, building an online beauty brand seems almost impossible, and because of that, they still stick with the old ways of running this business and keep seeing little to no results every month.

With the Zuri Online Platform, we are helping these people to build online beauty brands that will stand the test of time - even though there is another lockdown in the future.

It is our mission to grow a whole new community of beauty business owners who have the right online tools and knowledge to grow their business online.

What we are doing in Nigeria is just the beginning, this is a mission that we can scale across the whole continent and even the whole world at large.

This is the future we are building:

1. A future where beauty professionals and salons owners can get access to work capital loans,

2. A future where manufacturers of beauty products can offer huge discounts to beauty professionals on our platform, and

3. A future where people like you and I can invest in beauty pros and salons through the Zuri platform.

We are currently serving:

1. Over 400 beauty professionals in Abuja and Lagos

2. Over 100 salons and spas in Abuja and Lagos

In the next one year we plan to serve:

1. Over 2,000 beauty professionals in Abuja, Lagos and Port-Harcourt

2. Over 500 Salons, Spas and Gyms in Abuja, Lagos and Port-Harcourt

In 5 years, we plan to serve:

1. Over 5,000 beauty professionals each in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, and South Africa

2. Over 1000 Salons, Spas and Gyms in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya and South Africa.

We currently track the following Key Performance Indicators:

1. Number of On-boarded beauty professionals,

2. Number of Onboarded Salons, Spas or Gyms, and

3. Number of Monthly Completed Bookings.

Full-time staff - 3

Part-time staff - 3

Our Founding Team members are well skilled to handle their different roles.

1. Onyinye Sophia Nnedolisa - She is a skilled Product Manager, and is skilled at Community building and Communications.

She used to be a Community Manager at CcHub Lagos and studied software entrepreneurship at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) Ghana

2. Shepherd Yaw Morttey - He is a skilled SEO expert, Cyber Security professional, and is the founder of one of the biggest Tech Blogs in Ghana -mfidie.com - 

He is in charge of our tech/product development team, and he also studied software entrepreneurship at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) Ghana

3. Aaron Otene Ejeme - I am a skilled copywriter, a trained Makeup Artist, and a budding Product Marketer.

I previously co-founded another company  - Sourcegig.com - which was an online marketplace for business owners to find and hire graphic designers to help them create marketing content.

Right now, I am in charge of growing the Zuri Online Platform, and increasing our revenue.

I also studied Software Entrepreneurship at the Meltwater Entreprnurial School of Technology (MEST) Ghana.

At Zuri, we have recognized that the beauty industry is dominated by females, and because of that, we are very intentional about diversity, equity and inclusion.

Even though we have a very small team right now, we plan to manage a 50/50 gender ratio of team members.

This is a principle that will guide us along the line as we grow and expand to other Countries in the nearest future.

On our founding team, we have one female (Onyinye Sophia Nnedolisa) and two males (Shepherd Yaw Morttey and Aaron Otene Ejeme)

On our tech team, we have 3 developers (one female front-end developer and two male developers), and the head of our Social Media management team is a Female.

Our mission at Zuri to help beauty professionals and owners of salons, spas, and gyms in Africa to grow their business online, is not an easy task at all.

We are currently trying to grow this business in an emerging market, and honestly, no one really cares about the beauty services industry or even about how the beauty professionals and salon owners are struggling to grow their business in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

When we become one of the finalists at Solve, we will be getting the support we desperately need to reach even more beauty professionals not only in Nigeria but all around Africa.

With Solve backing the Zuri project, we are very confident that we will gain access to Solve's many partners around the world, and this will help us raise enough funds to make our dream of expanding to other African countries a reality.

We really can't wait to be a part of the Solve family!

1. Financial - We will appreciate access to advise, and mentors that will guide us as we try to raise the needed funds we need to reach our goals.

2. Legal or Regulatory Matters - We want advice, mentors, and partners, that will help navigate any potential hurdles we might face when expanding to other African countries.

3. Monitoring and Evaluation - For us to be able to make the much-needed impact, we will need advice and mentorship to be able to track the impact of our solution.

4. Product/Service Distribution - We need advice, mentorship, and access to Partners who will help us reach even more beauty professionals and owners of salons, spas, and gyms across Africa.

5. Technology - We would love to have Mentors and partners from top tech companies like Google, Amazon, Hubspot, etc, to give us access to their infrastructure to help us build a better product.

1. Google - We want to partner with them to have access to their cloud services and their marketing tools

2. Facebook - We want to partner with them to get customized access to their online marketing tools for the beauty professionals and salon owners on our platform.

3. GetCarbon.com - We want to partner with them to offer working capital loans to beauty professionals and salon owners on the Zuri platform.

4. Beauty product companies like House of Tara, Fenty beauty, Lóreal. etc - This will help us reach even more beauty professionals across Africa, and will help our beauty professionals and salon owners get access to discounts and perks from their favorite beauty brands.

Our online platform Zurihq.com is advancing digital inclusion for the beauty industry in Nigeria, and eventually across Africa.

We are building online tools that will help beauty professionals, and owners of salons, spas, and gyms to grow their business online.

We built online tools to help them handle:

1. Online booking/appointments,

2. Accepting online payments,

3. Accepting online reviews,

4. Keeping track of their daily, weekly, and monthly sales record, and

5. Online marketing and promotion.

With the HP prize for digital inclusion, we can build an even better online platform that offers these online tools to these beauty professionals and salon owners in Nigeria.

Also, with access to the HP prize for digital inclusion, we can create better marketing materials like Tutorial videos, explainer videos, and marketing videos that will help us reach an even larger audience across Nigeria.

The beauty industry in Nigeria, and across the world is dominated by women, either as beauty professionals or as owners of salons, spas, or gyms.

With access to the Innovation for Women prize, we are going to build an even better online training academy targeted at women in the beauty industry.

We are going to use this online training academy(something like Udemy) to teach women in the beauty industry business skills like online marketing, business goal setting, etc.

We are going to offer this training for Free to women on our platform, and for women who are active in the beauty industry but have no online presence.

On the Zuri platform, we built an Online Sales Record System that keeps track of how much a beauty professional, salon, spa, or gym makes daily, weekly, and monthly.

Over time, we can use the data from this system to build an Artificial Intelligence Model that will make it easy for us to calculate credit scores for beauty professionals and salon owners on our platform.

That way, we can partner with companies like getcarbon.com to offer collateral-free working capital loans to the many beauty professionals and salon owners on our platform in Nigeria, and across Africa.

This will eventually make it easy for people like you and me to invest in beauty professionals who want to open their own salons and also invest in a salon, spa, or gym that has grown and wants to expand to another city or even another African country.

At Zuri, we are also building an Online Payment System that will make it easy for people who are booking beauty services to be able to pay online while booking a beauty service.

We all know that the future of online payment is going to be cryptocurrency, and with many Africans owning digital assets, we can build an online payment system powered by cryptocurrency.

With access to the GSR prize, we can build the right team to make this cryptocurrency payment for beauty services a reality.

Apart from paying for beauty services with cryptocurrency, people from anywhere in the world can invest in a beauty professional, salon, spa, or gym very easily with eh power of cryptocurrency.